Tag Archives: theology

When theology was a bad word

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When I was in school, “theology” was considered to be a bad word within the churches of Christ. I know that some of you think I’m kidding, but when I came through ACU in the 1980s, they did not offer any courses titled “Theology,” at least that I can remember. I think the Missions Department had an Ethnotheology class, but the “mainline” Bible department did not at that time.

There were theology classes, of course. I took “Religious Teaching of the Old Testament” and “Religious Teaching of the New Testament with Tom Olbricht, courses which had a major impact on my understanding of the Bible. They were theology classes, but couldn’t be called that.

I also took a course in modern theology. It was a two-week summer class, and the professor was out almost 50% of the time. Might as well have been called “Modern Gibberish” for all that I took away from that class. What it mainly taught me was that I was right to have little to no interest in theology.

Except that I was wrong. When I was young, I wanted practical stuff, and theology seemed impractical. I wanted here and now, and theology seemed to be about navel gazing and whimsical projections about God and man, good and evil, and the nature of sin. I wanted to know how to preach, how to organize a Bible class, and how to exegete a text to better do the other two.

I was wrong. Whether or not we call it theology, we need theology. We need to look at the big picture. We need to understand how the little things fit into the big ones. I know that now.

I don’t think my story is all that unique. Now our universities not only have courses in theology, they call themselves schools of theology. What once were called biblical studies are now called theological studies. Some will lament this trend. I think it’s healthy.

I think ministers need a healthy grounding in theology. I think our churches need theology. I think new Christian need theology more than we think they do. It sounds good to say, “We just give people good, practical teaching for their everyday lives.” But it’s incomplete. Without theology, that “good, practical teaching” won’t get people where they need to be.

What do you think? What role does theological study have in the church today? Is it just for “college boys,” or can theology be taught to the blue collar guys as well?

Photo by Cara Photography

Pragmatism

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I’m wondering if we haven’t placed “what will work” above “what is right,” in many cases. Admittedly, I’m still thinking about turning the other cheek from last week’s discussion, though I think this intrusion on our belief system occurs in other places.

What it comes down to is this: people say, “That can’t be right because it just won’t work in the real world.” Be it turning the other cheek, be it lending without expecting anything in return, be it trusting in God for our financial security, be it trusting in God for our physical safety, all of it can be shown to “not work.”

Here are some things in the Bible that could be said not to work:

  • God’s promises to Abraham. Have you ever noticed that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob spent their lives living in tents? That their descendants ended up spending over 400 years in slavery? Those promises to Abraham were a nice theological device, but from a pragmatic standpoint, they didn’t work all that well.
  • The faithfulness of God’s prophets. What did being true to God get most of the prophets? Ridicule. Scorn, Rejection. Imprisonment. Death. Undeniably, faithfulness “doesn’t work.”
  • Jesus’ ministry. Jesus couldn’t keep a group of followers together for long. The few he had fought frequently among themselves and scattered when he needed them most. And he ended up dying on a cross. That certainly didn’t work well.
  • “The Jesus Way.” For centuries, Jesus’ followers were beaten, imprisoned and killed. Centuries. Hundreds of years. Dozens of decades. Does anybody really believe that turning the other cheek, loving enemies, etc., has any practical place in a violent world? It doesn’t make sense.

Tell Gideon about the effectiveness of torches and pitchers as weapons. Talk to Joshua about trumpets as weapons and Jehoshaphat about using singers as the shock troops for your army. Talk to Peter about using prayer to get someone out of jail.

When we bow down before pragmatism instead of bowing down before God, we compromise our beliefs time and again.