{"id":10141,"date":"2016-11-09T17:51:23","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T01:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10141"},"modified":"2016-11-09T17:51:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T01:51:23","slug":"the-unexamined-faith-isnt-worth-beliving-or-who-needs-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-unexamined-faith-isnt-worth-beliving-or-who-needs-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unexamined Faith isn’t worth beliving or Who needs theology?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"We

We all could use a little sound theology right now<\/p><\/div>\n

In the wake of the US presidential election yesterday, I have found it incredibly hard to untangle my thoughts – let alone my emotions – about theology, it’s purpose and usefulness in our lives and our world. \u00a0[Warning: political opinion] One of the questions that I have been wrestling with is: how in the world did the overwhelming majority of self-identified ‘evangelical Christians’ vote for someone like Donald Trump?<\/p>\n

Several weeks ago, as we worked through the topic of critical thinking, several members of this cohort, myself included, drew connections between critical thinking – or the lack there of – and our countries political discourse. \u00a0It is an apt and important discussion: we need to engage in thinking critically about the important topics of our day and the political choices that we face. \u00a0It also strikes me that the exact same arguments can – and should be made brought to our engagement with theology.<\/p>\n

If all of us that endeavor to think rationally and critically about our lives, world and the decisions we face are critical thinkers, then in much the same way, all of us that claim to have faith in God – or as Grenz and Olsen argue really all of us that have any thought of God at all – are theologians.<\/p>\n

It strikes me that maybe the need to engage seriously and work towards deeper engagement is even more important when thinking of theology, however one might argue that serious engagement in theology involves critical thinking by default.<\/p>\n

In the words of the writer of Hebrews 5:12:In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God\u2019s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!<\/p>\n

and again, this time from Paul,\u00a01 Corinthians 3:2 \u00a0– I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.<\/p>\n

This is why theology is important – good theology is what moves us from the milk of our spiritual infancy to the meat of spiritual maturity. \u00a0We are not supposed to stay on formula, God gave us teeth (curiosity, intellect, reasoning) for a reason – so that we might ‘continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12).<\/em><\/p>\n

Why theology? is really only half the question, as Grenz and Olson make clear, the more important question is what kind of theology will you have, because not all theology is created equal!<\/p>\n

Many of us – and certainly many of the Christians sitting in the pews of our churches each Sunday think that theology is something for the pastor or the seminary professor but not for them \u00a0and when you confront them with the idea that we are all theologians, they might respond with something like this:<\/p>\n

\u00a0‘The populist mindset says, “Why can’t all theologies be equal? Who needs professional theology and theologians? If all ordinary Christians are theologians, why are people with doctorates writing volumes and volumes of formal theological works and teaching a discipline that we all already ready know so much about?<\/em>”\u00a0(Grenz\/Olson Kindle Locations 185-186)<\/p>\n

On days like today what I want to do is scream at everyone enamored with their folk theology or populist mindset and tell them to simply listen to me (as I obviously have everything figured out……wait, that can’t be right :(….. ) But as Grenz and Olson relate later on, all of our theology is contextual, and so the point isn’t for everyone to necessarily agree with us or for their theology to lead them to the same conclusions as ours leads us to.<\/p>\n

Rather, I believe we are called to use our ministerial theology to invite those around us to move past the un-examined life of folk theology and into the rich beauty and depth that comes with a faith that is accompanied with reasoned thought and even deep struggle with the questions we have about God, our world and ourselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One thing for sure, today more than ever, I need theology. \u00a0Don’t you?<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of the US presidential election yesterday, I have found it incredibly hard to untangle my thoughts – let alone my emotions – about theology, it’s purpose and usefulness in our lives and our world. \u00a0[Warning: political opinion] One of the questions that I have been wrestling with is: how in the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[198,532],"class_list":["post-10141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-grenz","tag-olson","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}