{"id":15573,"date":"2017-11-30T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=15573"},"modified":"2017-11-30T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T04:00:00","slug":"something-we-should-not-be-afraid-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/something-we-should-not-be-afraid-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Something we should not be afraid of…"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little background is probably necessary.\u00a0 I did not find faith in Christ until I was 30 years old.\u00a0 I bought my first bible soon after, joined a bible study for men, made friends who were unlike most people I had hung around with most of my life.\u00a0 One of these men became a very good friend of mine, I could count on him and the opposite was true, I would do anything for him.\u00a0 About 3 months after accepting Christ I felt a call to ministry and to go to seminary.\u00a0 The first thing my friend told me was don’t let their theology classes ruin you, he had other friends who had gone to seminary and they just weren’t the same Christians after the seminary got through with them.\u00a0 In\u00a0Who Needs Theology? An Invitation\u00a0to the Study of God<\/em> Grenz and Olson would have categorized my friend as a folk theologian, he would have argued against this but none the less he would fall there.<\/p>\n

This reaction to theology is what underlies the basis for this book.\u00a0 Most Christians that I know do not want to talk about theology.\u00a0 The problem with this is most fall into the folk theologian category.\u00a0 I believe what I believe because it is what I have been told.\u00a0 This has led to many Christians being unable to voice their beliefs in a way that is convincing to those who do not believe.\u00a0 It is my feeling this is where an undercurrent of ignorance has invaded Christianity in North America.\u00a0 It does not take long to do a search for “why christians don’t understand christianity” to see how most Christians are viewed. So why theology? Well Grenz and Olson tell you why, “Good theology assists Christians because it grounds their lives in biblically informed, Christian truth”. [1]\u00a0 To often this is how Christians are seen \u201cIt\u2019s true because the Bible says it\u2019s true\u201d is no more proof of truth than is, \u201cApples are the best of the fruits, because I think that\u2019s true.\u201d Christians need to more readily admit that the religious experience \u2014 no matter how riveting and real it is to the person experiencing it \u2014 remains a\u00a0subjective\u00a0<\/em>phenomenon, and talk about it that way.” [2] It is my option this is one of the main problems with why the American church, we are not reaching out, we are not getting out of our comfort zone because we are too scared.\u00a0 What if someone actually engaged them in a discussion of why they believe what they believe and be challenged and then they could not defend their stance.\u00a0 That would call their faith into question.\u00a0 This happens more than us pastors would like to believe, and it pulls many church goers away from God.\u00a0 If we want those who are in our churches to be able to stand strong we have to encourage and teach those we can how to become more than just folk theologians.<\/p>\n

So what are the major tasks of theology, according to Grenz and Olson there are two, the critical and the constructive.\u00a0 The critical task is something I am truly sure most Christians need to invest time in.\u00a0 The critical task is about “examining Christian teachings and beliefs for consistency with authentic Christian sources of truth” [3] There are even arguments for non believers to study theology.\u00a0 Tara Burton argues in The Atlantic, “theology is the closest thing we have at the moment to the kind of general study of all aspects of human culture that was once very common, but is now quite rare.\u201d [4] A good theologian she writes, “has to be a historian, a philosopher, a linguist, a skillful interpreter of texts both ancient and modern, and probably many other things besides.”[5] If people who do not know God can benefit from studying theology how much more can believers benefit.<\/p>\n

The discussion on what is important and what is not important is something that hit home with me because when I first started studying in seminary I was behind most of my classmates.\u00a0 I grew up going to Methodist, Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist and Non Denominational but until I finally accepted Christ none of it meant a thing to me.\u00a0 So having to learn the difference between dogma, doctrine and opinion was difficult for me. I found the following clip apropos to my journey…<\/p>\n