{"id":2687,"date":"2014-10-15T18:46:24","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T18:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2014-10-15T18:46:24","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T18:46:24","slug":"exploring-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/exploring-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"0715_socialmedia_630x420\"<\/a>Sitting around the table at Cork Grinders was a diverse group of people: A late-thirties former pastor currently a teacher with advanced degrees in theology\u00a0from a Lutheran seminary; a newlywed twenty-something young woman working downtown in IT; a middle-aged nurse who is young and inquisitive in her faith; a millennial philosophy major who\u2019s also a \u201crecovering\u201d PK; an older dad with a graduate degree in cinema production and his very bright son, both teachers in a liberal private school who maintain their conservatism and maturity; a millennial teacher whose religious heritage is evangelical but has interests in Eastern Orthodoxy. \u00a0A few others also round out this group, each offering their distinctive views into this mix.<\/p>\n

Coffee, tea, beer and wine are in hand as we ease into our conversation on theology. Part of me wishes for the well-controlled confines of a Sunday School class with its limits on time and topic, and its assumption of easy answers or flannel-graph stories. In this group, however, there are no easy answers. The conversation opens with \u201cis theology open or closed?\u201d Is it open to dialog with other disciplines, open to questioning, open to critical thought? Or is it closed, in as much as it asserts its\u2019 own authority, and only serves to discover the right answers to life\u2019s questions while establishing a clear orthodoxy?<\/p>\n

The authors of \u201cWho Need\u2019s Theology?\u201d could have told me exactly what would happen next. Two somewhat opposing streams of thought emerge. On the one side (the two opinions fittingly expressed by folks at opposite ends of the table), came comments such as, \u201cIsn\u2019t theology about knowing truths about God? Isn\u2019t it certain doctrines we\u2019re supposed to believe? Shouldn\u2019t we, scripture in hand, discern the truths we\u2019re supposed to believe?\u201d On the other end of the table what surfaced was a different take\u2014no desire to find the right answers or the right doctrines, simply a great desire to explore. To explore theology, doctrine, and beliefs from a wide range of views, and philosophies; taking history and culture into account. They didn\u2019t want to discuss firmly-held beliefs, they wanted dialogue; the journey seemed much more important than the destination. This is very similar to what Roger Olson writes about when after a class on theology two different students met with him to complain about his approach to teaching theology. One student bemoaning that \u201cwhy don\u2019t you just tell us the doctrines to believe\u201d and the other student \u201cwhy do you present such firmly held beliefs, you\u2019re indoctrinating us\u201d.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Theology\u2014we all need it. We need it as both well thought-out doctrines that we can articulate and hold to, but we also need it as a process that we can enter into. For example, another question that we posed and wrestled with was \u201cWhat is the gospel?\u201d Grenz and Olson write that whenever the apostles share the gospel it isn\u2019t simply a flat retelling of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; the gospel is offered<\/p>\n

\u201cin context of it\u2019s meaning: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, to cite Paul\u2019s interpretation (2 Cor. 5:19). In the same way, the gospel declaration always comes clothed in theology<\/strong>. And this theology is not something additional to the gospel, it is an essential part of the good news<\/strong> [emphasis mine<\/em>].\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

As we batted around the most fundamental of questions, \u201cWhat is the gospel?\u201d I recognized two things: first, we always use theology when we answer life\u2019s most meaningful questions. Second, even if we all agree to a high view of scripture our answers are going to sound nuanced based on our generation, or our exposure to doctrine, or our cultural paradigm. Perhaps most significantly, we\u2019ll have different understandings of what a \u201chigh view of scripture\u201d actually means.<\/p>\n

So Monday night, for example, I stepped out of facilitating discussion and got into a bit of debate with my Eastern Orthodox-loving friend whom, while he personally believes an evangelical construct of the gospel, still couldn\u2019t own the essential nature of conversion for others. He\u2019d known too many Russian families that simply grew up in the faith and believed; \u201cconversion\u201d wasn\u2019t a part of their faith. \u201cBelief\u201d yes, our family believes, they would say. Confessional belief, sure but conversion is lost on them.<\/p>\n

My American evangelical bubble is deflating; maybe that\u2019s good, but it does bring up a final observation. I appreciate Who Needs Theology?, and I also appreciate how the authors are intent at defending theology, and undermining the popular idea that theological study is destructive to your faith, that critical thought somehow diminishes faith. While I agree with the authors, I also realize that my deeply-held, long-established thoughts may need some editing. I might need to rethink and allow for a broader perspective. My faith isn\u2019t diminished but I could see in the eyes of some around that table that they\u2019re struggling to hold ideas that are in tension. While we all need theology we also need shepherding towards nourishing pastures. In our desire for wider open fields, let\u2019s make sure we don\u2019t loose any sheep.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Olson, Stanley J. Grenz & Roger E. 1996.\u00a0Who needs theology? an invitation to the study of God<\/em>. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 68-69.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 44.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sitting around the table at Cork Grinders was a diverse group of people: A late-thirties former pastor currently a teacher with advanced degrees in theology\u00a0from a Lutheran seminary; a newlywed twenty-something young woman working downtown in IT; a middle-aged nurse who is young and inquisitive in her faith; a millennial philosophy major who\u2019s also a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"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":[219,2,198,532,533],"class_list":["post-2687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-diversity","tag-dminlgp","tag-grenz","tag-olson","tag-theolgoy","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687","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\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2689,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions\/2689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}