Today, I\u2019d like to take a contrarian view to this personal enlightenment. Alister E. McGrath\u2019s \u201cChristian Theology an Introduction\u201d[2]<\/a> does a wonderful job of tracing, at the highest level, Christian thought over almost 2000 years. It reminded me that one of the chief ends of theology is to protect against heresy. Heresy\u2019s redeeming value is that it makes us go deeper into our theology, and more specifically into our Christology. The best theology isn\u2019t formed in some cloistered monastery but it\u2019s formed when the local church is being pressured.<\/p>\n Here are just a few of the pressures that I\u2019ve seen move into the churches I\u2019ve served. 1) The pressure can be to become more rigid, to hold to a strict observance of certain laws, religious days, and rituals. 2) The pressure can come from those who advocate for a higher spiritual plain that can only be attained if you know the secrets. 3) And the pressure can come from some esoteric group that advocates bizarre spiritual practices as the means to be closer to God.<\/p>\n These pressures have one thing in common: Jesus becomes a little smaller; the law is lifted up, while spiritual mysteries or experiences eclipse the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ. Perhaps the greatest pressure facing the American evangelical church is simply adding. Adding more activities, more knowledge, more work \u2013 so much more that the congregant can not help but walk way and think \u201cmy faith equals Jesus plus.\u201d<\/p>\n McGrath offers us a guide to Christian thought and intertwines with that all the heretical and philosophical pressures that create the context for our theology; the pressures the patriarchs, church leaders and theologians wrestled with in developing orthodoxy. For example, in the section on \u201cThe doctrine of the person of Christ\u201d he mentions:<\/p>\n Philosophic arguments for or against Christ\u2019s deity, weighing Christ\u2019s humanity or divinity at the expense of the other, seeing Jesus as a created being and therefore less than the Father; all these and more have come and gone and will come again. These pressures might have helped define our faith 1500 to 1600 years ago, but they\u2019re just as real today. George Santayana once wrote \u2018Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.\u201d. We also need to know our theological past, lest we allow the same heresies to gain a foothold in our churches today. Many of us who aren\u2019t theological scholars or church historians need simple reference works like \u201cChristian Theology: an introduction<\/em>\u201d to turn to when some \u2018new\u2019 idea is pressuring our churches.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> M. Scott Peck,\u00a0The Road Less Traveled, Timeless Edition: a New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth<\/em>, Anniversary ed. (publication place: Touchstone, 2003), ?.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: an Introduction<\/em>, 5th ed. (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid., 265-266<\/p>\n\n
![\"GateKeeper\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/GateKeeper-300x243.jpg\")
<\/a>I appreciate a broad vision, a vision that sees others and tries to understand them. I appreciate the skill of asking good questions; we have a faith that can stand up and go deep\u00a0when questioned. That doesn\u2019t mean our theology becomes broad, or pluralistic. My recent broad exploration has actually refreshed my understanding of the sufficiency and supremacy of Jesus. He says that we enter God\u2019s Kingdom through a narrow gate.[6]<\/a> Christian leaders and we pastors serve as gatekeepers. It\u2019s a huge honor to be a kingdom gatekeeper, one that I can only do effectively when I know the rocky road of our theological history.<\/p>\n