The Most Dangerous Theology
When I was young, my family would make a yearly trek from our winter wonderland in Massachusetts, to have a green Tennessee Christmas with extended family. I loved the road trip games and Yoohoo drinks my dad bought for the journey. (What was I thinking? I can’t even make eye contact with fake chocolate now.) I savored Monopoly with cousins and aunts, our yearly muddy football game, and my Grandma reading “The Bird’s Christmas Carol” before we tore into our presents.
I also secretly enjoyed listening to my dad and uncles and grandpa as they discussed church, the Bible and theology. Though outside of the conversations, I’d soak it all in and consider my responses. My quirky desire at age ten to be part of the theology world hasn’t ever gone away; today I still love sitting at tables of deep spiritual discussion, church culture and theology. I’m grateful for every opportunity to wrestle with others and even be able to teach what I’ve learned in my own journey with God.
Two decades may not have changed who I’m uniquely designed to be- but it has changed my perspective. After repeatedly bumping into the wall of my human limitations, I’ve developed an awareness of my inability to fully understand God’s law. I used to think there was a perfect answer for everything and that I could find it if I looked in Scripture hard enough. I believed in the myth of “perfect theology”; that I could somehow arrive at the point where God and I were on the same page.
Even if I was off a bit, I considered that my church must be quite nearly THE standard of how church should look. (As though Heaven were giving out yearly certificates for “Most Theologically Sound” churches.)
So if I attended a church that differed stylistically, liturgically, or doctrinally I could kind of wink at God and laugh about it later like we had some great inside joke the rest of the world was missing. If I encountered someone who didn’t live like inside of my lines, I knew I was supposed to move them somehow to my way of thinking. “God’s” way of thinking.
We all must wrestle with this to an extent. By definition, simply holding a conviction or belief requires us to believe something else isn’t true or right. That in itself isn’t a bad thing.
But I can guarantee you, I’m also personally overwhelmed by the sheer weight of my human limitations in understanding God and theology and all that goes with it. I have a growing list of painful questions my best theology can’t quite answer. With every encounter with beautiful and complex humans who believe very differently than me, I feel this pulling on my theology, as though it were a sheet of spandex being tugged at from multiple directions.
If I’m honest, sometimes I fear that our theology- that my theology- can’t be stretched to cover all the complexity and glorious diversity of the very people God’s gospel is meant to liberate.
It’s not an issue of whether the world fits into my theology. It isn’t supposed to because Christ operates outside of the world’s systems and values. But if my theology- if God’s gospel- can’t stretch to cover the world, then perhaps it is too fragile. Or perhaps I’m missing something.
If theology is the study of God and the systems and practices surrounding those beliefs, then theology at its core is meant to draw us closer to God. Theology isn’t about knowing every single answer about God; it is the structure that supports deep relationship.
So the most dangerous theology isn’t the theology that might be partially wrong. (See: All of our theology). I believe the most dangerous theology is that which actually prevents us from experiencing God. In other words, we move to dangerous waters when we are more focused on letting our theology define God than letting God define our theology. But this happens all the time when we buy into the myth that humans can reach “perfect theology” with no room for error.
When we live as though our lines of theology can’t possibly be wrong, we unknowingly close ourselves off to the vastness and mystery of who God is and how He works. If I’m honest, over and over again I use my theology as a box to put God inside of. But I’m coming to realize that God must always be bigger than the box of theology. This way, I still let Him define what that box looks like, but I reserve the possibility that He may gloriously and mysteriously surprise me in the way He works and moves.
And when my theology doesn’t seem to stretch to cover all the controversy and disagreements, the overwhelming complexity of the world, I can believe that my God certainly does. Because He’s bigger than my box. And so is His love, which covers a multitude of sin and hurt and mess and even…my inability to know everything.
What about you? Do you believe that you’ve put God in a box? Do you wrestle with questions that your theology doesn’t quite seem to answer for you? My heart is to ask the questions and create a space for discussion. If you have questions you’d like me to address here, comment below or send me a message. Thank you for processing the gray with me. 🙂
Want more on this topic? Here’s my reading suggestions: