Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Organic Theology

1. The Problem

Theology in the present day is typically very straight forward. Often in the first few minutes of listening to a preacher he tips his hand to his assumptions and the rest of his sermon can be predicted. You can predict what parts of the text the preacher will emphasize and what parts of the text the preacher will gloss over.

I see American theology in a state of crisis because almost all theology of the present day suffers from redaction. Redaction is a systematic process where the teaching of the bible is ignored on certain issues. Liberal theology and conservative theology today redact scripture.

Liberal theology primarily redacts the Bible's teaching on salvation, human relationships, ethics related to human life. Conservative theology primarily redacts the Bible's teaching on the poor, social justice, and the Christian's obligation to the non-Christian.

Often the picture is painted in such black and white terms in the current day: Liberal theology ignores the whole teaching of scripture while conservative theology accepts the teaching of scripture. In reality conservative theology often redacts scripture by simply ignoring scripture.

2. Why the Problem is Entrenched

Mainly both liberals and conservatives consider each other enemies and themselves as having the monopoly on truth. The reality is that both sides to some degree are ignoring scripture.

3. How to do Organic Theology

Organic theology is simply accepting what the bible accepts. You see in traditional theology that certain texts are given priority over others and used to interpret other texts. It seems better to simply affirm all texts and say "yes" to what they teach.

You see theology is not done in this way because it is more paradoxical to say "yes" to all the contents of the bible than to force the bible into a neat tiny mold. The issue today is that theology is irrational in its pursuit for pristine logic; it cannot interpret all of scripture without paradox so it instead philosophizes by determining priority.

4. Why Organic Theology is Biblical

The Bible is God's word where He speaks to us. We cannot interpret some texts through other texts in a way which destroys the meanings of other texts. The issue today is that philosophy has triumphed over true exegesis.

5. Why Organic Theology is Desirable

The Bible says that the whole bible is useful for teaching and instruction. That is why American Christianity is weak. We separate into camps each of which ignores parts of the bible.

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