The Danger of Academic Theology

There is always a certain danger in the academic study of theology. The danger is not so much that there is a danger in systematic study of the bible but in the nature of the modern academic process.

You see in the bible man meets God and God has a word for man. In the presence of God the only appropriate response is to worship.

The difficult of academic study is that the interests in scripture are often very obscure. Word studies and vague hypothesis the value of which and application are vary vague dominate academic study.

You see it can be very easy to disconnect study from worship. At this moment academic theology becomes a danger to the person doing it.

It is a sort of occupational hazard that is very subtle but real. When the word of God comes to man and man does not respond you see that man is poorer from it.

Man's heart becomes darker the more he know of God and the less he responds. This is why Jesus says for us not to cast our pearls to the swine.

There is a sense in which we should leave those actively hostile to the gospel alone and not damage them by trying to convince them to the truth. Of course this too runs counter to academia.

Humbling Ourselves Before God

Many Christians have great difficulty in humbling themselves before God.  Many college professors often settle for analyzing God rather than worshiping him.  This is an incredibly difficult thing to do and only an academic or a fool can pull it off.  Pulling away the worship aspect from knowledge about God or making the study of the bible dull is quite a difficult task.  It is difficult to make the infinitely enjoyable dull.

Anyway back to humbling yourself before God.  Being forced to kneeling down, empty, devoid of anything to commend yourself by is a great fear of our culture.  But consider it like this God is a mountain brook.  We come in great need of quenching thirst, we come without anything to give the brook, we keel down and deeply gulp and enjoy it.  If there is no one righteous no not one and there is no one who does good should we despair?  No because God is most pleased when we come to him empty ready to be filled with his love.  He is most happy in this because this is the way he is most glorified and we should be happy in this because this will be the way our thirst is finally quenched.

Four Questions for Testing Theologies

Lately my critique of any theology has boiled down to four questions I ask:

1) Is the glory of God maximized?
2) Is the wretchedness of man maximized?
3) Is God's incredible fatherly love demonstrated while showing 1 and 2?
4) Does the theologian avoid squirming?

The only one needing explanation is the squirming. Theologians squirm when they become nitpicky about the meaning of words to explain away meaning. They squirm when they impose their emotions on events. They squirm when they refuse to allow God to take responsibility for his own actions. Squirming takes place in a wide variety of forms every time I see it I hate the theology coming along with it.

I’m sure there are other criteria needed to analyze how good theology is but for me I find these four very helpful.