Moving Past Theological Labels

There are a vast number of theological labels given to types of theology.  Often the church would do best to move past the labels.

The number of groups who will not dialogue because of theological labels is often pronounced.  We often would do better to simply listen.

What does a person say and is what the person says according to the word and will of God?  If a person speaks the gospel truthfully and lives out there life faithfully to God the person is someone to listen to even if we might feel tentative about how they are labeled theologically.

Because two people share similar theological traits does not mean both are teaching and walking in accord with the will of God.

Often it is not what a theologian says which is worrisome, but what the do not say, or will not say, or do not have the courage to say.  We should listen to what thinkers say and not what is said about them.

Most people simply repeat second hand the views of various thinkers.  We might ask them where they got the view and the would say "everyone know it is this way."

Maybe it is and maybe it is not.  At times so many people have repeated the same erroneous viewpoint that the number of people who know the truth is greatly outnumbered by the number who believe errors.

We need to listen to what thinkers say.  Not what the press says about them.  Not what their fans say or dissenters say.

We need to listen, think, and judge rightly according to the word of God.

Moving Past Theological Hearsay

In a court of law hearsay is barred. In theological circles hearsay is often enough to push any theologian or thinker's views off the table before they are even understood.

It is quite an ignorant trend emerging in theology where ideology of each theological camp presupposes what will be good or bad before the ideas are even heard. The second you mention this or that thinker's name the ideas are already falling on deaf ears.

A lot of it is quite arbitrary and non-sensible. You often find that included in the allowable thinkers are people who are more opposed to the ideology of the group and thinkers who are excluded from the ideology.

You see it is often simply a wild amount of hearsay which has no basis in reality. A prominent pastor had a teacher who they respected who did not like such and such thinker for an unknown reason and now the world becomes suspicious of the thinker. No one knows why the thinker is in question, but they are.

At some point there needs to be a re-questioning of why are all these things which "are just the case" but no one knows why. If a pastor cannot with any articulation explain why a thinker is wrong then he should not proclaim to the whole world that a thinker is in error because he knew someone many years ago who felt so.

It is as if pastors and theologians often hold up certain figures as unable to err. That favorite teacher was in the end always right and never wrong. Of course it is absurd, but it is how many pastors and theologians practically live and the consequences are rarely positive of such a lazy and thoughtless approach.

It is often better to answer "I do not know" to a question than to spout mindlessly what some respected sage thought might have been the case.

I feel certain highly respected thinkers in the current day have, despite their many gifts and blessings they have brought to the church, also damaged the church by failing to admit the limits of their knowledge. It is better to admit the limits of our knowledge rather than to take the easy route of pushing out hearsay in theology when we simply do not know.

Listening, Getting Things Right, and Rest

It is always of great use to listen to the implications others see in their positions which they hold. Often we might guess what the implications should be in their positions and we may or may not be wrong.

Is it that other people are inconsistent and they might not have implications in their system that should be there? I suppose this is always possible however often we see mystery in things.

It is not common to see logical thinkers have views which have an interesting tension. This is not simply in a field such as theology: it carries in many fields.

You see large systems of thought often have many nuances. Often a position is not fully rejected but partially affirmed with qualifications.

And this is the great issue in communication; it is that often others attempt to carry out the implications of the thought of others. In doing so they often create positions which the author of the ideas does not hold.

It is interesting to see many great theologians or great thinkers get others' positions in their field so completely wrong. Often, I suppose, many people try to do too much.

Maybe they have a critique in mind of a figure and they have a few months to write a book. In those few months they produce a book of some value which gets the other thinker wildly wrong.

It is often the case that many positions which we disagree with are not so easy to critique as we would think. We might undertake a nuanced critique but that would take a very long time.

Often you will see too many people in fields taking short cuts to try to prove their point. The reality is we often accomplish so little because we do too much.

We try to do ten things and do all ten in a mediocre way and very little good results. If we had simply done one or two things we might have had better results.

Billy Graham near the end of his ministry was asked of his deepest regret. He said that he preached too much and spent too little time in the Word and prayer.

You see sometimes we can accomplish more by doing less. This is why Jesus so frequently withdrew into solitude in the wilderness.

Keeping the Sabbath is having faith that we can do more in six days with God than seven without God.

Reflection on Self and Others

Often you see people assume a great coherence of thought of themselves and others. We assume we are highly logical beings whose thought all meshes together and assume so of others.

It is one of those things which is often not the case. It is actually very normal for people to have disparate ideas with degrees of contradiction in their thought.

We often think about ideas in isolation and while the contradiction is often not very high in our thought it does exist. Sometimes others might point out the error and it is easy to become defensive.

Often what we need is grace and humility. Humility to admit that we are wrong on things. We cannot grow if we refuse to admit our errors.

Grace on ourselves is also very important. Sometimes we don't want to admit we are wrong because we are too tough on ourselves. We have more judgement against ourselves than God does and so we can't accept our flaws because of the guilt we feel.

It is normal to be wrong in life. Truly great thinkers are great not because they are never wrong but because they have the humility to accept they have made mistakes and grow.

We all have errors and issues. The question is just if we are willing to accept them and learn from them as we become aware of the errors and issues.