“Bad Theology Hurts People.”
J. I. Packer
The greatest ill that someone can embrace is bad theology because such wrong thinking works itself out in a persons life in an assortment of unhealthy ways. Were I given my heart’s desire the one thing I would ask for is for people to think rightly about God. The fulfillment of such a request would glorify God, it would be health and life to those whose thinking about God is tarnished and unseemly, and it would be the opening act of the promised post-millennial Kingdom that would discover regenerated and epistemologically self-conscious thinkers ever increasingly going further in and farther up in thinking God’s thoughts after Him.
Now, some might contend that such a vision is extremely impracticable since I’m concerned only with matters of theology and doctrine but before such a thing is thought allow me to defend my heart’s desire for the flowering of right thinking about God among 6 billion people by noting that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” My desire for men to think rightly about God would release a torrent of right living since orthopraxy is always the inevitable consequence of orthodoxy. A man’s actions always follows his thinking.
When we raised our children, and they misbehaved I was seldom concerned about the action in comparison to my concern for the reason or the thinking that motivated the misbehavior. The necessity for a change of behavior from my children would take care of itself if only a change of thinking was embraced and a change of thinking would be embraced only if we got to the nub of how their misbehavior was a reflection of how they were thinking wrongly concerning God and His Word. Since, “As my children thought in their heart so they were,” my remedial work with them, when misbehavior arose, had to concentrate on their theology and doctrine.
Our Theology, as that is poured over who God made us in our varied human-ness, is everything. It is reflected in the fashions we embrace, the hobbies we take up, and the way we worship. Our Theology / doctrine accounts for our architecture, our cultural institutions and our social order. Our Theology / doctrine explains the way we structure family, the way we understand history, the way we educate. The Medievalists were correct when they insisted that, “Theology is the Queen of the Sciences.” The German General Von Moltke once mistakenly said, “war is simply the expression of politics by other means.” What General Von Moltke should have said is that war is simply the expression of theology by other means since politics is simply the expression of theology by other means.
Many are the Christians who say they desire Reformation. If Reformation is to be successfully pursued then the only means of doing it is by theological warfare. Neither individuals, nor cultures will be Evangelized and Reformed until their theology / doctrine is challenged. Evangelism in pursuit of Reformation, is merely theological / doctrinal warfare. Evangelism, or discipleship that doesn’t thoroughly challenge the ascendant theological paradigm of the person being evangelized or discipled is neither Evangelism or discipleship.
The implication of this, in a culture that is post-Christian, means that there are going to be flash-points of conflict between peoples who own differing theologies. It even means that there will be flash-points of conflict between professed Christian peoples who own differing theologies. This was exemplified by the fact that Luther and Zwingli couldn’t hash out there theological differences when it was in both their best interests to do so. They were both Christians but they each owned differing theologies.
So, Reformation can not be had apart from flash points of conflict between competing theological and doctrinal paradigms. When those flash points of conflict arise between people of different or varying faiths it is not because they are “hateful, mean, arrogant, know-it-alls,” who just want to be right. Rather, it might be because they are “loving, compassionate, meek, beggars” who know and understand that bad theology hurts people and so desire people, who are being hurt by their bad theology, to know Reformation.
When I critique bad theology, on Iron Ink, or in the teaching lectern, or in the pulpit, it is not because I think I am perfect or superior, or that because I think my theology is perfect, though I do think it is correct. If I didn’t think it was correct I wouldn’t hold it. When I critique bad theology it is not because I am a bully who just wants to show off how smart I am. When I critique bad theology I am doing Evangelism and / or discipleship. As a minister that is what I am called to do. When I critique bad theology, wherever or whoever that theology comes from, regardless of their clerical standing, I am merely desiring to rid people of the bad theology which is hurting them. To leave bad theology to gain root without critiquing it and trying to stamp it out would be the very definition of a lack of compassion.
It is often the case that the closer that one begins to approach the center of someone’s bad theology the louder they will scream and the more they will start hissing and insisting that the someone is not being nice. People don’t appreciate their worldview furniture being broken up and cast aside. However, it is often precisely at that moment that the cause has to be pursued out of love for the person doing the hissing and howling.
When I was a boy I was afflicted with a childhood disease that required the sores covering my body to be scrubbed till they bled and then treated with a medicinal ointment. Such treatment was always a family affair in my home. My siblings would hold my shoulders down. My father would hold my legs down and my Mother would scrub the sores as required and then place the ointment on my wounds. As a child I did not believe that they were treating me very lovingly. It would have been easy to accuse them of being cruel, mean, arrogant, know-it-alls. Of course, in retrospect, that wasn’t what was happening at all. The thing that I remember the clearest is that my Mother was always weeping while she scrubbed my wounds and applied the ointment.
People often see me scrubbing theological wounds on the internet. What they often miss is that I am doing so out of love and compassion for those who are wounded by the bad theology they have owned. What they can’t see, because they are sitting at some monitor reading my words, are the tears I am weeping for the person I am trying to scrub clean. What they can’t see is the weight of the burden I carry for the souls of those who have embraced bad theology. For me, what goes on at Iron Ink is not a warfare over “who is right,” but a contest for “what is right.” If I am in error being shown that error is the best thing that could ever happen to me.
I remain a sinner saved by grace alone. I have yet to scrub clean all the bad theology out of my own life. However, my sanctification will only go forward as I think God’s thoughts after him, and the best way I know to do evangelism is by continuing to critique the bad theology that people have embraced that hurts them so badly.
The love of God compels me.
Iron sharpens iron. Never was a blade put to the wheel but what there were sparks.
I understand and appreciate the apologetic and the spirit of the apologetic offered here. It’s both reasonable and kind.
Sometimes, it runs up against this verse in Scripture:
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”
Thanks TUAD. There are those who don’t see it quite the way you do so it is encouraging to know that there are those who see it your way.