How-To Theology

by Lyndsey Graves

"Any one who thinks about God is a theologian."

My teachers were always saying this. I went to a Christian university where everyone is required to take a minor in religion, and the first session of Intro to Theology was always an attempt to get a roomful of Communications or Chemistry undergraduates to care.

The theology professors' point was, if you think about God, you are already a theologian; it's up to you whether you're going to be a good theologian or a bad one. I like this point of view, even if it caused some of my honors-program comrades and me to take our sophomore selves a little too seriously.
 
I've been a "career" theologian for three years now. I declared the major with the intention of pursuing a Ph.D. in something theology-related, and I haven't since wavered in that intention. I leave this week for Boston to pursue my Master's in Theological Studies, and I worry a little that the grad school gauntlet will somehow cause me to forget the basics I've already learned; so, today, some pointers for the happy, tea-sipping armchair theologian and the frantic, pasty, study-carrel-bound theologian (read: myself) alike.
 
1. Pray.

Never say anything about God that you wouldn't say to his face. Evagrius Ponticus said in the fourth century, "The theologian is the one who prays truly, and the one who prays truly is the theologian." Pray as much as possible. Pray during lectures. Pray while you're writing. If you don't know what to write, write a prayer. Pray when you don't like God. Pray when you don't believe in God. Pray when you're lost. Pray when you're happy. Pray when you're walking. Pray when you're taking a break from theology. If you're sick of praying, tell God about it.
 
2. Aim for humility above all else.

As you do theology, are you learning to serve? Is it teaching you to love your enemies? Or is it teaching you to correct, dismiss, or deride others? If theology isn't making you a better person, go back to step one. Learning about God should never cease to remind you just how small you are - and deflating your ego is prerequisite to making an actual difference in the world.

3. Listen to the past.

Embarrassing as the Church Fathers and Mothers (or whoever embarrasses you) can be, they were here first and they're probably smarter than you. Christianity is a historical religion, and if you claim to be continuing a tradition someone else started, it's important to know what the tradition is before you start blustering about "improving" it.

4. Use all of yourself.

Don't be afraid of what your emotions or your experiences have to tell you. Stay in touch with them as you exercise your rational side, too.

5. Consider your sources.

The "Wesleyan Quadrilateral" is really helpful here, until people start talking about it as if Wesley made it up. Yet I think the best, truest, most long-lasting theology has always been formed in - and informed by - the space between Tradition, Scripture, Reason, and Experience. There is an enormous amount of tension in that space, which is why various theologians and traditions have often tended towards one side or corner of the quadrilateral; but if any element is ignored entirely, you're missing out on part of the gift of God's self-revelation.

6. Talk to other people. 
I do mean this in the sense that you should listen to a variety of perspectives - very few people are completely wrong about everything, and it especially never hurts to hear from someone with very different experiences from yours.  Listen to other people before you jump to defend your pet point of view. Ask old people, homeless people, children, as well as more experienced pastors, scholars, and Christians.  And every once in a while, maybe even give others the benefit of the doubt.

But really, I think it's even more important to talk to your friends. They are your safe space and your bullshit-detector rolled into one. Without those casual, down-to-earth conversations over a game of disc golf, you run the risk of turning from human being into theology-bot (it's the saddest Transformer): you may be textbook-correct, but no one wants to touch you. Besides, eventually you'll get stuck in some kind of existential quagmire from which only a good friend (theologian or not) can pull you out. Also, some sort of vice is essential to these conversations - either a beer, a pipe, or a large pile of junk food. Any disagreement about Calvinism may require all three.

7.Test it out.

If it doesn't work, it's wrong. We're talking about God, yes, but this God made the universe, loves it, and is all in it. It's surprisingly easy to deceive yourself, and sometimes a lot of other people, when you're hovering around in abstract-land. So never forget: if your grand idea doesn't make sense in the real world, it's useless. Don't forget to at least visit the real world and pay attention to how your big words and lofty sentiments relate to the people around you who have never heard of prevenient grace or the Arian controversy.
 
8. Worship. 
It's trendy these days to talk about how you don't need church to have a relationship with God, or about how community is more important than Sunday morning, or about how all of life is worship so if you don't want to go somewhere and sing then you don't have to. But theology and a relationship with God, don't just consist of personal study, something you've labeled "community", and a neighborhood service project. There's something mysterious about worship - doing nothing but praising God with other people - that is important and powerful and changes you on a level beyond all the words you're playing with. Don't skip it.

I could probably go on, but I can use all the help I can get - What would y'all add to this list? 

Lyndsey lives in Boston, MA where she is pursuing her Master's in Theological Studies at Boston University. She enjoys Community, Mad Men and Beauty and the Beast and her spirit animal is a sloth. She would like to know if this is some kind of interactive theater art piece. You can follow her on Twitter @lyndseygraves and you can find more of her writing at her blog To Be Honest.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.
 
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I'm Probably Wrong

by Ben Howard

"I'm probably wrong."

"Wrong about what?" I ask myself.

"Oh! Everything...probably. At least most things. To be more precise I am probably wrong about 90% of things. Except cake. I'm not wrong about cake. Unless, of course, I am. In which case I'm wrong about 91% of things."

"I don't think you're wrong about cake," my interior monologue counters.

"But what if I am? I mean, I don't think I am, but that's kind of the point isn't it? Nobody knows that they're wrong until they realize that they're wrong. You can only be wrong after the fact. Well, actually you were wrong all along, but you thought you were right and that was the only thing you knew. You only perceived yourself to be right. Maybe my perception about cake is entirely wrong."

"I don't think this is actually about cake. Unless it's about the band Cake in which case I think you take late-90's alt-rock far too seriously."

"You're right, it's not about cake. It might be about Cake, or at least the pyrrhic quest of the protagonist in 'The Distance'. I just wonder about the end goal of all the critiques and counter-critiques. It feels like everyone, myself included, is striving for some version of better/best, but such a pursuit necessitates a belief in a Platonic ideal for religion, for life, for reality in general. What if it's not actually possible to 'be right'? What if it's only possible to 'feel right'?"

"Are you saying there is no truth? No right answers? I don't know if I agree with that, it's a pretty bleak way to view the world. Also, are you stealing this artistic convention from Chuck Klosterman?"

"I'm not saying that there isn't a truth that underlies the universe. I believe in God and I believe God is the truth the underlies the universe, but I also believe that we can only ever see God through a glass, darkly. As a result, our perception of truth and reality will always be fuzzy and slightly askew. I guess it's more than a binary distinction between right and wrong, that false duality may be what's causing so much frustration. And yes, I am stealing this from Klosterman, but he probably stole it from someone else who stole it from someone else who ultimately stole it from Plato, so I feel like I'm in good company."

"I understand. It does serve as a useful vehicle to just openly say things you're trying to process."

"Exactly! I'm glad you understand."

"So what brought on this whole right/wrong existential crisis?"

"Christian leaders saying stupid things. To be more specific, my arrogant responses to Christian leaders saying stupid things. I realized that I was assuming that my faith, my interpretation was always right and I was judging everything against it. But that faith has changed so much over the last few years, and if I use history as a judge, it will continue to change and shift. My shifting, evolving faith isn't a very good benchmark to hold others to, that's not fair."

"So what should you judge them against?"

"That's exactly the problem I'm encountering. I can't judge them against my believe, because it's always moving. I can't accurately judge them by the Bible, because it's affected by my interpretation. I can't accurately judge them by historical Christianity because it's unfaithful to the contextual nature of faith. So I have to triangulate all of those and it's difficult.

"You could always, I don't know, try not judging them. That whole 'Judge not lest ye be judged' thing."

"I was going to get there eventually. I don't know, maybe some people need the message of Piper and Driscoll. I can't comprehend that, but I also can't comprehend people who like reggae, so maybe my understanding of the world isn't the end all and be all. Yeah, their message can be damaging when it's pushed on people who it doesn't help, but my faith could probably be damaging to someone who needs something stricter and more forceful."

"Could it be possible that the varying expressions of Christianity are all useful to some people in some situations?"

"Yeah, I think it could. Good talk self."

Peace,
Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87. 

 

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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The Beautiful Illusion of Justice

by Ben Howard

Every once in awhile I listen to this podcast called Hardcore History. It only comes out every few months, but when it does the episodes are often 3 or 4 hours long. I was a history major in college, so this kind of long, audiobook-like podcast is perfect for me.

Yesterday, I found myself listening to an episode about Genghis Khan. A lot of modern historians credit Genghis Khan with connecting China and other Asian societies with the European continent in the 13^th century. In the aftermath of Genghis Khan’s conquest there were great advances in commerce and trade and technology that would not have been possible without the Khan.

This is the accepted historical significance of Genghis Khan. At some point historians will eventually mention, almost as an afterthought, that during the Khan’s 20 year reign he was responsible for the death of between 10 and 80 million people.

You read that right. 10 to 80 million deaths and it’s not the most important thing according to his historical legacy.

We read that, or at least I read that, and think that things must have been horrible back then. Such utter decimation is a travesty, a shocking tale of the reckless warlike past of the human race. To be honest, really honest, we think we’ve advanced beyond that. We’ve progressed and grown and civilized.

Yet 70 years ago, there was a war between all the progressive, civilized, mature countries that had clearly advanced beyond the barbarism of someone like Genghis Khan. And during the course of this war, which lasted just 6 years compared to the 20 during which the Khan reigned, 50 to 70 million people were killed.

I hear it said from time to time, often crediting Martin Luther King Jr., that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Though the sentiment is beautiful, I cannot say with confidence that the universe bends towards justice. Neither can I say that it builds towards progress. I cannot say, with any confidence that the world today is better than it was yesterday or that it will be better tomorrow than it is today. I want to, but there are times when even lovely things, even beautiful things, just aren’t true.

Justice is such a fleeting thing, such an elusive and fickle mistress for us to pursue. Derrida argues that justice is the only thing that we cannot deconstruct, the only thing that we cannot get behind, or beyond, or underneath, or inside of, it is entirely its own. As a result, it is always an illusion and always out of reach.

The simple fact is that even if we cure all of the injustices found in the world today, even if we create a just society where everyone is treated equally and loved and no one goes wanting or needing, tomorrow we will wake up to find new injustices that we never knew existed tucked away in shadows where we had never before looked.

Regardless of what we do, regardless of captives we set free from bondage, the hungry to whom we give food, and the thirsty to whom we give drink, in the cold, harsh light of history our children and our children’s children will look back, shake their heads and say, “How could they have done THAT?”

And we will say that we did not know.

This is not a condemnation. It’s not a tragedy that humanity falls victim to the pitfalls of being trapped in space and time, it just…is. This is also not my way of mocking those who work so ardently for justice. What they do, what we all do, is good and pure and righteous, but it will never be done.

Today, many people across the world are observing Holocaust Remembrance Day. I hope that you will join them, and I hope that along with those who lost their lives during that terrible time, you will also remember the victims of all injustice past, present, and future; those you have known and those you have never met; those you have aided and those you have unknowingly oppressed.

Perhaps the moral universe does not bend towards justice, but it does bend toward hope. And faith. And love.

And the greatest of these is love.

Peace,

Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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