Is Theology Really All That Important?

January 6, 2009 in Articles View Comments

To many theology should only be limited to the seminary. It’s for pastors only. This thinking has impacted Christianity in significant ways. In some ways it’s understandable that people will think this way. When churches deemphasize theology and emphasize pop psychology, people tend to forget the importance of understanding who God is. This quote from The Culturally Savvy Christian, by Dick Staub concerns me,

There is ample evidence that in attempting to influence culture, Christians have jettisoned basic, historic Christian beliefs. Not only does Christianity-Lite fail to advance Christian beliefs and practices, but it has forgotten what they are! How else can you describe a situation in which most church-going adults reject that accuracy of the Bible, claim Jesus sinned, believe that good works will persuade God to forgive sins, and describe their commitment to Christianity as moderate or even less firm? Our numbers indicate strength, but our shallowness betrays our weakness. We are a mirror image of the moralistic therapeutic deistic culture.

Vibrant faith involves understanding Scripture, employing reason, benefiting from the lessons of tradition, and engaging in a profound personal experience of God.

A few years ago I had a conversation with a college student who told me that he was tired of going to church because all he was hearing during sermons was theology. There was not a lot of practical teaching to go along with it. In another instance a female student that was in the college ministry I was leading said that she did not feel theology really mattered all that much and that all we needed to know as Christians was that Jesus loved us. In both cases, these students believed theology was irrelevant for our times. What’s interesting about these two people was that they both went through some painful experiences where the only answer to their questions involved theology.

They’re not alone. There was another group of people who felt theology was irrelevant. Paul addressed them in Romans 1. God made truth about his character evident to them but they ignored it (Romans 1:16). The NASB version says they suppressed the truth. Even though they knew about God intellectually, they did not know him. Whenever the knowledge of God is suppressed, pride sets in and idolatry rules the day (Romans 1:23). When these men and women suppressed the truth they declined morally and engaged in all sorts of act from greed to homosexuality (Romans 1:24-28). This is the inevitable state of a culture who ignores God. In Staub’s words,

Barna’s research…also indicates troubling trends in behavior among the “born-again population,” including a higher divorce rate than the general population and patterns of consumerism matching the general population. Evangelicals condemn abortion and sexual immorality but are relatively silent about the accumulation of wealth and concerns for the poor.

He later says,

Within evangelicalism, many thoughtful people are troubled about the price we have paid for our “success.” Some believe that in our quest for numeric growth, we have grown big but are shallow, producing an American Christianity three thousand miles wide but two inches deep.

Is theology really all that important? Yes. Theology is the most practical and relational thing about us and it always shows itself in how we relate to one another. What you and I know about God determines EVERY dimension of our lives.