Category Archives: Theology

The Antecedence of God in Procession Before Mission: Avoiding the Socialization of God

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TF Torrance is discussing the impact that dualistic Hellenism has had upon Western-thought-forms; namely the precedence that classical thought has given to the optical mode of thinking and verification (so the obsession with empiricism, etc.). TFT is highlighting the impact that this methodology and epistemology can have upon our construal of God’s “Father-hood” and “Son-hood,” and how Christian/Patristic theology, primarily through Athanasius’ influence, eschewed this “Hellenizing” effect by reifying it through a Christian ontology.

The contrast between Christianity and Hellenism could hardly be greater than at this fundamental level, where biblical patterns of thought governed by the Word of God and the obedient hearing of faith (υπακοη της πιτεως) conflict sharply with those of Greek religion and philosophy. The issue came to its head in the Arian controversy over the Father – Son relation at the heart of the Christian Gospel. Are the terms ‘father’ and ‘son’ to be understood as visual, sensual images taken from our human relations and then projected mythologically into God? In that event how can we avoid projecting creaturely gender into God, and thinking of him as grandfather as well as father, for the only kind of father we know is one who is son of another father? To think of God like that, in terms of the creaturely content of images projected out of ourselves, inevitably gives rise to anthropomorphic and polymorphic notions of deity and in fact to polytheism and idolatry. However, if we think from a centre in God as he reveals himself to us through his Word incarnate in Jesus Christ, then we know him as Father in himself in an utterly unique and incomparable way which then becomes the controlling standard by reference to which all notions of creaturely fatherhood and sonship are to be understood. ‘God does not make man his pattern, but rather, since God alone is properly and truly Father, we men are called fathers of our own children, for of him every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named.’ Unique Fatherhood and unique Sonship in God mutually define one another in an absolute and singular way. As Athanasius pithily expressed it in rejection of Arian anthropocentric mythologising: ‘Just as we cannot ascribe a father to the Father, so we cannot ascribe a brother to the Son’.[1]

[1] T. F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, 69-70.

Just Be a Philosopher Already: On Being a Thomistic Theologian

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For me I only have the capacity to follow a Dogmatic or Systematic theology insofar that I believe it is sticking to the theo-logic inherent to the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. This is what keeps it Biblical. This is what keeps it from adulterating and going beyond the 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡; that is, by going to its inner and upward reality in the Godman (Theanthropos), Jesus Christ. In other words, speculative theologies, ones that reason from the being of humanity to the being of God; ones that reason discursively about nature vis-à-vis God, as if nature holds vestiges of God; are balderdash to me! If that is all I had to go with theologically I would fully walk away from the theological endeavor. The Biblical witness, the Biblical attestation to its triune reality in the God revealed (Deus revelatus), can be the only line of theological reasoning the Christian can really take. Not in assertion, as if just claiming loudly, over and over again, “that we follow the Scripture Principle,” but in concrete fact; i.e., that Scripture indeed is the only source and ground of the theological engagement.

These theologians constantly touting Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle as the bee’s-knees of theological performance might as well do it right. They might as well become professional philosophers of religion, and at least learn how to think philosophically in nuanced and correct ways if they are going to elevate a philosopher-king as their theologian, rather than the actual Biblical witness. Instead, they lazily lay claim to the whole of church history, as if the Patristics, for example, were simply doing what Thomas Aquinas was doing with Aristotle in mediaeval times. Indeed, they sublate their bad philosophical takes as theology takes, as if they are ultimately takes provided for by Biblical exegesis.

An Apology for Reading Deep Theology, Beyond Nerdom

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This is no secret: I read lots of what would be considered “academic theology.” The thing is, I don’t read it to be an academic, per se. The thought occurs to me that there are many out there who read and do theology for purely academic reasons. But you don’t have to. You can read academic theology simply to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ; to be active in the sanctification process, as the Holy Spirit blows and kindles the fire of Christ’s love upon our new hearts of ‘flesh.’ It is true, some might mistake you for being an academic, or aspiring to be an academic theologian when you read and comment on academic theologies. But in the end that might only be a superficial reading of things. Certainly, being a voracious reader of theologies, here and there, will begin to form a particular lexicon and theological imaginary for said reader. And yet, if being a reader in this way, but one who reads constrained by the love of Christ, with a flaming heart for the living and triune God, the way the academic theology gets internalized and personalized coram Deo doesn’t have to terminate in the guild or the academy. Indeed, I would argue if that is where such movings and breathings terminate then they are like the grass that withers up and blows away; better to spend our time and energy on something else at that point.

For me it isn’t enough to cloud such theological meanderings under the guise of being “nerdy.” What point does being nerdy accomplish for the Christian? To me this only serves to segregate the doing and reading of theology for a certain demographic in the church; i.e., those obsessed with purely intellectual pursuits. But what if you are so in love with Jesus Christ and the triune God that reading the depths has nothing to do with being nerdy? Just because the masses find such theological inkling to be too deep and unnecessary, this doesn’t make it so. So, if it isn’t nerdy and it isn’t too deep and unnecessary for the so-called everyday Christian, what good does such theological reading do?

I would simply suggest that it has a stretching effect, to the point that it elevates our altitudes to the heights; the heights that Christ has already forged for us in His ascension to the Right Hand of the Father. He has already performed these ‘good works’ for us, in Himself, so that we too might participate in the deeps and wides of His Heavenly Kingdom. Deep theology isn’t just for so-called theological nerds (whatever that is supposed to entail); deep theology isn’t “not” for everyday people (double negative, I see it); indeed, it is for lovers of Jesus Christ all the way up and all the way down. To me reading deep theology, and even the Bible (of course!) voraciously, is really just a symptom of being in love with the unfathomable God of life; who was, and is, and is to come. Thinking deeply about God, in a saturated and correct way, can only lead to a life of living in a saturated and correct way coram Deo (before God).

So, what are you waiting for?: read deeply, even if it ends up confusing people into thinking you’re some type of theological academic wannabe. Just know, that when you seek God you will find Him; and this, because He first found us in Christ that we might find Him indeed.

A Brief Word on the Biblical Languages and a Theological Ontology

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The biblical languages often come with a perception of objectivity, like math or something. But the biblical languages are, indeed, languages. Language is fluid, and highly contextual. Learning the biblical languages can be very helpful for studying the Bible; but they aren’t definitive in regard to establishing this or that theological doctrine as true or false, per se. The more significant languages to learn are the theological languages; indeed, what could be called a theological ontology. This is not separate from biblical study; indeed, it establishes it, one way or the other, in a supra type of way. It will help the learner know how to deploy the biblical languages most appropriately, within a theological taxis (order vis a vis God). With a proper theological ontology in place, which I always argue is Christ (Logos) conditioned, the biblical languages come to have their contextual meaning; their heavenly meaning, as that has and continues to confront our lives and this world system. There is always an antecedence to the creaturely realm; which of course includes languages, and the total creational order. God in Christ is that antecedence from within the processions of His eternal and triune life. We come to evangelically know that “antecedent” life in and through the missions, the economy of God’s life for the world in Jesus Christ.

The Givenness of Christian Theology is Lively Rather than Dead[ly]

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I think it always remains important, especially for those who are more “intellectually” predisposed, to remember that an application of that can never be an end in itself; everything, until the eschaton, is instrumental. That is to say, Christian doctrine, because of the dynamism and organicism of its reality in Jesus Christ and the triune God, should never became a calcified given and received. It is, indeed, both, that is, ‘given and received,’ but only as an organic lively reality wherein the receivers take what they’ve been given, speak with the Lord about it, fellowship with the communion of the saints around it, and allow the fresh breath of the Holy Spirit to breathe new life into it, constructive life, such that the hearers who receiving the realities of God’s Word now, can understand it in a language that makes sense to them. Even so, in this dialogical process of receiving and then giving, giving and receiving, it isn’t, or it shouldn’t ever be “contextualized” by the period it is received within, but instead by the pressure of the One ultimately giving it as gift, by His Son, Jesus Christ. That is to say, as Torrance would impress, that the organicism of the theological endeavor ought to always be conditioned by its ‘kataphysical’ reality. Meaning, that the subject/object under consideration should always be the given, that gives us the categories and conditions and context through which we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. It isn’t the culture shaping the theology, but it is the theology that serves as culture’s prius; it is the theology that precedes its reception, and thus determines the final shape, and authoritative imprint that genuine Christian theology ought to always have. In this frame Christian doctrine, by definition, cannot become an end in itself, but only a given that keeps on giving afresh anew by the living God who has freely chosen to be for us in Jesus Christ. Old Lutheran theologian, Martin Chemnitz (as cited by Barth) gets at these matters this way:

We must always keep in mind that the reason the Son of God came down from the hidden throne of the eternal Father and revealed heavenly doctrine was not to furnish material for seminary debates, in which the display of ingenuity might be the game, but rather so that human beings should be instructed concerning true knowledge of God and of all those things which are necessary to the pursuit of eternal salvation.” Martin Chemnitz, Loci theol. ed., 1590, Hypomnemata 9 cited by Barth, CD I/1, 82.

Christian History::It Is, Jesus

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Christian History is both similar to, and yet distinct from Greek conceptions of history during the time of Christ. Not surprising, a Christian notion of history has Christ as its centraldogma. Unique to Christian history is the concentration and even delimitation to other notions of histories that the resurrection and person of Jesus Christ present it with. I wasn’t going to share the following passage in this post, since I’ve shared it multiple times in other posts, but it is quite pertinent to the insight I want to share from Michael Gillespie on Christian history. The following is from Robert Dale Dawson, and his insight on how Barth’s doctrine of the resurrection of Christ impacts all of reality at a primal level. Dawson writes:

A large number of analyses come up short by dwelling upon the historical question, often falsely construing Barth’s inversion of the order of the historical enterprise and the resurrection of Jesus as an aspect of his historical skepticism. For Barth the resurrection of Jesus is not a datum of the sort to be analyzed and understood, by other data, by means of historical critical science. While a real event within the nexus of space and time the resurrection is also the event of the creation of new time and space. Such an event can only be described as an act of God; that is an otherwise impossible event. The event of the resurrection of Jesus is that of the creation of the conditions of the possibility for all other events, and as such it cannot be accounted for in terms considered appropriate for all other events. This is not the expression of an historical skeptic, but of one who is convinced of the primordiality of the resurrection as the singular history-making, yet history-delimiting, act of God.[1]

And here is Gillespie on Christian history. Maybe you will see how what he writes about the development of a Christian understanding of history qua Greek history, coheres quite nicely with the theological account of history-making referred to by Dawson with reference to Barth’s doctrine of the resurrection. Gillespie writes:

This synthesis of Christian theology and ancient history brought about a decisive and fundamental change in the conception of history itself. The original Greek sense of history as witness remains in Christian history, but it is no longer the knowledge of what is seen but the knowledge of God through the witness of the Apostles. History which had sought the eternal in the actual thus becomes the revelation of the eternal as such, the witness to the hidden truth or meaning of events as a whole, which comes to light and hence visibility in and through the Word, i.e., in and through Christ. History thus comes to rest not upon seeing or contemplation, i.e., not upon the immediate experience and apprehension of the eternal, but upon the authority and through the mediation of Scripture, i.e., through the Word itself. Thus history for Christianity is not the enquiry into or the account of events with a view to extracting and immortalizing noble deeds but the faith in the single event, the kairos, that reveals the hitherto hidden truth and order in all creation.

All Christian history in this sense is written sub specie aeternitatis. Time is no longer understood as the realm of transience, governed by caprice or destiny, but the unfolding of eternity backwards and forwards out of the moment of creation, i.e., out of the kairos in which Christ comes into the world. This single event is thus the key to all creation, since every other event follows from it and is only comprehensible in terms of it. History in this sense becomes prophetic, for just as the Old Testament prophets were able to foresee the coming of Christ by means of divine inspiration, so on the basis of this new dispensation the significance of the entire past and the entire future becomes comprehensible.[2]

If you are interested in reading a deeper theological account on these things you can always crack open sections of Barth’s Church Dogmatics I/1 where he elaborates with his normal genius on the concept of kairos that Gillespie refers to. To be clear, Gillespie’s development isn’t with reference to Barth, per se, but Barth, for my lights, exemplifies this conception of Christian History better than any other theologian that I am aware of. It is important to understand that for the Christian, history isn’t simply ditch wherein we must attempt to cipher out its esse, nor is it simply a linear unfolding of brute hard facts (even though history is made up of factual and concrete events); but for the Christian, history, is always understood from its eschatological telos as the Christ always already sits front and center as the gravitas from whence all of history flows. If this is the case, then Christian history is less focused on the linear unfolding of events, and their reconstruction, per se, and more focused on the apocalyptic in-breaking of history’s ultimate reality in the risen Jesus Christ. In other words, for the Christian, history is about Jesus because Jesus is God’s history for the world yesterday, today, and forever.

I cannot think of a better passage of Scripture to end this post on, but from what we find in Colossians 1:15 and following. Here we see the doctrine of the Primacy of Jesus Christ, and His emphasis as the image of God, as the firstborn from the dead, from whence all of reality is oriented and grounded for time immemorial. I leave you with a passage that the Scotist thesis sees as central, and what some have called ‘elevation theology’:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

 

[1] Robert Dale Dawson, The Resurrection in Karl Barth (UK/USA: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007), 13.

[2] Michael Allen Gillespie, Hegel, Heidegger, and the Ground of History (Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 6-7.

Jesus is God’s Theology For Us: The Sinner’s Possibility for Doing Theology

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By God’s Grace theology is not contingent on the purity of the theologian, but instead it is contingent upon the purity of the object/subject of theological enquiry; that it is, it is contingent upon Jesus Christ and the triune God He reveals to the world. This is Good News, even evangelical, in the sense that if theology was contingent upon the purity of the theologian the Christian would never have the capacity to actually do theology; indeed, there would be no Christianity at all. And this is the point: theology is only possible because God in Christ re-conciled humanity to God by freely electing our humanity for Himself, and in this exchange, He has taken our reprobation, and given us His elect status in His resurrected and re-created humanity. The resurrection is where the possibility for theology obtains. Robert Dale Dawson describes how this is true as he explicates Barth’s theology of resurrection:

A large number of analyses come up short by dwelling upon the historical question, often falsely construing Barth’s inversion of the order of the historical enterprise and the resurrection of Jesus as an aspect of his historical skepticism. For Barth the resurrection of Jesus is not a datum of the sort to be analyzed and understood, by other data, by means of historical critical science. While a real event within the nexus of space and time the resurrection is also the event of the creation of new time and space. Such an event can only be described as an act of God; that is an otherwise impossible event. The event of the resurrection of Jesus is that of the creation of the conditions of the possibility for all other events, and as such it cannot be accounted for in terms considered appropriate for all other events. This is not the expression of an historical skeptic, but of one who is convinced of the primordiality of the resurrection as the singular history-making, yet history-delimiting, act of God.[1]

The point I want to draw out from this, in our present context, is to simply press the foundational nature of the resurrection of Jesus Christ for the possibility of ALL things; including theology. Genuinely Christian theology has an objective and holy ground in Christ alone. This is why theology is not contingent on the purity of the theologian; it is because the Gospel reality itself declares that all human being is filthy and wretched above all things, and this reality, even for the redeemed—simul justus et peccator—does not simply go away after someone spiritually becomes united to the living Christ. Indeed, and often, as a person comes into an intimate relationship with Christ, up against His holiness, the person, like Peter on the fishing boat, realizes how unclean they actually are before the One whom they stand. But this is the Good News, even though this is the case, even though we are indeed depraved sinners, God did not leave us as orphans in this far country of our disheveled un-humanity; He has made us new, indeed He makes us new every morning in the Sun of Righteousness who shines on us afresh and anew each moment by the Holy Spirit’s come-alongside and comforting and convicting work in our lives.

In sum: even though we daily sin, we have an Advocate with Father in Jesus Christ. It is this advocacy that allows the would-be theologian to have a continual possibility for seeing God afresh and anew; even in the midst of our ashen and fallen status as we continue to sin even as ‘saints.’ Even so, it still requires that we live in a repentant posture before God, from the vicarious repentance Christ has won for us in His resurrected humanity. In this repentance the sinful Christian, as partakers of the divine nature, in and from the vicarious humanity of Christ, has the capaciousness to enter into the banqueting table of God’s inner-life, through the evangel of Christ’s life for us; and even as sinners, we can bear witness to God’s Who for us in Christ—indeed, especially as we are sinners.

This gives me great hope. As the Apostle Paul once noted of himself: ‘I am the chief of sinners.’ I have this same sense of myself. Without the Gospel entering into this world in Jesus Christ there would be no possibility for theology. Even as we continue to sin as Christians, even daily, it is God’s Grace in Jesus Christ, that allows us to still do the work of theology; indeed, it is in this wisdom of God, in the wisdom of the cross, that the possibility for theology has come to a bountiful fruition. He is God’s theology for us, in us, and with us. He has trail-blazed a path for us, in His risen and ascended humanity, that leads us all the way into the inner recesses of His shared and triune life with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He continuously reaches down, and elevates us out of the crap-barrel of our bodies of death, that we might experience the pleroma, the very plentitudinousness of His ineffable yet revealed life. This gives hope for all Christians. All Christians can do theology precisely because God has first done theology for us in the free giving of Himself for us in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s affirmation for us that we can do theology; Jesus Christ is the assurance of things hoped for, things not seen, but seen for us in His Yes and Amen for us. This is why theology is possible: it is because Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, always living to make intercession for those who will inherit eternal life; indeed, He has included us in this elevated life of intercession and holy fellowship, of the kind that has been obtaining for all eternity in the filial and eternal bliss of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’s rapturous perichoresis and interpenetrating life of the Holy kiss.

[1] Robert Dale Dawson, The Resurrection in Karl Barth (UK/USA: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007), 13.

Theology is Futile; Seek God First

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Barth’s theology started as a theology of crisis. Luther’s as a theology of anxiety. I think I’ve come to realize, at least for me, that I have a theology of futility. What I mean is that there is an overriding sense that the theological task is often a matter of utter futility. It seems, that in order to be considered an actual theologian the would-be theologian must meet muster with the gatekeepers of the guild. It seems as if one is to be considered a theologian worth one’s salt that they must have faculty and altitude to publish essays, books, and articles the peers in the communio academia are willing to sign off on; or at least feel the weight to have to work through. I understand, we need to have regulative parameters for what counts as quality and even orthodox theological reflection. The trouble is that at the heights what comes with such reflection, and an ability to engage in it at a high level, is the temptation/sin of pride and elitism. This is not a new problem, but it is a problem that attends the academic context wherein the anthropological high point is one where the intellectualist and intellection is valued above all else.

Often the way the Christian theologian rationalizes their particular ghetto is to say that what they are doing is for the Church; this sounds noble, and may well be how the theologian thinks of their task. But I would suggest that typically, at a functional level, this rationale only has theoretical reality and not concrete as such. In other words, here is how things appear to me: It seems to me that most theologians are stuck in the ditch of publish or perish, and as such have given into the sub-culture or cottage-factory that that sort of drive has cultivated. I have read many publications from many fine theologians, but the reality is that I am probably only a miniscule percentage of people in the Church who will ever read these studies and publications. Besides the peers, there are only a handful of people in the churches who will have the desire and thus the capacity to even want to read such technical manuals. So, in what meaningful sense can the theologian claim to be doing what they are doing for the churches if what they are doing, particularly in their publications where they are building their professional CVs, has no traction with regular church people whatsoever?

Some theologians might point to the fact that as professors they are helping to develop a whole new generation of pastor-theologians who can make great impact on the Church at large. But if my time in seminary is any sort of gauge, if it had any sort of normativity tied into it, most of the guys and gals I was in seminary with would openly say they were only there to get the degree and then get into real life church ministry. If this is the case with most students at bible colleges and seminaries, then in what real life meaningful sense can the theologian-professor claim to be actually making an impact on a whole generation of forthcoming pastors, missionaries, chaplains and the like?

My point is to paint a realistic picture of the way things actually are, and not pretend like they aren’t this way. In my own North American evangelical context, I lift up my church sub-culture as exhibit A. The evangelical churches, in my view, are in total free-fall and collapse when it comes to people who are actually being challenged to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Why is this? Most likely it has to do with what I was noting previously: i.e. the guys and gals I was in seminary with are the norm; they junk their training in depth theological and exegetical training for what they consider to be real life pastoral ministry (meeting the felt needs and all). The onus might seem to be on the students, and pastors, and not the theologians per se. Even so, the reality is that I think many professor-theologians know this, and so find refuge among their peers at conferences and publications. And so, a ghetto is created; more than one. The professor-theologians have their own, which is characterized by an elitism and intellectualist norms. Whereas the pastors have their own ghetto, characterized by a focus on doing real life ministry that is willing to tip the hat at their seminary training here and there. And then you have people like me who live in the cracks and gutters of the various ghettos.

Maybe you can see why I see it all in rather dark hues, and melancholy tones. It seems like a drab landscape that the daily Christian simply cannot find any sort of raison d’être within. There is a futility to the theological task that says that what it is doing is for the Church. I am not saying that the theological task should not have benefit for the Church, but to make that the reason for the theological task can only leave us in-betweens feeling like it is all pointless. The theological task, in order to not fall prey to this glut of futility-feeling must be one that is done unto God in Jesus Christ alone! This is the only place I find consolation as a working-man theologian. When I attempt to think thoughts of God that aren’t first tinged by a doxological frame of heart, thoughts that are not seeking Him first and His righteousness I feel hopeless about what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it. It seems to me that if we do the theological task as unto God, that the benefit will organically come for the Church and world at large. That if we do the theological task as witness bearers to the majesty we are beholding in the dialogical and prayerful endeavor that theology is, then the bounty of this will be all the more for all those we come into contact and fellowship with.

But what I am describing denudes the normal matrices of what counts as normative for what it means to be a critical theologian. The elitism has no place to fester, and the ghettos have no air to live from, when theology is done before God who is Holy. This is the real test of whether I am encountering theological practice that I want to be a part of. Are the theologians I am interacting with so clearly enamored with the glory of God that the sort of organic overflow I was referring to previously is the primary characteristic? People in churches need to see these sorts of theologians. Ones who have come to sense the futility of the whole task, unless based alone on doing theology as an act of worship. It is only from this sort of acting that the charity that characterizes God’s heart in Christ will be borne witness to and thus spread into the lives of others in the churches. I am skeptical that but a few will actually come to the point that they see what they are doing ‘as straw’, as the ‘Dumb Ox,’ Thomas Aquinas said of his magnum opus, the Summa Theologiae. Theology is futile, but God is not. Once that acknowledgement is made, and begins to characterize the theologian’s mantle, then a theology that is genuinely done for the Church can be done; a theology that is first seeking Christ and His righteousness.

Don’t Get Your Theology from Twitter, Facebook, or the Blogosphere

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Getting our theology from Facebook or Twitter is unadvisable. I think at best these “social” mediums have the capacity to give us suggestive lines of theological thought to consider, but that should be their maximum capacity. I have been influenced, no doubt, to read various theological thinkers, over the years, because of the exposure I have received on social media. But as I reflect: my theological trajectory was really set from in-person influences that I had as a result of bible college and seminary; mostly seminary. My love for historical theology, and Barth’s theology, in particular, were given impetus by personal mentors and former profs of mine; none of this has come from Twitter, Facebook, or the Blogosphere.

Why am I saying this? Because what I have noticed is that theological social media is so rife with a litany of theological perspectives, and from so many varied motivations and contexts, that it doesn’t seem viable for such contextless, people-less (other than virtual instantiations) theological offerings to have the sort of concrete and real impact that only flesh and blood in-formers should have. In other words, when we are dealing with the weightiness of what theology portends to be, it seems to me that that should spring from real life communally oriented situations wherein a living breathing human being can speak meaningfully into our lives. Social media, by nature, is too random and ad hoc to offer this sort of context for personal theological development. I have seen younger guys and gals, as far as theological development, get chewed up and spit out by social media; in regard to the theological trajectory they open themselves up to. In other words, social media, to rip off of Rahner in a rhetorical way, allows for us to be ‘anonymous’ Christians in a way that can be damaging to our theological souls. We can get the whole panoply of theological traditions and iterations by a single swipe of the finger on our Twitter or FB feeds. Without a concrete ground, prior to this ‘swiping,’ we might be swept away with every wind or breath of theological teaching available to us in the worldwide web of the interweb. At the very least, without personalist concrete grounding, prior to our logging-in to theological social media, we open ourselves up to influences that may well confuse us, or marginalize the concrete work that the Lord would seek to do in our lives.

Don’t get me wrong, there is relative value to theological social media; at least my blogging for fourteen years ought to indicate to you that I really do believe this. But it all must be taken in with discernment, and a theological penchant for grains of salt. We should be getting the heft of our theological in-formation from fellowshipping at our local churches around Word and Sacrament (even though, as a Free church evangelical I know the sacraments as ordinances 😉 ); through reading developed works of theological importance; and most importantly through prayerfully reading and meditating on Holy Scripture. Surely, we can be aided in our development by interacting with others via social media outlets; but these can only be, at best, supplements that have marginal value in regard to their ability to spark critical angles that we might not have come to on our own (left to our own studies and devices). But my point in this post is to say: We shouldn’t be getting our theologies from social media! I don’t, and I don’t think you should either.