Theology on Blogs Continued: Constructive Snippets, Cohesive Thoughts

A couple days back I wrote a short entry on the fact that theology is always on the move, and must be adjusted to the times in order that it makes sense of larger more agreed upon truths within our local contexts. Because of this I think it would be helpful to “write theology on blogs and wikis” so that we can invite everyday people to the conversation about God.

When I use the word “theology” in the previous paragraph I am in part referring to the “process of thinking, talking and writing about God.”  Theology in this light, is a process, its part of our everyday life and includes the most hard-fast dogmatic things we believe to the things we hold to more loosely. Theology, as a word and as a science, has many meanings, this one I offer above is one of them; the rest I can’t fully cover here if I am to keep my self-imposed 800 word limit.

Anyways — this led to a very engaging conversation which asked questions like:

What is theology?

What is the value of theology?

What’s the difference between dogma/doctrine?

How is theology formed?

All of these questions are worthy of exploration and the comments from the previous post have some great insights.  Since this previous post was about “doing theology on blogs,” I thought it might be good to revisit those comments in post form.  Here are a few capsules for us to consider, I think I included a “constructive” snippet  from everyone.

Also, I do not think that theology is “static??? as much as our expression of it needs to be constantly evolving and updating in order to successfully engage the world around us. That is the true goal of the theologian as I see it: finding new ways to express timeless truth.  Kevin Bianchi

1 John 2:27 tells you plainly about all you need: “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.???
The indwelling of The Holy Spirit is all any man needs to understand God’s Word. If you haven’t got that Spirit then you will be better off putting the Holy Bible back on the shelf and leaving it there, for you will never understand it.  Yes2truth

I hear what you are saying, but I am convinced that there is no theology but borrowed theology. Whether we derive/borrow our theologies from sacred texts, learned forebearers, or active communities, they come from somewhere…Might I suggest that “how we speak about it, understand it, apply it, and how we form our communities??? does not “stem from our ‘theology’???; it IS our theology?  Chris Spinks

The distinction already seems to have been made in distinguishing theology from “timeless truth,??? but I’m wondering how, in a congregationalist polity like most of us seem to be in, we know one from the other. In other words, are communal discussions like this supposed to extrapolate from timeless truth, or to arrive at them? Or both?  Camassia

I’m not sure that there are no new ideas (the certainly are very few) but I do agree that our theology is pretty much all borrowed.This is itself is not bad. In fact I would say it is very positive, many churches have lost their way because they are so consumed by what God might be saying now that they forget what He has already said. I would imagine He gets pretty sick of repeating himself every other generation.  Rob Borley

I’m under the impression that theology is pretty non-negotaiable and is just that the “science of God.??? I think we too oftentake verses and scriptures out of context just to say fit them into our daily routine. Kristen

There is much to be deduced from these comments, this blog as an open forum allows us to work out some of these ideas, would it be possible to form some cohesive thoughts through an excersize like this?  What else can be gained through this?  Especially if true witness and the best theology is done within community?

Related Post Elsewhere: Interpretation 2.0

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