Theology

God is big.

God cannot be put in a box. (Physical or otherwise.)

I just looked up the definition of thelogy and got a bit of a chuckle. Dictionary.com defines Theology (from American Heritage) as:

"The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions."

Since God lives outside of nature (i.e. God is a superset of nature) then can one actually say that God HAS a nature? Or IS God a nature?

And is the nature of God different from religous truth? I should hope not.

Here it comes...the best part....rational inquiry into religous questions!!!!

So, if you have religous questions, and you seek to answer them, you are studying thelogy. If you "rationally" explore religous questions, you are studying theology.

This has been a number of years ago, now, but I was standing in the religion section at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. I had a stack of Bonhoeffer books and was looking at something by Henri Nouwen. An older man came up to me and asked me about Bonhoeffer. I had recently read "The Cost of Discipleship" and entered into a discussion with him. We talked about Paul Tillich and Systematic Theology, Luther, Bonhoeffer, Nouwen, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, and a handful of other authors. He then asked me, "Where do you pastor?" When I told him I was just a layman, I thought he was going to fall over. He was an Episcopalian pastor and said, "If I had parishioners who could be half as well read as you, I'd be a happy man."

Theology is not new to me. I love it as a topic. However, I believe that theology is more than just a study of the nature of God. By learning the nature of God, and learning to interpret His original plan for creation, humanity, nature, etc., I think I learn more about myself and how I am to relate to ALL of these things.

I'm currently reading Chuck Colson's "new" book - God and Government. It's a rewrite/update of "Kingdoms in Conflict" from 20 years ago. I read KiC when I was in College. So, given that the U.S. is currently in a war in Iraq, Israel is attacking Syria without support from the U.S., and Osama Bin Laden is threatening to attack Pakistan, AND next year is an election year, I thought it would be interesting to see what Colson has to say. I wish I had something valuable to say about the book so far. I'm nearly half way through it, and still have yet to get any insight into what God thinks about pre-emptive strikes, and what the role of God in human politics is or should actually be. Oh, I have my own opinions, don't get me wrong. I was just hoping to learn something. I'll keep you all informed. Basically, Colson and I don't see eye to eye (at least from his writings) on some things. However, I respect him enough to read the book. HA HA HA HA.

By studying what I think God's view of human politics is, it helps me better understand how to relate to people, cultures and situations around me. That's theology.

Okay, I can see some of you saying, "Uh, oh. Brad's going to tell us how to vote." or "Brad is about to tell us that the election should be about abortion, gay marriage, or even the war is bad!" Well, you're wrong. I am a firm believer that you cannot legislate morality. Colson even goes so far as to say in his book that the difference between politics and the church is that politics thinks that by changing society the people will change, and the church should believe that by changing the people will change society. It's dichotomous. So, I'm not going to tell you how to vote. I will just say this, "VOTE!!!!" I believe in the democratic process, and the model that is laid out in our constitution, but if you don't vote, you don't get to complain!!!! You can't win if you don't enter! Enough of my rant on politics. (Poly meaning "many" and Ticks" meaning blood-sucking pests) My point is that understanding what we can of God's plan makes the whole political race thing a non-issue. I don't want to change society to change the people. I want to change the hearts of the people, and society will change as a result.

Wait, I said I was done with my rant on politics, didn't I?

Okay, so back to theology. What are some of the theological things you don't understand? What are some of the doctrinal things you struggle with? What do you think about? Iron sharpens iron....let's talk.