Post Series
0—Introduction
1—Revelation
2—The Creator and Creation
3—Humanity
4—Nature of Sin
5—Spread of Sin
6—Person of Jesus
7—Work of Jesus
8—The Church and Holy Spirit
9—Last Things
If you know me well or have spent any time around this blog, you know that I am an ideas person. I am particularly enamored by the ideas that surround Jesus and faith in him. Some people call this theology. I guess you could call me a theologian considering I’ve spent the last 3 years studying biblical, systematic, and historic theology and I’m finishing up a postgraduate Master of Theology degree in historical theology.
I like to consider myself a pastor-theologian, however, because I believe the primary task of a pastor is not institutional or organizational. The primary task of a pastor is theological in nature. Theology not for the sake of conquering knowledge of God or categorizing and systematizing Him, but rather for the sake of rooting and establishing a church community in the Christ-faith.
Many in the Church nowadays, particularly the Western kind, are well aware of the crisis faced by the contemporary Western church. But unlike many who argue the crisis of the church is institutional, organization, or cultural, I believe it’s deeper: as one book puts it, “The crisis of the church is simply the public face of the crisis in the church, which is a crisis of faith.” I believe part of the problem behind this crisis is a loss of the church’s identity as a theological community.
I am interested in trying to recapture an understanding of the pastor-theologian role by trying to do theology for the church. I’ve even made up a term for it: theoklesia. It’s a combination of the word theology (words about God) and the greek word ekklesia (church).
Theoklesia. Theology for the Church.
The last year or so I’ve spent a lot of time deconstructing the works of several contemporary ideas people: Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren, Pete Rollins, and more recently Rob Bell. While I think doing so has been a good thing and of benefit to several people I know, perhaps a somewhat more fruitful endeavor would be to actually offer something on my own.
Last year for my final duty at the church I was serving I wrote and led an adult sunday school study called God’s Story of Rescue. It was based on a book I wrote the year before and is basically a “Christian Faith 101” that took people through the major pieces of the Christian faith: the doctrines of revelation, God, creation, humanity, sin, the person of Christ, the works of Christ, church, Holy Spirit, and last things.
I thought it might be helpful and fruitful for some people to walk through this study. For the next few weeks I am going to post 9 separate posts outlining what I believe are the essentials to the Christian faith. Each post will basically walk through the main ideas of the particular doctrine of the day with questions and scripture to read. It could be a way for you or your community to dig a little deeper into the core pieces of the Christian faith, to the major acts of God’s Story of Rescue.
I am amazed that over last several years there has been a concerted effort to downplay the necessity to actually hold to certain beliefs about the Christ-Faith, while also completely re-imagining its pieces. Nowadays people are born into a universal goodness; Jesus was not really God but simply the highest representation of the character of God; At the cross, Jesus didn’t really objectively deal with the objective realities of evil, sin and death, but instead showed us the highest form of love, while giving the ol’ f@$# you finger to Rome; Hell isn’t for real or even contemplated as being forever; and the reality of rescue and re-creation through Jesus is simply true for everyone, regardless of explicitly faithing in Him as Lord and Messiah.
I say enough is enough (actually I did, a year ago). Yes, yes, yes God is very concerned with our behavior; He is very concerned if we love our neighbor and if we bless our enemies and if we take care of the orphan and the widow. If our beliefs do not manifest themselves into Jesus-centered behaviors then our faith in Him is positively fake. Yes, James says that and I get it.
But the thing is, people are also called to belief. There are pieces of God’s Story of Rescue that are real, that need to be believed, and also need to be shared with a broken, hurting, rebellious world. Perhaps this little effort can help give rise to a better understanding of what it means to believe, in the hopes that belief will translate into behaviors that scream loudly of the glorious riches we have through our rescue and re-creation in Jesus Christ.
