{"id":8204,"date":"2011-11-11T11:11:57","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T16:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=8204"},"modified":"2013-05-31T18:51:24","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T02:51:24","slug":"worrying-about-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/worrying-about-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Worrying About Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NTI seem to have an affinity for authors whose names begin with two initials. C. S. Lewis<\/a>\"\" and G. K. Chesterton<\/a>\"\" are two of my favorite authors.<\/p>\n

The third has both confirmed and challenging my thinking for the past three years. He is N. T. Wright<\/a>\"\". Today I read his Inaugural Lecture for becoming the Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews<\/a>. The lecture is called “Imagining the Kingdom: Missions and Theology in Early Christianity.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

In this paper, he made the following statement, which is quite close to what I have been trying to say in my series on doctrinal statements<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I have come to worry about a…theology…that thinks the point is simply to ‘prove’ the divinity of Jesus, or his resurrection, or the saving nature of his death in themselves, thereby demonstrating fidelity to the Creeds or some other regula fidei<\/em>. In the gospels themselves it isn’t like this. All these things matter, but they matter because this is how God is becoming king. To prove the great Creeds true, and to affirm them as such, can sadly be a diversionary\u00a0exercise, designed to avoid the real challenge of the first-century gospel, the challenge of God’s becoming king in and through Jesus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He says with much more dignity and authority than I, but he is, after all, the leading New Testament scholar in the world. The idea is this: the Bible isn’t given to us so that we can prove our points, defend our doctrinal statements, and support our creeds. These things are important, but they are not our primary task, nor are they the primary purpose of Scripture.<\/p>\n

Scripture is given to help us imagine a new way of living, a way in which Jesus Christ rules and reigns over earth, a way in which God’s values of love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness become more dominant than the ways of power, authority, greed, and control.<\/p>\n

The gospels were not given so that we can know and defend all the truth about Jesus, as important as that is. The gospels are given to show us what God’s rule and reign looks like in one person, and in revealing this, embark us upon an imaginative adventure where we can similarly live like Jesus in our own lives, families, and neighborhoods<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NT Wright is worried about the aims of much theological research. 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