Reactionary theology

The history of the Christian theology is in fact owing to its reaction to its culture (for instance Justin Marty in response to persecution by Rome), its own influence upon sects of "Christianity"(say Gnosticism with it background in Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy), or independent groups within "Christianity" (like Arianism), or even reaction against the power in "Christianity" (the Protestant Reformation). In some sense, we can not know what is good till we see the ugly. Nor can we know what to think about till we are challenged.

This is the nature of things. And it hasn't changed today. The mainline church and the emergent church are a contemporary example (this fits both ways). However, there is a danger in these episodes that help us to define our theology. In social psychology, it is called group speak. When there are two rival groups, each group will gradually get more and more extreme. What happens is that a person in the group who is fighting the "evils" of the other group will make stronger remarks than were previously made against the group and the whole will agree and move a little more extreme. In response, the other group will respond with more extreme remarks. Over time, both groups are far cry from what they originally stood for. They become more reactionary. This has certainly been the case within Christian theology.

My original task with this blog was to try to recover the basics and reaffirm the good while perhaps throwing out what was more reactionary. However, this became a bigger task then I originally envisioned, and the purpose of this blog has since changed.

However, we are living in this reactionary type of theology today. For instance, on one blog some commenters (and not the blogger himself) have a seeming hatred for anything fundamentalistic. And among a lot of more "academic" blogs (though half of them and their supposed academic approach have left me yawning) there seems to be more reactionary against fundamentalism than merely seeing fundamentalism as a challenge. There are certain ones who approach it with a proper attitude (such as.... that English chap Tilling). But then I fear for a good portion of academic Christian blogging because it seems to be too reactionary.

The problem with reactionary theology is that our primary motivator become fighting a certain group instead of striving for truth. Instead of merely taking a group's beliefs as a challenge to further explore our own (and then from that respond for or against), we essentially react against the other group. In the end, we have subtly shifted towards an extreme, which is more likely to blind us than give us deeper knowledge.

In addition, it serves to divide Christians. One guy said he can't stand fundamentalists. Right there is the stuff that needless church dividing is made out of. MacArthur and other conservatives, if not fundamentalists, start lambasting the emergent church (I have my problems with some and think that a lot of them have essentially stripped Christianity of its true power, but there are some of them that seem good enough). The emergent church, a reaction to mainstream orthodoxy, has essentially run away from the mainline church. And so on. And instead of trying to work together to mold ourselves from the principles each other has (more often than not, they truth is somewhere in the middle), there comes a division and both go along their same paths they were going, just as ignorant as before.

In the end, we need a bit more grace. Otherwise, honestly, if we judge those groups as being in error from the truth and treat them harshly, and we are just as off in our own judgments of the truth, we can expect the same treatment from God.

I am not saying lets accept just any opinion and never say something is wrong. Farthest from that. But there has to be a spirit of grace and love. After all, love and grace are the highest ideals of our religion, not theology. Call a spade a spade. Just be sure as heck it is a spade before you do it, and make sure yourself don't have any spades in your hand. And then still treat them as Christians brothers till their fruits show them otherwise.

I'll jump off the soap box now. I am just tired of the utter gracelessness I see from some (maybe in saying that, I have lacked grace too). Thankfully there are some people in the blogosphere (bloggers and commenters) that encourage me.