Theology is the revolution
Posted at 1:23 PM
Mike Reeves helps explain what theology is, in the context of Judges 6:25-28 (quote taken from 9 minutes into DIY Theology):
Theology is smashing up idols – smashing up the idols in our mind and in our world. And not just smashing them up but replacing them with (v26) proper kinds of altars to the Lord our God: replacing them all with Jesus Christ. So the story here is: Gideon is surrounded by the idolatry of the Mideonite regime. and he begins the revolution against it by bulldozing Baal. And that is theology! It’s not just reading books, studying languages, whatever: it is about rebelling against the world order, not just the Mideonites little regime, rebelling against the whole world order as it rebels against God. Rebelling against it, bringing down the system, utterly replacing it: that is theology. Theology is the revolution.
Ranald Macaulay writes of Francis Schaeffer:
From the very beginning, then, Schaeffer had a mind for what he called “True Truth.” He loved the Bible and its message of salvation first and foremost because it is “true.” It accurately reflects the reality within which all human beings find themselves and against which, ultimately, they cannot revolt – try as they may.
The corollary of this was a sense of inescapable responsibility to unmask and challenge falsehood. Other religious and philosophical worldviews, he realized, are basically “lies” and/or distortions of the truth, as much in relation to the created order as in relation to God’s acts of salvation through history. So Schaeffer’s approach to “apologetics” was already “presuppositional” from the start. Begin with the Christian worldview and everything makes sense: Start elsewhere and nothing does.
Sometimes I’ll say “the Bible is true” with my mouth, but be relativistic in my thoughts, thinking that it’s not true for others. That makes no sense, though. “True Truth” is true for everyone.
Blaise Pascal wrote:
Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.
So often I don’t have confidence in any of these points. Our culture defines faith (a better term than religion for Christianity) as being irrational, only worthy of ridicule, something to be hated, to be got rid of so we can stop worrying and enjoy our lives, but above all, as dangerous, nonsensical falsehood.
But why do I listen to our culture, the “world order [that] rebels against God”? Later on in his talk (twelve minutes twenty seconds in), Mike Reeves says:
Christian theology is about clearing out all the junk in our minds that we’ve accumulated through years of just listening to the world, and replacing it with truth. It’s putting on the mind of Christ and so sifting out the lies in our culture. It’s washing our brains with the Mediator, rather than being brainwashed by the media.
God is a God who speaks. Ultimately, he has spoken to us “by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he also made the universe” (Hebrews 1:1-2). Without God’s revelation of himself, we can’t know True Truth. But God has revealed himself through Jesus, through the words of the Bible, through history, through creation – “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). The Teacher’s cry of “Meaningless!” in Ecclesiastes can be answered. We can have confidence in God’s truth, because it is True Truth.
Theology is the “true research: as we re-search reality afresh in the light of how God has revealed it to be” (Reeves again, twelve minutes in); “It’s walking through life with a torch on. It’s refusing to drift with the zeitgeist” (thirteen minutes). The world is constantly bombarding us with its own truth, but it doesn’t describe reality. The Bible makes sense of how things are. It’s true for everyone, and not just me. Christian faith is rational, and there are many ways I can show this to others; it will be ridiculed, because the message of the cross is foolishness, but I know that God’s folly is greater than man’s wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:18-25); it is something to be loved, because it shows how things really are, gives a wonderful solution to our greatest need, and shows us Christ, who is infinitely desirable; and it is true.
We Christians need to “wash our brains with the Mediator, rather than being brainwashed by the media” (cf. Romans 12:2). We need to think Christianly about our lives, our careers, our relationships; about politics, poverty and public morality. We need to “rebel against the whole world order as it rebels against God”. Theology should turn our lives upside-down, because it’s through theology that we see the world as is really is; we see ourselves as we really are; and above all, we see who the God of the universe really is.
It turns out that not only is theology incredibly practical, it’s incredibly exciting too.
(Read more by Mike Reeves: Fear and Loathing in Las Vagueness.)
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