Theology is Dangerous

Yawn...that's the response.
Right?

It's never a good idea to start a blog with "theology" in the title.  Who cares?

Theology is what scholars do.  Theology is for academics.  Theology doesn't make a difference in our lives...right?  Ummm, actually just the opposite is true.  Theology is extremely important because it consistently impacts our lives in unseen ways.  Theology is often a behind the scenes force that drives our interactions with one another personally, communally, and globally.  It affects our attitudes towards those that are different from us and the ways in which we view ourselves.  Theology can be liberating or damning.  It can be life-giving or life-stealing.  It can produce communities of compassion or compel people to hate-filled actions.  Theology is not a neutral subject handled by professional theologians, rabbis, imams, or gurus.  Theology is what is done anytime God, faith, or religious belief is at stake.  Theology, yes even in a secular culture, is the way in which people make sense of their ultimate concerns in this world.  What is done with theology makes a difference. Theology is dangerous.

Theology is dangerous?  Yes...because there is a lot at stake.  In many cases, at many times throughout history, and even presently, theology either bolsters or diminishes the possibility for human flourishing in this world (and in some traditions - especially the Christian tradition), beyond.

How is it dangerous?

Theology is Dangerous in Bad Ways:

1.)  Prejudice:  It can be used as a tool to defend and give credibility to our already existing prejudices and biases.  We are not neutral beings.  We have prejudices towards other people for multiple reasons.  Unfortunately, it is possible to use theology as the system of defense for those beliefs, reading our prejudices into the belief system.  Anytime we use God to substantiate our hate-filled agendas, we must recognize the dangerous elements of our theologies.  We must also understand that hate-mongers will use theology to recruit and enlist people to their cause by using sacred texts and religious traditions as the platform for their agendas.

2.)  Prosperity:  Theology can be used to baptize our selfishness, materialism and consumerism.  That's the problem with the Prosperity gospel.  Within that theological framework, God is nothing more than a vending machine in the sky with knobs to be pulled to ensure we get the "best life now" that we can possibly achieve.  Theology becomes the resource to take our already self-centered interests and make them the interests of God.  At the same time, broken systems that keep people bound and suffering continue to exercise limiting affects on the lives of those people.  Who cares?  Can't change those things, right?  Maybe those suffering at the hands of injustice need to believe harder that God is "speaking abundance over their lives right now."  Sorry...I just threw up in my mouth.

3.)  Spiritual Abuse:  Theology can be used as a system to oppress people by inciting the judgement of a wrath-filled angry God who lives to drop the gavel of judgement on the heads of the infidel, the sinner, the heathen, the pagan or whomever else with whom you choose to disagree.  God is used as a tool of judgment.  It's present in corporate political language, from behind pulpits, and in the lives of families.  God is imagined as angry, rash, and ready to condemn.  Any religious action is taken out of obligation and fear.  To question those that propose such theology is met with an immediate reaction that they are defending the "purity" of right belief.  They are on the side of God.  Doubt or questions means that you are enemy to God and will suffer.

4.)  Lack of Concern:  Theology is often concerned with eternal affairs, with heaven, paradise, Nirvana, or whatever.  Many religious participants only set their minds on things above.  Much theology is so heavenly minded that it is no earthly good.  Churches, synagogues, and mosques fill up with adherents and yet the communities around them remain unchanged.  They don't affect change because their only concern is arriving at the pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow.  Such spiritualism authorizes a lack of concern for those issues that surround us daily that we have the ability, resources, and hope to affect change.

So...yeah.  Theology can be dangerous in bad ways...and this is just a sampling.  No wonder why so many will have nothing to do with overt religious practice.  They've witnessed the life stealing affects.

But wait...Theology can be Dangerous in a Good Way!
1.)  Challenge:  Theology can be the means in which our already existing presumptions and attitudes are called into question.  What if the God we speak of isn't a God that we've imagined, concocted, or created to serve us and our agenda?  What if the revelation of God in this world challenges the life-stealing agendas of so many?  What if God didn't register for either party on His voter ID card?  What if God sees all ideologies, programs, and politics as fraught with imperfections and possibilities for injustice?  What if our religious traditions (and here I am thinking especially of the Christian Tradition as it relates to Jesus) speaks a word that challenges our assumptions about one another?

2.)  Subvert:  Theology can and has been used to subvert oppressive structures in society that steal life from the vulnerable.  Theology has the potential to draw together communities of resistance, who given the hope of change can stand up against tyranny, prejudice, and injustice.  It can subvert systems, structures, and cycles by refusing to play old games (by turning the other cheek.)

3.)  Draw together Communities of Compassion:  Theology can be a means of calling together groups of people who share the belief in a reconciling, redeeming God whose heart breaks for the broken and suffering.  For those that surrender their selfish desires and presumptuous/pitying attitudes, it can muster a community who share in life together for the purpose of love, mercy, provision, peace-keeping, bridge-building, and justice-establishing.  Theology has the power to challenge the societal arrangements based on economics, religion, race, and ethnicity, and instead establish a community that shares life together.

4.)  Proclaim a Counter-Kingdom:  Perhaps, especially in the Christian Tradition, the most dangerous way (in a good way) that theology can be deployed is in its proclamation of a counter-Kingdom.  Within the Christian tradition is the belief that Jesus proclaims a Kingdom that challenges and dismantles old power structures.  It refuses to leave empires or kings, presidents or tyrants as those that have the ultimate power to determine the trajectory of humanity's future.  Instead, the Kingdom of God has already done that.  It is a future when evil is undone, chaos is conquered, hate is eliminated, where God's presence is our all in all, of new creation and inexpressible joy.  This counter-Kingdom is the hope of theology that keeps believers leaning into a future much different than our present situation, refusing to use out-dated tactics to change things or control situations.  It is dangerous because it is a threat to any person, empire, nation, political or economic ideology that thinks it sets on the throne.

Theology matters.  How are you using theology?