This is a good question. Most Christians don’t seem to like this term. They think “theology” is for the eggheads of the faith, and not very practical. Why study a bunch of high-sounding stuff that won’t help me day-to-day in my struggles to keep the faith and live a life of love? Most preachers don’t preach on theology, do they? It’s only for “theologians” who are stuck in their holy (or not so holy) “ivory towers” at universities and seminaries, right?
Well, if you identified with any of those questions and struggles, I have news for you! “Theology” is really just the sum of your Christian beliefs, or your specific belief on any given topic. Everyone “does” theology, then. Or rather, everyone “has” a theology; how they think God views things, or what they think God wants from them, from their reading of the Bible. The problem is, many Christians don’t really ‘own” their theology. That is, they have accepted someone else’s theology and then apply it every day to their lives without thinking much about it, and not having really thought it through, as to why they believe what they believe.
This “ownership” versus “borrowed” theology issue is one reason why we have denominations in Christianity. Each denomination (which literally just means the “name of a group”), simply defines a group of Christians who believe, or should believe, in a cohesive theology. Don’t get me wrong, though; all Christians MUST believe in the fundamentals of the faith (see “Nicene Creed” and note that I have used the Orthodox version – we will address that later), but can absolutely differ on how worship is expressed. Some groups have what is called a “high church” form of worship, where they use specific agendas (liturgy) and prayers, some hold to a “low church” form where, for lack of a better word, they allow a more liberal, or free flowing, approach to worship and prayer. We, as orthodox (not in the denominational sense) Christians, can worship is varying ways and still be orthodox (literally, right worship). Now, not all denominations will agree with me on that, but it is the most ecumenical (think common denominator) way of stating it.
One more thing about denominations. These differing expressions of Christian worship are not separate religions! Christianity is the religion, and the various denominations all participate in that one religion, if you will. I here use “religion” as a term to distinguish between the various approaches to god, not all of them being correct, and not all of them pointing to the same god. I believe Christianity is the only “correct’ religion, but when we speak of other religions, we mean Muslims, or Jews, or groups such as that.
Regardless of your denomination or non-denomination, your theology must be owned. You may agree wholeheartedly with a particular denomination, and that is fine, but own it nonetheless! A seminary professor of mine once said, “Theology is not theology until it is prayed.” That is the bottom line – what we do reveals what we actually believe.
So what I have been hinting at is our theology must have some parts that are essential, to put us in the Christian category of belief, and other parts that are non-essentials, or things we prefer. The latter are not essential to the definition of “Christian,” or more specifically orthodox Christian. Again, this is the subject of another discussion, orthodox versus non-orthodox Christians (if there can be a non-orthodox Christian).
Items that fit into the non-essentials of the faith, and vary between and among the denominations, are things like the type or quality of music we use to worship God, musical instrumentation type (or lack thereof), preaching style, dress, certain theological beliefs like speaking in tongues or God’s will to heal. I don’t think God cares about the form of our worship, as long as we do worship Him, and do it often.
Much more to come . . .
