Why I Don’t Write More About Theology

For as long as I’ve blogged, I’ve intended to write more about theology. It’s what I spend my days studying. It’s what I’ll spend my life studying. But, I just never seem to get around to it. There are a lot of reasons. One is that, well, it’s what I spend most of my time doing, so it’s not always what I want to spend my free time writing about. Another is that when you study something so closely, it can be surprisingly difficult to step far enough back from it to explain it articulately to people who don’t exist in that same bubble. Laziness is yet another reason. But, probably the main reason I don’t write more about theology is that I’ve had a really hard time finding the right tone.

Growing up, I spent most of my time in my mom’s kind of religious household where we went to Lutheran church most Sundays. But, I spent every other weekend in my dad’s non-religious household where we never went to church. My mom remarried when I was 10, and we switched to my step-dad’s First Assemblies of God church where the old ladies wore flashy clothing and the youth group kids raised their hands in song. It wasn’t what I was used to and I didn’t belong, but I went to make my mom happy and because I had this strange belief that it mattered somehow that I’d made the sacrifice to get up early and make it inside that church building.

As a teenager, there was a part of me that wanted more. Sometimes I’d pick up my copy of The Adventure Bible with my name engraved on the front cover. I’d received it as a gift at my Lutheran confirmation. I’d flip it open to random sections and read for a while. I gave the youth group another try, but it didn’t feel right. Then one day I was in a used book store and I came across the first book of the Left Behind series. I read it. It didn’t scare me quite like it seems designed to. I didn’t run away screaming about the Antichrist or the Apocalypse, but I did learn something. All you had to do was say that you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. That was it, but it seemed important. I wondered why no one had told me this before!

I read the rest of the Left Behind books that were available at that point. I mean, they’re pretty interesting books, but I didn’t totally buy into the whole thing. I wasn’t raised as an apocalyptic and I found it hard to believe that any God who could be called good would really torture people with locusts and evil leaders. I still wanted more, but I fell backwards into apathy again.

Then I moved away to college. Something happened to me in that first year. That feeling of wanting more went from a vague inclination to absolute desperation. I started reading the Bible from the beginning. I went to campus church services. I tithed my 10%. I talked to God constantly. My beliefs were a strange mash up of things I’d learned growing up, of general Golden Rule-type ethics, and supernatural/fundamentalist stuff I’d picked up from the First Assemblies church and the Left Behind books. I wrote obsessively in my journal about how I just had to have more faith, about how God had a plan, about how God wouldn’t give me more than I could handle. I was always saying that God was the greatest author of all.

I was unhappy that year, so I moved home to finish school. I was a lot less desperate and I slowly became a lot less religious. But, I continued to go to church with my mom and step-dad. There were a few things along the way that didn’t sit right with me. A tangent from the pastor about the ills of Harry Potter. An off-handed remark from another of the pastors about homosexuality. But, it wasn’t until the 2004 Presidential election that things really started crashing down. By that point in my education, I’d stopped pretending to be anything but a full-fledged liberal. I didn’t think this to be at odds with my religious beliefs. I was naive, and I could hardly imagine a Christian being anyone who didn’t support helping other people out through whatever means, including government.

As I’ve said before, I was devastated when Bush was reelected. And when we went to church that next Sunday and the pastor said condescendingly that those who’d voted for Kerry weren’t bad people and we shouldn’t judge them too harshly, I was in tears. I walked out that day knowing I wouldn’t be back. But, I didn’t question my religious beliefs. I’d reached them independently of that church where I’d never belonged.

That January, I was just an English major trying to meet her degree requirements and I found myself in Introduction to Theology. Truth be told, I didn’t even know what theology was. I probably looked it up in the dictionary before going to class; too bad I didn’t know then that every intro theology class ever begins with the question, “What is theology?” I don’t know what I was expecting, but by the end of that very first class session, I’d been thrown head first in a major theological crisis.

I’ve heard people describe beliefs in layers. There are the things you believe with little consequence or investment: that Dr. Pepper is the best pop (not soda), that boy bands are legit musical groups, that Fridays are for eating out and not for left overs. There are the things you believe more deeply: that women should have the right to choose, that pizza is really the best. Then there are the uncompromisables: that God is good, that I have a responsibility to other creatures, that I am free. The surface beliefs aren’t hard to question. Faced with convincing evidence, I didn’t have any trouble changing my mind. But, questioning the deeper beliefs was painful. People, especially non-religious people, often make the mistake of thinking that religion is something that can be relegated to its own sphere. But, theological beliefs get at the core of what you think about the world and how you live in it. That’s not the religious sphere–that’s everything!

There were things I believed deeply, but even as a junior in college had never thought about critically. You don’t just give that stuff up without a fight, but I could no longer believe honestly in some of the things I’d clinged to before. The crisis comes when you think, “what’s left to believe in?”

I survived the theological crisis more than I overcame it. I’d completely deconstructed my beliefs and building them back up again has taken years. I kept studying theology, because it felt more important and engaging than anything I had ever encountered before. Now, nearly five years later, I still find it just as engaging. I don’t regret for a second having questioned and broken down my beliefs, but I also haven’t forgotten how difficult and painful that was. It was like leaving one world behind, not knowing if there was anything on the other side.

That brings me back to the point of this post. I’m going to say this knowing that I risk sounding like I’ve got a superiority complex. That’s the point, actually. It’s hard for me to write about theology without very possibly offending some of the people who read my blog. Sure, faith is personal, but it’s not just personal, and I can’t pretend that when I argue for one thing, I’m not at the same time saying that I think a bunch of other people are wrong. It seems like I should be able to just share what I think and leave it at that, but every time I attempt, it comes across much more aggressively than that and the only way to soften what I have to say is to add all kinds of disclaimers or say what I don’t believe: that this is just my opinion and it has no bearing on your opinions. To be clear, I think there is a ton of room for different and even conflicting religious experiences;  I’m just saying that we can’t pretend that what we each believe doesn’t have consequences for other people.

The classical definition of theology is “faith seeking understanding.” To me, that’s where it’s at and in many ways, I’ve intellectualized my faith more than a lot of people. Maybe I’ve read too much Tillich, but I don’t buy that definition of faith that it is somehow at odds with reason. To believe something in the face of overwhelming evidence is anti-intellectual whether we’re talking science or religion. Reason is not the enemy and I don’t believe people should leave some of the most important things they believe unexamined because they know they can’t stand up to scrutiny.

Faith isn’t just emotional either. If there’s no substance to back it up, then it will not be powerful enough to motivate change or a certain way of life. What I’m saying is that faith is by no means just an intellectual pursuit, but you shouldn’t have to check your brain at the door either. For years and years, I checked my brain at the door, believed things that lacked logic, and ignored my experiences in this world–all so I could hold on to these ideas about God and the world that had been handed down to me.

That’s why I want to be a professor of theology. I want to challenge my students the way my professors have challenged me. To me, nothing is more important or exciting.

But you’re not my students. Not everyone is comfortable having their beliefs challenged, especially when they weren’t expecting it. At this point, I’m very used to it. There is almost nothing left of my uncompromisables. But, I remember how painful that process was for me. Maybe some of you don’t get that and you think I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but if you’re highly sensitive like me or if you’ve only ever been taught to believe one way, then you might take offense even if you know I didn’t mean any. Make no mistake, I want to push people and I think we should all examine our beliefs constantly, but I don’t know if this is really the best place for it where there’s not really a conversation unless you initiate it.

The reason I worry about offending people is not because I think my beliefs or methods are offensive, but because it’s so hard to get the right tone. Religion is a unique field of study in that no one is comfortable leaving it up to the experts (rightly so). Religious people (and, surprisingly, many non-religious people as well) hold their beliefs close to the chest, but, as I’ve noticed since I started studying theology, many people don’t know how to talk about what they believe, especially with someone who believes something else. What I want more than anything (for the simple reason that I enjoy it) is for people to talk about theology.

Being open minded doesn’t mean keeping what we believe to ourselves. It also doesn’t mean accepting everyone else’s beliefs as equally true. It just means being willing to entertain ideas other than your own. But, of course, it’s hard to entertain alternative ideas without having your own challenged. Thank goodness, because what’s the point in believing something you can’t talk about or challenge? My beliefs about God and the world are ever evolving as I learn more and experience more.

So, I’m going to try to write more about theology, skipping the apologies and disclaimers, because I know you don’t need any of that. You might disagree with me. You might even be offended. But, I hope you’ll be willing to talk, because talking about theology is what I love to do.