I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.”\u00a0 It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed.\u00a0 I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done.\u00a0 Here’s the first part of the introduction.<\/p>\n
Welcome to \u201cThe Beauty of the Christian Faith.\u201d\u00a0 In this class, we\u2019ll explore together the contents of the historic Christian faith.\u00a0 In formal terms, this class is an introduction to Christian \u201ctheology\u201d and \u201cdoctrine.\u201d\u00a0 Our goal is to grow together in knowledge and wisdom so that our hearts are moved deeper into worship of the God who made us and loves us.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheology\u201d and \u201cdoctrine\u201d are dusty, intimidating words.\u00a0 So why do we call this class \u201cThe Beauty of the Christian Faith?\u201d\u00a0 When we say something is \u201cbeautiful,\u201d we mean that it is pleasing to experience, possesses symmetry and balance, and stirs up emotional responses of wonder, awe and delight.\u00a0 As you begin to study Christian theology and doctrine, you\u2019ll come to understand that our faith is, indeed, \u201cbeautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, theology and doctrine are not always easy to understand.\u00a0 Quite often, the study of theology and doctrine disturbs settled assumptions and old ways of living.\u00a0 This sort of \u201choly disruption\u201d is sometimes how God draws us closer to Himself.\u00a0 You will also find that, although most Christians historically have agreed on many things, there have always been areas of significant, unresolved disagreement.\u00a0 This tension invites us to remain humble, and teaches us to love others.\u00a0 In fact, with patience, diligence, prayer, and community, you will see that even these unsettling aspects of our faith are part of its powerful beauty. You will also learn to develop your own perspectives, within the broad stream of historic Christianity, so that you can faithfully commend the truth of Christ in mission to the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheology\u201d is the human effort to think and speak about God.\u00a0 In a sense, everyone is a theologian.\u00a0 Everyone must in some way answer the question whether there is a God.\u00a0 The act of answering this question is an act of theology, even for someone who concludes there is no God.\u00a0 Anyone who believes God exists inevitably must have some ideas about what God is like.\u00a0 This, too, is theology.\u00a0 Theology is an unavoidable human practice.\u00a0 It is, in fact, part of what makes us \u201chuman.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChristian<\/em> theology\u201d is the discipline of thinking and speaking about God with the community of the Christian Church.\u00a0 Each of the components of this definition is important.<\/p>\n Christian theology is a human<\/em> act of thinking<\/em> and speaking<\/em>.\u00a0 All theologies are constructed with the limitations of the human mind and human language.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t mean that all theologies are equally valid, but it does mean that all theologies are in some way provisional.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t mean that we discard or reinvent the concepts and definitions received from the past, but it does mean that we continually return to those concepts and definitions with new context and seeking fresh insight.\u00a0 Faith always seeks understanding.<\/p>\n Christian theology is a communal<\/em> act.\u00a0 No one can practice authentic Christian theology alone.\u00a0 The community with which Christian theology is practiced is the Christian Church<\/em>.\u00a0 We say that theology is practiced with<\/em> the Church to emphasize that no individual stands above the Church.\u00a0 We are each, as followers of Christ, members of his community, his \u201cbody\u201d (Ephesians 5:30).\u00a0 We learn from each other and support each other, and all of us together stand in the presence of the \u201cgreat cloud of witnesses\u201d who have gone before us (Hebrews 12:1).<\/p>\n We also say theology is practiced with<\/em> the Church because Christian theology is an act of worship.\u00a0 The purpose of Christian theology is not to win debating points or to impress others with our knowledge.\u00a0 The purpose of Christian theology is to exalt and adore and wonder and grow in faith, hope and love, in the presence of our good and beautiful God.<\/p>\n Finally, Christian theology is a discipline<\/em>.\u00a0 It takes effort and practice and study.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t always come easily.\u00a0 Its apprentices are many and its masters are very few.<\/p>\n The sources of Christian theology are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.\u00a0 Every variety of Christian theology draws on each of these sources.\u00a0 One of the first decisions we must make when thinking theologically is how to understand the nature of, and relationship between, these sources.<\/p>\n If you grew up in the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches, for example, you might have believed that Christianity is all about \u201ctradition.\u201d\u00a0 If you grew up Protestant, particularly in an independent evangelical church, you might think \u201cscripture\u201d is the only source that matters.\u00a0 In fact, these poles are distortions.\u00a0 Neither pole properly reflects the interplay of sources in the historic Christian faith.<\/p>\n It is true that Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants have had very different views about the role of scripture and tradition in relation to each other, and that this remains one of the basic differences between these streams of Christian faith.\u00a0 But properly understood, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism each emphasize both scripture and tradition as sources of theological authority, and each also in different ways draw on reason and experience.\u00a0 The perspective we will develop in this section is broadly Protestant, but we will also interact with Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.”\u00a0 It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed.\u00a0 I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done.\u00a0 Here’s the first part of the introduction. Welcome Welcome to \u201cThe Beauty of the Christian Faith.\u201d\u00a0 In this class, we\u2019ll explore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty-of-the-christian-faith","category-spirituality","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-zs","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sources of Christian Theology<\/h2>\n
\u00a0Introduction<\/h3>\n