Monday, October 05, 2009

Comment on Part of "Jesus Manifesto"

This is my comment on part of "A Jesus Manifesto." Last I checked, it was comment #83.

You write:

–Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.–

These sound bites or factoids, while catchy, are misleading at best and just false at worst.
Jesus called us to love God with all our minds. To do that, we need to work our entire lives to develop a biblical theology, worldview, and morality. Yes, the living Christ is at the center; but to put the living Christ at odds with intellectual sanctification and the desire for intellectual consistency, coherence, and cogency is nothing less than a travesty.

1 comment:

pgepps said...

Yes. To argue that an effort to "do theology" which does not produce peace and love and unity among the brethren *with* sound teaching is unreliable would be sound. To argue that pursuing Christ means doing less than teaching soundly is to ignore the plain language of Christ and His Apostles in Scripture.