Why Blog?

My illustrious girlfriend felt like my first post was a wee bit 'truncated' - i.e., it seems like it just abruptly ends without me giving an explanation for why I'm blogging. She was right - I didn't really finish because I was tired and wanted to get some sleep - so here goes. My purpose for blogging is simple - though I think it will be fairly difficult in practice. As I aluded to above, I think we are all theologians - in other words, we all think about God and relate to Him in one way or another. If God exists (and I believe He does), then how we relate to Him is the most important thing about us, since we owe our creation and existence to Him. I myself am a Christian - I believe the God of the Bible is in fact the one actual God who created this whole shooting match. However, there are two pervasive ideas about Christianity which seem quite common at present, but which really bother me.

First, I dislike the idea that Christianity is somehow an unintelligent thing to believe. A lot of non-Christians seem to think that being a Christian means that at some point you check your brain at the door. Some Christians don't really help matters by either resisting honest (and loving! see 1 Cor 13:1) debate and claiming such things as 'well you just have to have faith' - or by presenting overly simplified ideas and claiming them to be 'proof' that Christianity is true. This is to me completely wrong - even absurd. Such a view implies that faith and intellect are somehow incompatible - that a conflict between the two is inevitable and you must choose one or the other. I have two responses to this, first to Non-Christians, then to Christians:

To a non-Christian, I would ask - How much have you actually researched Christianity? There is a wealth of literature out there from leading intellectual minds who believe that Christianity is in fact true - have you ever considered reading them? (two recommended titles - "Can Man Live Without God?" by Ravi Zacharias, and "Reasonable Faith" by William Lane Craig). Do you really not believe because you have researched this and don't think there is sufficient evidence for Christianity, or is there something else that makes you not want to believe? If Christianity is true, your life (not just here, but in eternity) depends on what you believe. Are you gambling your eternal existence because you think Christianity sounds far-fetched, or you talked to a Christian once and they sounded ignorant, or you had a bad experience at a Church once? All of the items I just listed have one thing in common - none of them have anything to do with whether or not Christianity is actually true. Let me use an extreme example. Let's say that you were living in the year 1000 B.C. and believed that the earth was flat. A man walks up to you and tells you that the earth is in fact round. He then beats you up and steals your money. Now, the fact that (a) he harmed you, (b) he's clearly not a nice guy, and (c) you didn't have a good experience with him are irrelevant with regard to the earth's shape. Despite being a punk, what he said was objectively true. Bottom line - don't gamble your existence on irrelevant people. If you do some genuine investigation and try to let go of whatever preconceived ideas you have, you can at least feel like you have made a genuine effort. And since I believe God does exist, I think that if you do try and find Him, you will.

Now, to the Christian - don't belittle our faith by dumbing it down. Acting as if Christianity is not intellectually rigorous belittles God and is not consistent with Scripture. Do you really want a God whose existence and nature you think you can 'prove' with three bullet points? Is that really the God whose ways are above our ways and whose thoughts are above our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9)? The Bible shows us clearly that the inability of men to believe in God has nothing to do with our minds - God's revelations to us in creation (Romans 1:19-20) and conscience (Romans 2:14-15) show that intellectually we should see God as He is and Him His due (thanks, praise, and obedience) - it is our hearts which are sinful, darkened (Romans 1:21), and blinded by Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4). Please note that I am NOT saying that you can 'prove' your way to God or convert anyone solely through debate or other intellectual means. I'm actually trying to say just the opposite - we've got a heart problem, not a head problem. Christianity can therefore be shown to be perfectly reasonable intellectually, and God can use this fact to help bring people to faith in Christ. All of the other aspects of evangelism (most notably genuine love for non-Christians and a life that truly reflects God's goodness) are of equal or greater importance - I'm only saying that intellect is a tool which can be used by God in our favor - don't surrender this ground to the enemy!

Bottom Line - a genuinely faithful and humble heart is strengthened, not opposed, by a curious, dynamic, and engaging intellect.

My second pet peeve is the idea that Theology is some sort or arcane, academic concept that has nothing to do with real life. Again, this is total bunk. Theology is real - that is, it is for real people and should affect how we live our daily lives. Knowing who God is and how He relates to us is not just some pie-in-the-sky theory. You can make it that, but then you're not trying to really relate to God - you're just trying to be smart and cool. In other words, you don't want a relationship, you want an ego-stroke. It's like when you see some old rich guy walking down the street with his 20 year old trophy girlfriend. Someone who talks all day about God's attributes without actually relating to Him in life is basically walking down the street with an intellectual God idea on their arm, dressed up with fancy words and impressive jargon rather than a Louis Vuitton bag or Prada heels. Both Old Rich Guy and Captain Jargon just want to be the coolest guy in the room. I'm as guilty as anyone. If you're a Christian sinlge guy, you've probably had that moment when you were at Starbucks and someone (usually the quiet guy with the quirky, casual style who plays acoustic guitar) said something that sounded deeply profound, complete with memorized Bible Verse or C.S. Lewis quote, and you really wished you had said that. Not because you really wanted to relate to God better, but because every girl there gave Quirky Guy that longing look - that "Wow, he's really spiritual and I really wish he'd ask me out on a date that we won't call a date because dating is sinful" . . . " I didn't want to know theology so that God could transform my life for His glory and my ultimate benefit - I wanted to know theology so everyone would find me deep. And my point is that real theology is not meant to be like this. It's not about winning the Jeopardy Theology Challenge - it's about having a relationship with God. This sort of theology has to do with how you eat your cereal in the morning and what you think about that guy who just bumped into you because he was yakking on his cell phone and the amount of ime you spend checking your Hotmail at work. Our ideas about God, i.e. our theology, is not to be ignored and left for some guys at a seminary somewhere, and it's not there to give you or me some idle coffeehouse chatter. Why? We need to know theology in a personal and real way because we need to know God in a personal and real way. To use another analogy - I want to know my girlfriend because I love her, not because I want to convince anyone else that I'm smart enough to know what she's like. Conversely, how much do I really love my girlfriend if I claim to have warm feelings for her but I don't really want to know very much about her? How far would that get you on a date? God is a lot more important than my girlfriend.

To summarize: Theology is not about ideas traded by a few intellectuals somewhere to make themselves feel cool - theology is something that we all need to know and that we all need to live, so that by so doing we may have life, and have it to the full.

These are the two basic ideas I want to discuss. They are not novel, but are near and dear to my heart. Now, off to bed again . . .

Why Cowboy Theology?

So why on earth have a blog entitled 'Cowboy Theology?' I'm not a cowboy - the closest I've been to the 'Prairie' is a bank called 'Bank of the Prairie' that sits next to a burger joint I frequent in my hometown. The last time I rode a horse I was eight years old, and it was a pony named Trixie whose top speed approached 4 miles per day or so. I'm also not a theologian - I've never formally studied theology - though I am a big fan of the Bible and enjoy reading it, thinking about it, and debating it (lovingly of course) with friend and foe. But I wanted to call this blog Cowboy Theology simply because I think we're all theologians, whether we admit it or not. Everybody from a cowboy on a horse in Wyoming smoking a Marlboro, to a stockbrocker in New York, to some American guy living in London with nothing better to do than write this (me), is a theologian. This goes against our usual image I think - I doubt anybody thinks theology and the first thing that comes to their mind is Clint Eastwood with that "I'm going to show you my cast-iron testicles before I beat you to death with them" look on his face. We generally think of old men with trimmed beards and pipes debating archaic ideas that no one cares about in a dusty bookshop somewhere. But here's the thing. Consider this definition for theology (per Dictionary.com):


"The field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God's attributes and relations to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth; divinity."


In other words, the study of God, what He's like, and how He relates to the universe. Since the vast majority of people believe in some form or concept of God (no matter how varied - and don't worry, we'll get to the atheists in a minute), this would make all of us, to some extent, theologians - we've all amassed some amount of infomation regarding God's existence, what He's like, and how He relates to the universe, and formed a system of beliefs.


Now one might counter that this is contingent on God's existence - in other words, you don't have an opinion on what God's like if you don't think He exists. But we can't escape that way either. Why? Well, if one does not believe in God, one is saying something about what God's like (non-existent) and concluding then that no relationship is necessary (talking to God is about as productive as talking to an orange if one is atheistic). In other words, even if you are an Atheist, you are still taking a theological view. Many athiestic philosophers disagree with me on this point (that atheism is an affirmative belief), but others have argued that one out so I'll leave it alone at present.


The bottom line is, we need to think about what God is like, how He relates to the universe, particularly ourselves - because that will determine how we relate to Him. Here's hoping a crackpot like me has something to contribute!