I recently heard about a conversation between a father and his son concerning theology. The son is a university student. He struggles with the non-Christian worldviews taught at the university. He told his father that he studies theology for answers. He said that an intellectual pursuit of God is an important part of serving God. In response, the father cited 1 Corinthians 8:1, where Paul writes that “knowledge puffs up” while “love builds up.” In effect, he counseled, “Son, we don’t need theology.”

This kind of bias against theology―and anti-intellectualism generally―sometimes appears among evangelicals, particularly among fundamentalists, charismatics, and Pentecostals. The assumption seems to be:

Too much thinking is dangerous.
Too much thinking about God is especially dangerous.
Studying theology is thinking about God too much.
Therefore, theology is dangerous and should be avoided. (It is boring too!)

I attended a charismatic church for many years that embraced this bias. True spirituality was expressed in the realm of feelings, subjectivity, and experience. Pastors who had less theological training were held in high regard. I never adapted to this setting, for I was always curious, always reading, and I even studied religion at a secular university! I was suspected as a source of harmful ideas.

Second, it is also important to define theology. Theology is simply the study of God’s revelation, derived from the Greek terms, theos, “God” and logos, (“-ology” or “word”). Theology means “words about God,” “the study of God,” or even “sound doctrine.” In this light, it is insightful to consider Paul’s command for thought leaders (pastors and teachers) in Titus 1:9, “He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine [theology] and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

Third, it is extremely naive to minimize theology in the Christian life. The historical fact is that we stand upon the shoulders of theological giants, who formulated our precious statements of belief, like the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, or Westminster Confession of Faith. Whenever we speak of the Trinity, atonement, sovereignty, or Jesus Christ, for instance, we talk theology. We cannot avoid it. Remember, as well, that the great leaders of the church in the past were often well-trained, such as Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Wesley, Abraham Kuyper, and C. S. Lewis. Tim Keller, who recently passed away, was an intellectual, theologian, and pastor. Many Christian leaders founded universities, led nations, and served as respected Christian spokesmen.

Finally, an undue fear or avoidance of theology is naive because it fails to recognize that ideas have consequences. I think one of clearest expressions of this reality is the statement of J. Gresham Machen, founder of Westminster Theological Seminary in 1921:

False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the Gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.  Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root….What is today a matter of academicspeculation begins to move tomorrow armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combated; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassioned debate. So as Christians we should try to mould the thought of the world in such a way as to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical absurdity.

 So, do we need theology? Yes!

Do theological ideas have consequences? Yes!

Should Christians understand what they believe? Yes!