Fruitless theology.

by K.W. Leslie, 02 May 2023

If Christian theology doesn’t produce good fruit, it’s either worthless or wrong.

Felt I’d better not bury the lede. Because, sad to say, Christian theologians too often go the fruitless route. And that’s why so many Christians dismiss theology as irrelevant, as nothing but a bunch of philosophers trying to reduce the Christian life to a bunch of navel-gazing theories which have no practical use. In the hands of fleshly Christians, that’s precisely what it becomes.

I was reminded of this recently, ’cause I read a dialogue between two Christians debating politics. (If you really wanna suck all the Jesus out of Christianity, watch Christians debate politics sometime. Better yet, don’t.) These guys didn’t just condemn one another’s beliefs; they condemned one another. Full-on ad hominem attacks. Both accusing one another of being depraved, selfish individuals; the conservative claiming the liberal only wanted the freedom to sin, and the liberal accusing the conservative of lacking God’s love for humanity. As conservatives and liberals usually do.

I wrote on this same subject years ago for another blog; at the time it was a debate between a Calvinist and a Catholic. Again, personal attacks instead of substance. Both of them felt they were right, and it justified them punching away at one another.

It’s typical depraved human nature. But it drags Christianity, and Christian theology, through the mud.

Fleshly theology.

Humans like to fight, and love to win. Don’t tell me we don’t:

  • We love our video games and sporting events.
  • History buffs love to analyze the events of past wars, root for our favorite generals (even though we know how the battles turned out), and sometimes reenact them.
  • Political buffs want our party to win elections, and love to watch our opponents not just lose, but get crushed.
  • Business buffs don’t just want to outpace the competition, but watch their competitors tank.
  • Entertainment buffs want to see their favorite movies and TV shows and actors win awards, do well at the box office—and beat movies and shows they consider less deserving.

This human competitiveness isn’t necessarily bad. If we followed the rules, and if our goal was to win instead of destroy, competition can be good clean fun. But humans are regularly neither good nor clean. Nor doing it for fun—some of us feel we have to win, and have way too much of our pride and self-esteem tied together in the victory. And are devastated when we lose; we treat every game like a battle to the death.

Sometimes because it’s how our parents and coaches raised us. Sometimes we picked up those unhealthy traits on our own. Regardless, this competitiveness leaked into Christianity, as has every sin… and that’s where we find people who’ve made a ruin of theology.

I grew up Fundamentalist, and one thing you’ll definitely find among Fundies is they love to denounce Christians who believe differently than they. But let’s be fair—they’re far from the only ones. I’ve met plenty of people from plenty of denominations who do likewise.

We even see the apostles lose their temper a little bit when it comes to their theological opponents. Like this bit from Galatians.

Galatians 1.6-9 GNT
6 I am surprised at you! In no time at all you are deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ, and are accepting another gospel. 7 Actually, there is no “other gospel,” but I say this because there are some people who are upsetting you and trying to change the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is different from the one we preached to you, may he be condemned to hell! 9 We have said it before, and now I say it again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel that is different from the one you accepted, may he be condemned to hell!

Paul occasionally lost his temper with his opponents, and to this day Christians stumble over his attitude: We act like it’s okay to follow Paul’s example, instead of Jesus’s. And I’ve heard preachers claim we oughta follow some repeat some of the other flawed examples we see in the bible, like we see in King David, or Simon Peter, or Abraham, or Jacob, or Moses… or Cain, or Lamech, or Samson. Most of us know better than to point to Judas Iscariot and Satan, but some of us will even try to stretch things to say, “Well, they had a valid point here…” because human depravity has no limits. We’ll take whatever self-justification we can find.

It pretty much comes down to exceptionalism: We feel we’re right, and because of this, we’re an exception to all the other rules about behavior and goodness and sin. We have license to treat others with neither charity nor grace. We can safely presume they came about their “wrong beliefs” because they’re twisted sinners, not because they’re honestly mistaken, or were taught wrong. (You know, like we often are.) And because they’re twisted sinners, let’s go after them with guns blazing.

In seminary, we theology students were young and dumb and spiritually immature, so of course we did these very things all the time. One of the guys in my hall was an outspoken convert to the Orthodox Church, and from time to time he’d just start railing against Protestants. Namely he’d object to all the Protestant beliefs he’d recently given up, and those of us who still believed them, and try to provoke us Protestants into verbally smacking him back. Sometimes we took the bait. Some of us were eager to.

It was an Assemblies of God school, but we had people of every religious background. We’d have Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals, revivalists and anti-revivalists, Calvinists and non-Calvinists, trinitarians and non-trinitarians, inerrantists and non-inerrantists—pick and issue, and you’d have theology students arguing the merits of one side or the other. And regularly forgetting to be like Jesus as we did so.

For argumentativeness is a work of the flesh. So’s partisanship, separatism, too much zeal, and all the unethical means we used to “score points.” So’s the anger and envy and hatred that come from losing a verbal battle. Stands to reason the Spirit’s fruit would get pushed aside. There’d be no grace, no love, nor any of the patience, kindness, selflessness, humility, and gentleness we see in love. Nor joy, goodness, faith, self-control. Certainly not peace.

The purpose of correcting wayward Christians is to bring ’em back into the light, but a lot of these debates have no interest, nor hope, in doing so: They’re all about shoving them further into the darkness, “where they belong.”

So I don’t blame Christians who find theology distasteful. That sort of behavior is entirely distasteful.

Fruitful theology.

Theology begins with, “I am wrong. Jesus is right.”

Are other Christians, other theologians, wrong? Sure. And so are we. We have certain positions, certain points of view, certain beliefs which we think are right. Hopefully for good reason: We compared them with scripture and tradition and common sense; we’ve put them into practice, and in our experience they hold up. Doesn’t guarantee we’re right, but we sure have a lot of evidence. More than those fools who insist, “God said it; I believe it; that settles it,” yet can’t tell you where God said it—and when they can, it’s out of context.

When we stay humble about theology, we’re less likely to blunder into the angry, hostile, warlike sort of fruitless theology. When we remember the practice of good fruit needs to extend to everything in our lives, including theology—especially theology, since the whole point is to understand God better, and how’re we gonna do that when our practices are so contrary to his character?—we’re gonna get a lot closer to God than without it.

True, some people take the Spirit’s fruit and go overboard with it when it comes to theology. Fr’instance, those Christians who refuse to believe in hell because God is love. True, at first glance hell sounds inconsistent with love. But isn’t it more inconsistent with love for God to force everybody into his kingdom, even if they absolutely refuse to go? Even if they absolutely refuse to love their neighbors once they’re in it? What, is God gonna lobotomize everybody who resists him, and make them want him now? Universalists regularly ignore all these nagging questions, but that’s not how we’re to do theology: We gotta take things to their logical conclusions. We gotta keep asking questions. Especially uncomfortable questions.

The universe God created, the system of salvation and atonement he created, the relationship with us he pursues, the kingdom he’s creating—all these things are consistent with his character and the Spirit’s fruit. This is the lens Jesus gave us to look at our Father through. It’s the lens we use to study theology. Theology without fruit becomes nothing. 1Co 13.2 Don’t go that route.