Theology

From Neoredemptive

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For many, the word "theology" conjures up images of dry academic-types debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Such "theologians" give the field a bad name.

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Why Theology Matters

Any time we think, believe, or say anything at all about God, we are forming, testing, and proclaiming a theology. Theology can be in the language of hyper-literate high culture, illiterate low culture, or anywhere in between. What makes something theology is not its tone or its vocabulary or its sophistication, but its content -- where God is the subject (as He must always be for the Christian), a theology is always at work.

As Christians, "doing theology" isn't really an optional thing. We're going to do it, one way or another. The open questions are whether we're going to do it deliberately or accidentally, and whether the theology we do will be truthful or deceptive, transparent or manipulative, honest or underhanded, precise or sloppy, Christian or heretical.

In truth, every pastor, minister, leader, servant, father, mother, and child should be learning to think of their world theologically and theocentrically, and to think of themselves as theologians - constantly wrestling to bring that which is true about the gospel of Jesus Christ to the forefront of their own and the world's attention.

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Neo-Redemptive Theology, in Brief

In truth, the bulk of this site is theological. Think of this as the uber-short crib notes version.

We believe in God who pre-exists time, one God eternally extant as the three Persons of the trinity, who stands over creation as its maker, master, author, and redeemer, and who is intrinsically worthy of the obedience, devotion, and worship of all He has created. He is the ultimate "Is", and the ultimate "Ought".

We believe in Jesus Christ, his eternal existence as the second person of the trinity, his birth as the human child of the virgin Mary; that he was fully man (like us in all ways except as regards sin) while remaining fully God (see the Chalcedonian Creed); that he lived a perfect and sinless life, pleasing to his Father; that He was crucified and died bodily, taking upon Himself all of our sin, shame, brokenness, sickness, and transgression; that He rose bodily from death on the third day, in this demonstrating His victory over the power of satan, sin, and death, breaking its back and making redemption available to all who would put their faith in Him.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, in His eternal existence as the third person of the trinity. (Have we driven it home yet that we think the trinity is really important?) We believe that the Spirit acts in human history and the human heart to lead us to repentance, to transform our hearts and our minds, and to comfort, guide, and empower those who have put their trust in Jesus. We believe the Spirit works in evidently supernatural ways through those in whom He dwells, causing them to speak in new tongues, to prophesy, to lay bare the secrets of others' hearts, to endure the unendurable, to pray for the sick and see them healed, and countless other manifestations of God's gracious redemptive nature, ministry, and work.

We believe that humankind was made, male and female, in the image of God, and that this necessarily implies the incomparable worth of every individual as an image-bearer of God, both in God's eyes and in ours. We also believe that the image of God we bear has been thoroughly, completely, and totally marred, twisted, and distorted by sin -- that we have declared a war of independence against God, and in so doing have thoroughly warped ourselves, our ability to rightly understand ourselves, and our ability to know anything true of God our maker apart from His gracious intervention.

We believe that it is only through the power of the gospel, through the Father's desire to reveal Himself and to be known by us, through Jesus Christ's atoning work on the cross, through the Spirit's transforming work within us, that we have redemption. God's redemption means that life and wholeness and sanity can be brought out of the death, brokenness, and insanity we have wrought. It is only through this redeeming work of God that we can participate in that for which we were created -- to worship God and enjoy Him forever, to fruitfully steward His creation, to live in unbroken, unmediated, unashamed fellowship with Him and with one another (the cultural mandate).

We believe that the church -- the called-out community of those participating in God's redeeming work -- is an absolutely essential and indispensable aspect of our life as the people of Jesus Christ, that it is only within that community that we learn how to love God and to love one another (because neither love is practicable apart from the other).

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