The Thoughts of Ryan-C

QsOTD

// June 8th, 2009 // Church, Jesus Stuff, Matt Chandler, Quote of the Day, theology

You get men and women growing up in churches where the gospel is assumed and the nature and character of God is assumed, [and they] are taught morality–man I went to VBS growing up, I heard that God hates liars, we even sang a song about it. I knew that true love waits. That we shouldn’t drink beer, we shouldn’t cuss, and any movie that isn’t about the crucifixion of Christ and was R-rated, you should not watch. I grew up in that, a lot of people grew in that, we grew up in do this, don’t do this. Well, that’s moralistic deism at its best! It doesn’t transform! Now here is why we walk away from the church, when with our best white knuckled discipline we accomplish those feats of morality and you let something bad happen to us. You let our wife leave us, you let a girl break our hearts, you let us not get into the school that we wanted to get in to, you let our parents divorce and our mindset it, I was good! And this is how you repay me!? I behaved… I did this, I did this, I did this–You owe me! And that is how you get the dechurched. They were sold “here is how you put God into your debt.” But you don’t put God into your debt, I know this, because really faithful men in the scriptures have it go really bad for them. We’ve got to get back to being Theological… You get guys that say they’re not theological… here is the problem with that. If you are opening your mouth and talking about God, you’re being theological. The problem is, if it’s not rooted in biblical, historical, orthodoxy, you’re probably being a heretic.

-Matt Chandler, Advance 09 Conference Message

They all say “the ordinary reader does not want theology”…I have rejected their advice. I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool. Theology means “the science of God”, and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available…If you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity