Nature of Faith

What does it mean to be a Christian? How do you become a Christian? That's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I blame Donald Miller.

In April, I attended a conference where I heard him speak. He talked about the role of right theology in the conversion process. His ideas seemed to make sense, but at the same time they challenge the conventional notion.

This month, I started reading his book, "Searching For God Knows What," which asks the same questions. Basically, the question he poses is, can someone have bad theology and still be a Christian? A fundamentalist would like to say no, but a moderate would probably like to say yes. However, that leads to an interesting discussion of this idea.

I like to call this the slippery slope take on faith. Clearly being a Christian is about a relationship with Jesus Christ. That's the difference between knowing about faith and having faith. Faith in Jesus Christ is an emotional connection, at some level. It is about a change of the heart, not just intellectual processing of information.

But what about the question of bad theology? What role does that play? Arguably most denominational divisions are about theology. Consider the current debate splitting the PCUSA. It is, arguably, about the interpretation of Scriptures and what I, and many other conservatives would consider, bad theology. By tossing out the notion of theology, we run the risk of adopting a universalist approach to Scripture. The end of this line of thinking, in my opinion, is the revocation of the idea of universal truth. That tears down the fabric of Scriptures.

Another potential slip on the slope is the idea of those that have an ingrained religious culture of bad doctrine and theology, such as Mormonism. What if a mormon fully believed in the Book of Mormon but also fully believed in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? I don't know what the answer would be to this question. Of course, that's due in large part to the fact that only God knows an individuals' heart, and all we can control is ourselves.

While I agree that Christianity isn't just about a formula and head knowledge, I think theology is very important. I think Miller does too. I like his analogy of theology being a window through which we see the world. But when we ask questions about the importance of theology, we introduce an important topic, but we also walk that slippery slope toward cutting down the fundamental truth of the Scriptures.