Is Theology Just God-Geekiness?

I love Doctor Who.  I am a huge fan of Harry Potter.  Lib and I spent ages this weekend discussing the final episode of the Ashes To Ashes / Life On Mars saga.  I really enjoy the detailed worlds that good writers can create and noticing the way it all hangs together.  I enjoy sharing these things with others, like the fun of pointing out to people the many links between Gregory House and Sherlock Holmes - look it up!

But is this basically all I'm doing as a church minister?  Are Christians simply hobbyists about this Jesus character?  Is theology just geeking out over another book, albeit slightly different from the usual books?

My initial answer is, it can be.

There is a very real danger of Christians (particularly those who rightly honour the Bible) to turn simply into Bibliophiles, just loving the Bible and books about the Bible rather than God Himself.  Not that I am in any way trying to draw a wedge in between God and His Word.  Heaven forbid!  We know about God by His Spirit revealing Him through the Bible.  In fact, that's precisely my point.

The Bible is the means by which we discover God.  This makes it utterly essential but still a means to an end, not an end in itself.  When we meet Jesus face to face, not only will death, disease, sadness and war cease, so will Bible study!  Faith will have become sight.  We will know Him and see Him so much more clearly.  As Bavinck says, "Scripture is a passing act."

This means that we shouldn't just dig in to the Bible for the sake of it.  We should go there with purpose rather simply because we should.  We want to know God better.  We want to be stirred up to love Him more and serve Him with greater passion.  We want to be comforted and rebuked by His instruction.  We want to have our whole way of approaching the world shaped by His agenda.  We want... Him!

Which is another reason why theology isn't like being obsessed with The Mighty Boosh or The Office - the main character in Scripture is the actual God of the universe.  The real deal.  "The God who is there."

If I think that a later series of the Boosh will unveil Vince Noir and Howard Moon to be physical representations of the conflict within one man's psyche, I'm free to think that.  I would probably be wrong, but it's a pretty small-scale species of wrong when it relates to a misunderstanding of a BBC Three comedy show.  On the other hand, if we are wrong about God, it really matters.

Stealing Matt Chandler's illustration, imagine I start blogging about how much I love my wife, Libby.  I tell you all about her beautiful straight blonde hair, her love of sports and how I enjoy being with a taller woman.  That's sounds fine.  Unless you know Libby.  She does have very lovely hair, only it's curly and brown.  Height-wise, she comes up to about my nose.  And she's more of an indoorsy person.  If I praise her for her blonde hair, things will not go well for me.

Likewise, we must be careful of thinking things about God which aren't true.  If you worship a God who isn't a Trinity, that's not God.  If you pray to Mother God, that's as inaccurate as calling me Mrs Burley.  If we praise God for promising that we will never suffer, you're trying to cash a cheque that He didn't write.  Theology matters because God is real.  He has revealed Himself.  And we should long to know Him better.

Julie Smith defines a geek as "a bright young man turned inward, poorly socialized, who felt so little kinship with his own planet that he routinely traveled to the ones invented by his favorite authors".  But that could be a definition of sin!  Man turned in on himself, cut off from community, living in a fantasy world of his own creation.

But in true theology we are not just amassing trivia or knowledge so specialised that it is of no use in the outside world, like someone mastering Guitar Hero rather than an actual guitar!  We are dealing with the real God who has really revealed Himself.  And who does so in order that we might honour Him as we were designed to and thereby live rightly in the real world, rather than meander in a Godless world that doesn't exist.

So is theology just God-geekiness?  No!  Theology is just a fancy word for knowing God.  Other people might think it seems geeky, but in reality this is like someone on a sinking ship being mocked for their all-consuming enthusiasm for oxygen. Theology and the Christian life are only truly geeky when they are separated from a living relationship with the God who made us, loves us and came to redeem us.

Theology matters because God matters.  So study the Bible with a purpose - to know God better and then to love and serve Him better in the real world.