What ‘theology’ do you use to decide whether something is ‘theologically sound’?

Hey, this is a tricky one! Theology is such a rich and broad area of discussion that trying to use ‘it’ as a litmus test for a teacher’s accuracy or a resource’s helpfulness can be desperately hard to do. Even if your background does include some theological education, trying to decide what category of theology to care about in any given situation can be a minefield all of its own.

Paul gives some of his strongest warnings about seeking out false teachers (2 Tim. 4:3-4) and he gives some incredibly blunt rebukes to those who teach unsoundly (Gal. 5:12). This, therefore, isn’t something we can just ignore.

That said, discerning theological soundness really isn’t about cold-blooded intellectual accuracy. Theology isn’t a discipline, it’s relational to its very heart. Theology is about how we know and relate to the living God through Jesus. It’s about knowing Him. False teaching isn’t a combatant to score points off, it’s something that can lead you and those you care about further away from Jesus. This is really important!

Why don’t we just leave theology to the theologians?

In some ways, it seems sensible to say, ‘just let the pros get on with this’, or perhaps even ‘let the nerds argue amongst themselves!’ The problem with this approach, however, is that it assumes the study of God should be left exclusively to the few. We are all, however, in the truest sense of the word, ‘theologians’, as we are all called to engage deeply with God’s Word and we’re all also ultimately responsible for our own spiritual diets.

Trying to judge something’s ‘soundness’ in a helpful and spiritually discerning way also isn’t something that might come up. We live in a multi-voiced world, each one clamouring for our attention with a constant stream of consciousness. We have info always coming in from a huge variety of sources with wildly inconsistent (and often hidden) levels of authority.

Think about it, if you spend a leisurely afternoon reading comments on some Christian Facebook pages, it probably won’t take you long to come across disagreements, and – because we can be quite fickle creatures – it might quickly turn blunt and personal. You’ll probably read words like ‘unbiblical’ or ‘unsound’, and you might even find the odd ‘h-word’ thrown in. ‘Oh, that is such heresy!’

This can largely feel like restless point-scoring from armchair pastors, or the backseat professors (armed with Google and Wikipedia), but the thing-behind-the-thing is almost always fear. ‘What if I’m wrong?’ ‘What if they’re wrong and they convince people they’re right?’ And so we dive in, somewhat indecently, with the vain hope that we’ll slap someone onto our preferred ‘right’ path.

There has to be a better way.

Where is the line between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’?

The understanding of God – being essentially relational – has plenty to room for growth and immaturity. We can miss the mark a million times and still know God personally. We can have an incomplete picture of Him (in fact we all do!), and still completely be safe in His presence – saved, loved and secure. You don’t grow up into God, after all, you group up with Him. Being ‘right’ therefore, isn’t as ridged as we’d like to think.

There is a line between right and wrong for sure, but that line is like the membrane of a cell. There is movement and stretch to be found. Because of our multifaceted approach to learning, our different stages of maturity, and the huge differences in our personal perceptions, that line between correct and incorrect can be pretty flexible and somewhat amoeba-like – but it is still a line. You can cross it and it will break if you push it too hard. Ice-water-steam is an imperfect picture of the Trinity for example, but it will help someone understand some aspect of who God is. Actually saying that God isn’t Trinity, however (or even that the ‘ice-water-steam’ metaphor is enough all on its own) is a whole other thing.

This is why it can be so hard to have holistic conversations with people online that we disagree with, and why we can easily come across so dogmatically or uncharitably. There sometimes is a right and wrong, but our knowledge, standards, and maturity might be in a completely different place to those we’re talking to, or even the substance that we’re engaging with. We really need a trustworthy yardstick.

So, how do we do it? How do we, holistically and healthily – graciously and gracefully – decide what is more than just immature or incomplete theology. How do we judge whether something breaks the broad, organic category of ‘right’ into something that is actually just plain ‘wrong’ and therefore unhelpful for our relationship with God?

What theology should we use?

Christology! This is the way to go. The question we should be always asking is does this book I’m reading, or this talk I’m hearing, do anything funny to Jesus? Do we have to repackage our understanding of who Jesus is or what He did to make a thing work?

If it messes with Jesus, walk away!

Christology is our understanding of the Jesus who came, lived, died, rose, ascended, and is coming back. If the thing that we’re engaging with requires us to dial up, dial down, or even throw away any of these, then it’s probably unsound – or at least it’s on a slippery slope.

Of course this isn’t the only way of sussing out healthy teaching, but it’s a pretty solid rule of thumb: If it messes with Jesus then it aint working bud!

Any teaching, on any spiritual topic, in any ministry situation, should leave us with a fuller perspective on Jesus. It should add to the relational tapestry that we’re building with Him. If the thing we’re engaging with, however, requires us to dilute the person of Jesus, then – very simply – it’s probably wrong.

Granted, we can all have pretty mixed up Christologies, but this is the thing we should be working on the most. The more we sit with Jesus as the cornerstone to our faith, and the linchpin of the entire Bible narrative, the more we should smell a rat when something starts messing with Him.

Examples?

I guess anything that says Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead, or that He wasn’t really fully God, would be pretty obvious. There are more subtle things too, like saying He was created rather than begotten.

An example of a more developed theology might be ‘The Prosperity Gospel’ or the idea that God wants every believer to be healthy and wealthy in this life and that that can be achieved through praying faithfully and giving significantly. This messes with Jesus on so many levels.

Prosperity Gospel downplays Jesus teaching on Earthly vs Heavenly treasure, it undercuts the eschatological focus on security in eternity rather than now, it dilutes His servant-heartedness, misunderstands His sacrificial death, and strips His priority for us to make disciples. It shifts the focus that the New Testament has on grace, assuming we can accomplish God’s favour by a conjuring of a quantitative faith matched by quantifiable giving. Answered prayer becomes reward for faith-effort, rather than part of our relationship with Jesus given through His unconditional love. Jesus also said, ‘in this life you will have trouble’ (Jn. 16:33) and ‘If they persecuted me, they will persecute you’ (Jn. 15:20). He didn’t say ‘you will only have trouble if you don’t pray and give and trust correctly.’ This also taints Paul’s understanding of living for Jesus in shared community and pulls out-of-context many of the Old Testament prophecies that undergirds Jesus’ coming to us. It messes with Jesus at a lot, making Him far more interested in my temporary pleasure than eternal security. So I leave it be.

That’s one example. Pull on a thread of something that doesn’t sit right, and see what of Jesus unravels.

It’s all about Jesus… but remember to act like Him too.

If we start and end with Jesus, not only should our faith in God develop in a really healthy and secure way, but we should be able to navigate all kinds of unhelpful opinions online, in books, and from the pulpit.

That said, you should always seek to behave in a Christlike way, whether that’s in how you agree with someone or how you disagree. Even when you rightly run from unhealthy teaching it’s important to trust in Jesus – and act in a way that points back to Him – as you go.

Nealy 1500 words later and here we are: Use Jesus as your benchmark, take false teaching seriously, ask for the help of the Holy Spirit in discerning, and don’t be a jerk.