Years ago when I went to one of our Church of Christ universities I was informed that instead of taking a class in theology, ministry students would be taking courses in systematic doctrine. For years, decades even, I didn't even think about it, thinking that this was just an argument over semantics.
As I have gotten older, I have started to see how wrong I was. The very name 'theology' tells us that one is studying about God...his nature, his attributes, his actions. But my experience through the years is that systematic doctrine in Churches of Christ is a very different thing. Rather than speak of God in terms of theology, most of that time is spent on ecclesiology, which is about the study of the church. Thus rather than speak of the creator, we spend much of our time discussing the minutiae of the church...its organization, its leadership, its actions. This, I have discovered, is a very different thing than speaking about God.
I guess I should not be surprised. Far too often in Churches of Christ we have spent our time navel-gazing and criticizing other groups not so much for what they believe about God (since, in many ways, we didn't know about the nature of God ourselves), but rather about what the church does. I understand that theology (and christology and pneumatology) can become matters of speculation that really lead us nowhere. But the more that I study Scripture, the more I realize that unless God is considered (and glorified and honored), all the rest doesn't matter.
Reading the 10 commandments, one doesn't begin with 'thou shalts'. Rather, it begins with "I am the Lord your God...". Christian faith, likewise, is not so much about an ethic as it is about a relationship with God and a discipleship with Jesus as our Lord. To overlook this and consider it as a given, and run instead towards what we do in the church, is to miss much of the point of what it is that we believe. Faith is not about our own actions; it is rather faith in the Creator, Redeemer, and Advocate.
Lord, forgive us for forgetting about YOU.
