Devil's Advocate #2: "Theology's A Fake & Useless Subject"

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• published: 19 Oct 2015
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Yes, we get Christianity wrong... #2! - READ FULL DESCRIPTION! The second video in our "Devil's Advocate" series, exploring pop misconceptions about Christian belief, history, life etc. This time, we're looking at the charge made by Dawkins & others that the subject of theology is fake, useless and stupid. This may not be one you're familiar with but trust us, it's far more common a suggestion than one might think. It's especially popular amongst the 'new atheist' community. The Church, too, has been known to denigrate theology's importance - but for different reasons. -- REFERENCES -- 1. Top University Theology departments: goo.gl/a9ahCK + goo.gl/eFvIDE + goo.gl/03GN4p + goo.gl/isDmC + goo.gl/DloMfg 2. Dawkins video on Theology: https://goo.gl/zfTSyV 3. Dawkins' "Emptiness of Theology": http://goo.gl/BBgkS0 4. Erik Thoennes' theology lecture video: https://goo.gl/SBlUKM 5. Michelangelo art clip from SWI SwissInfo: https://goo.gl/jwwTyU 6. Rick Warren prays for Obama clip from Ishoozedotcom: https://goo.gl/ZPKe91 7. The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II clip from pedrcymro29: https://goo.gl/ZPKe91 8. Enthronement of Archbishop of Canterbury clip from Channel 4 News: https://goo.gl/CMxHRA 9. Video of John Rylands P52 fragment of John's Gospel from Uncover Jesus channel: https://goo.gl/elJnqa 10. Archaeology of Byzantine Church clip from ArchaeoSpain: https://goo.gl/KE251q 11. Video of LA parents objecting to children being taught Islamic theology from Brigitte Gabriel: https://goo.gl/GQeBQ6 12. Want to know more about what theology is all about, its history and features? See Nathan's short series on the blog, 'Theology 101' - http://www.thelongdefeatblog.com/blog/category/theology-101 ALL material is used under Fair Use - employed for pedagogical purposes, no infringement of any sort intended. If further credit is desired please contact us. DISCLAIMER: a. As we state in the video, we are NOT trying to argue for the epistemic warrant of theology - that is to say, we're NOT suggesting here that Christians are right to believe everything they believe. Every subject presents a metanarrative to one extent or another and of course they can't all be true. Theology is no different. Just because it presents a particular story about how Jesus was kind of a big deal, DOESN'T mean it's invalid. b. Christians ignoring theology is a big deal albeit for different reasons. For more on this see Mark Noll's seminal text 'The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind' (https://goo.gl/GQeBQ6) as well as JI Packer's recent exhortation for the Church to be more attentive to theology proper (https://goo.gl/muwAwg). c. To recognise theology as valid is one thing - to do it WELL is quite another. See a couple of pieces on our blog dedicated to what it means to be a theologian: http://www.thelongdefeatblog.com/blog/all-about-theological-friendship-a-three-way-conversation AND http://www.thelongdefeatblog.com/blog/fighting-the-long-defeat-the-story-of-a-theologian d. I really did mean what I said in the video - we need to have a civil, sensible discussion about all this. The problem is that many of Dawkins' 'stripe' are pretty resistant to it. I mean this in the best possible sense, but, when someone tells us that theology's a fake subject, this will NEVER be convincing to us, not least because we've spent a total of 30 years slaving at our desks - trying to fathom complex historical, philosophical and theological categories. This experience counts more than any denunciation on social media.