Taking the Red Pill of Theology

July 12, 2012 by James Faulconer

Continued from Page 1

In a similar vein, church is for preaching salvation rather than for doing theology (or history or sociology or whatever my hobby is). Sometimes we don't do that as well as we should, but introducing philosophy and theology into our sermons and lessons would make us less rather than more likely to preach the gospel.

So, if you've swallowed the philosophy / theology pill, you should feel all right about doing something to ease your disease. It's a disease with no cure, but it is usually chronic. It needn't be debilitating—though it can be if you let it. Don't let it. But also don't let it become the measure for your relationship to the Church and its members.

Paying attention to the questions that the pill makes you ask may even strengthen those who have the disease. If we can't avoid the questions, then thinking about them may help us live better lives. The important thing is not to assume that the red pill gives us insight into the real world and that the rest of the congregation, who took the blue pill, live in an illusory world.

The Mormon thinker, Adam Miller, uses a helpful metaphor for theological speculation (a term that isn't necessarily pejorative): Rube Goldberg machines. A good Rube Goldberg machine does the same work that can be done simply otherwise, such as opening a door or turning off the light. But it does it in a complicated way.

Rube Goldberg machines aren't useless. If they work, they also get the work done, and there may be benefits to having spent time figuring out how to make the complicated machine do a simple task. In the long run, though, the measure of a good Rube Goldberg machine is that it gets the same thing done that others do without it and that it does so in an interesting, perhaps even beautiful, way.

We could measure good theology in the same way. It isn't necessary to doing what needs to be done, to gaining salvation, for example. But some of us can't help doing it. Some of us need the machines of theology. But many don't. We ought not to muddle things in church worship and study by showing off our theological Rube Goldberg machines or by insisting that others join us in building them. Instead, preach Christ crucified and resurrected, with all of that message's spiritual and temporal implications.

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About James Faulconer

James Faulconer is a Richard L. Evans Professor of Religious Understanding at Brigham Young University, where he has taught philosophy since 1975.

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