I like to be right.
Sometimes I even get into theological debates on social media.
And I am right.
But I am often wrong, too.
Because my desire to be right is often the problem. My impulse to be right can create a division between me and others, not to mention the people I love the most.
When the point becomes being right, I am often wrong, even when I might be right. That’s because the need to be right can cause a lot of harm in our relationships.
The need to be right easily creeps into our theology. Many of us have been told that we have to get God on our side by doing the right things. We have to worship God in the right way or pray the correct prayer or believe the right doctrine and then God will accept us.
Broadly speaking, the idea is that you need to have the right theology for God to love you.
But here is the thing – you don’t have the “right” theology.
No one has the “right” theology.
When we start thinking that we have the right theology there is at least an implicit statement that others have the wrong theology.
And once we get into the competition of who has the right theology and who has the wrong theology, we get theology wrong.
May God save us from our theology.
Theology, or our talk about God, is not so much about being right. That’s because God isn’t defined in the New Testament as being right. The New Testament has two definitions of God. The first definition is not, “God is right.” The second definition is not “God is right and in him there is no wrongness at all.”
No, in fact, the two definitions of God in the New Testament are found in 1 John. They are “God Is love” and “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.”
Paul put it like this in I Corinthians 13, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
But can Christians get theology wrong?
Yes. When we use God in ways that go against the definition of God in the New Testament, we get God god wrong. God is not a weapon. God is not even our weapon of theological correctness against our theological opponents. That’s because our opponents are not the problem. Jesus states that we are to love even those we call our enemies.
That’s because the point isn’t to be right. The point is to love.
I do think it’s important to name harmful theologies and where they come from. Maybe the most important harmful theologies that I need to name are the ones that I hold. After all, I can easily fall into the trap of using God as a weapon against others. Self-examination is always important when it comes to our spirituality.
And it’s important to recognize that our struggle is not primarily with other people. As Paul stated in his letter to the Ephesians,
For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
The other problem with having to be right is that we are constantly having to defend and prove ourselves. When that happens, we can never relax and know that we are loved, not for being right, but for the simple fact that God already loves us.
So may you know that God is not “right.” God is “Love.” God’s love for you does not depend upon you being right. God’s love for you depends on the fact that God is love and always loves you.
