Saturday, October 27, 2007

What is a Tabloid Theologian?

"Tabloid Theologians" are those who fill our email boxes with "..read this and be blessed...send this to five people you love...a special blessing will come to you...blah, blah, blah..." emails. Have I mention that I have very little time, need, or tolerance for this sort of pseudo-Christianity? I know that sounds harsh, but the truth is much of the time THAT is the extent of their professed "faith".

So, when I read THIS post by C. Michael Patton on the Parchment and Pen team blog (Dan Wallace was one of my husband's favorite profs.) it got my attention! I was particularly struck by this statement:

"...I am saying that I am not going to believe these type of stories until there is good reason to do so. I am a Christian critic. I am critical of all truth claims, especially those that are about God, and even more so about the sensational. Why? Because I must be. God has called me to be such a theologian. He has called us all to do the same...Our beliefs form the foundation of who we are. If our theology is built upon uncritical hearsay or unexamined sensationalistic claims, we are playing spiritual Russian roulette. The tabloid theologian's theology will eventually come face to face with reality and it will not be able to stand..."
As many of you know, I've "been there, done that" in my former charismatic days! How 'bout you? Do you naively believe every "healing" story, every angel "sighting", every "word of knowledge", the list goes on! You know, God doesn't need our sensationalize anything!!! He is awesome and amazing beyond our comprehension, so why do some feel the need to "legitimize" Him in such cheap and shallow ways?

4 comments:

Rebekah said...

Oh, amen and well said! These kinds of e-mail are frustrating and so sad to me. I have a friend from my old church in Florida who I thought was pretty well grounded in the faith. She sends me the wildest forwards and I just grieve because I cannot believe she would think these things are true or useful! Much of it is idolatry and heresy and I just ache when I get another forward from her. Yet, when I try to e-mail back a real conversational kind of note, there is never a response, only these endless, terrible tabloid forwards. I need to be praying more diligently for her, I think.

Jonathan Moorhead said...

Connie, this is so true. It is sad to see all those who are duped with this type of "Christianity." Thanks for visiting the Moor!

Kristine said...

I'm so, so glad to see somebody bringing these emails up! They break my heart, to be honest; probably because they tend to be sent by those friends and family who don't really live lives that reflect any kind of personal relationship with the Lord; but who send these "Spiritual chain-emails" (shudder)...

..with the seeming assumption that these emails settle any kind of silly biblical disagreements we have about the Christian life.

Annette said...

I understand. I do.

What I often do is a bit of research, send the results of that research back to the emailer and say... hey...as a Christian you just perpetrated a lie. Check these things out before you send them OR you are making Christ look bad.

It doesn't always work but I've had one friend who now double checks before she forwards stuff along.