Scheidell

Stephen Scheidell

Dr. David McNutt

BITH 315

10 December 2009

Credo

"Jesus said…, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul,

and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You

shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the

Prophets."1 One's theology must also hang on this maxim, lest it fall into frivolous curiosity

solely for curiosity's sake. If the whole of our law and prophets2 hangs on our love of God and

others, I consider it crucial that all speculation must strain to hold this same goal in mind. I find

the praxis approach to theology most attractive for this very reason. This is not to say that other

approaches are in any way to be dismissed, but I take them to be subservient to practice, for the

simple reason that we must carefully consider our actions, their legitimacy and their

repercussions prior to action, but we always act with a solitary goal – that of spreading and

showing the love of God.

Apart from having this goal in mind for all of Christian living and activity, including

theology, I can only dogmatically affirm the articles of the Nicene and Apostle's Creeds. Beyond

these guardrails of tradition, we as Christians seem to find ourselves in too many inconsequential

disputes. Does it really affect our lives whether the church is raptured before or after the

tribulation? It should not. Do we change our behavior if we affirm predestination over free will,

or vice versa? Is a precise understanding of justification altering how we act when we encounter

1 Mathew 22:37-402 I.e. Old Testament scriptures

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Scheidell

one in the midst of undeserved suffering, i.e. suffering not for punishment's sake? In Matthew

25, where does Christ make an appeal to dogmatic belief when separating the sheep from the

goats? Why then do we get hung up on these disagreements when, fundamentally, our

Christianity expresses itself most clearly in the actions and behaviors in accordance the new

creation in Christ that we have become "already, but not yet"?3

Accordingly, when I judge Christians "by their fruit," I look for what affect, if any, their

proposed beliefs have on their behavior and orientation. Are they seeking the well-being of their

own self, or that of another? This may seem to be a baptized humanism, but our motivation

distinguishes us from mere humanists. Rather than only appealing to the inherent goodness of

humankind, I appeal to the Imago Dei in which God created us. Therefore, I affirm the primary,

not exclusive, use of praxis theology for it begins with that upon which hangs all the law and the

prophets – love of God and love of neighbor.

3 A phrase commonly used by Dr. Gene Green in NT Lit & Interpretation to summarize Christian theology.

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