I found this great quote from CS Lewis on Maggi’s blog today. I had not seen it before and it is a great quote:
Everyone has warned me not to tell you what I am going to tell you…They all say “the ordinary reader does not want Theology; give him plain practical religion.” I have rejected their advice. I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool. Theology means “the science of God,” and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available. You are not children: why should you be treated like children? Theology is practical. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today, are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England (or America) is retrogression—like believing the earth is flat.
C S Lewis, Mere Christianity, 135-136
One of the things that worries me about lots (not all!) of Christians today is the opinion that theology is boring, a waste of time and should be left to ‘theologians’ or vicars.
That worries me as it implies that people are gaining their knowledge of God ‘second hand’. They trust their church leader or their more mature Christian friends, neither being a bad thing I might add, to present them with the ‘correct’ image of God. I belive, though, that it is vital that we look and discover for ourselves. Just accepting what others say can lead us to believing all sorts of weird and wonderful things.
CS Lewis says if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. If we do not personally have any ideas about God how do we make him known to our communities? If we don’t make him known, how will they hear …
As a youth worker I have had countless conversations with young people who have been confused and basically needed to adopt their faith and stop living off their parents relationship with God. In fact I had an email conversation with a friend in her 20’s only yesterday who is starting to think that maybe she has not developed her own faith yet and so is wondering what to do about it.
Lets get into theology – indulge in it over Lent – so that we can have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 
First up love reading your blogs!I have decided to take up your challenge of indulging in some theology as part of my lent journey this year. But what this means, how I am going to go about it is another matter.Before I sat down to read the blog today I was ponding the Whys in my life goals ‘my motives’. I guess this is where I will start to find out what I am building on.Any more help on this journey of theology would be great, acknowlodging that this has to be my journey.
hey. you don’t know me, but i happened upon your blog and i liked this post. so true: about “second-hand God-knowledge”. so many are satisfied taking someone else’s word for it, without checking it up against THE WORD of God. definitely why i’m grateful for a pastor that encourages me to check everything he says against the magnifying glass of scripture.hey, if you’re interested in theology, check out: http://www.disposablechristian.org/“May the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing only unto You.”