Reading theologians, studying Scripture, listening to sermons, examining church history,
memorizing creeds – this is so much work! To that I would say, yes, that’s 100% correct.
Thinking theologically is hard, taxing work.

But so is preparing for a final exam, walking alongside a friend going through a divorce,
training for a marathon, signing yourself up for an alcoholics anonymous group, or working at a job for extra hours to pay for your child’s sports fees. All growth is difficult, but we
cannot truly become like Christ without the renewing of our minds…and doing hard things (Romans 12:1-2).

We need to learn. We need to think. We need to be reading, listening, and applying. And we
need to do so in Christian community, like the church. Worldview is important. Doctrines are
tools for seeing reality. And the gospel is not just private truth; it is the public truth for all
things.

Here are some practices I’ve noticed among those who excel at thinking theologically.

Decide that thinking well is a non-negotiable part of your Christian life.

In the struggle for civil rights, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a sermon on August 30, 1959
encouraging his listeners to be both tough minded and tender hearted. Drawing on Jesus’
command to become wise as serpents and innocent as doves, he says being tough minded,
“is that quality of life characterized by incisive thinking, realistic appraisal, and decisive
judgment. The tough mind is sharp and penetrating. It breaks through the crust of legends
and myths and sifts true from the false. The tough-minded individual is astute and
discerning.”

And yet, says Dr. King, “So few people ever achieve it. All too many are content with the soft
mind. It is a rarity indeed to find men willing to engage in hard, solid thinking.” [x] The majority,
says Dr. King, are gullible and willing to accept advertising and political slogans as truth. The
few make the real commitment to being like God, who is both tough minded and tender
hearted.

Every idea – whether a work email or a storyline in a movie – must be held up to the light of
truth. This commitment goes hand in hand with the commitment to following Christ as both
Lord and Teacher.

Make the space in your schedule and your home for clear thinking.

Our world is crowded with noise. Social media, apps, media – finding the quiet space to
actually think and reflect has become a real challenge in a world addicted to being
constantly connected. We all are too busy and find ourselves constantly distracted.

It takes discipline to shut the screen off, and get out a notebook. It takes resolve to refuse
the easy media of Netflix and choose the slow media of the written word. It takes forethought
to gather a group of friends for a conversation about a substantive book and arch the
conversation toward questions that matter.

We must choose to make space for a deeper, broader life. It won’t happen by accident.

Choose your reading diet wisely.

Tim Macready is from Sydney, Australia. Sporting glasses, goatee, and a down-under
accent, Tim’s work has led him to the intersection of Christian faith, social justice, environmental stewardship, and business. His work requires him to understand everything
from financial projections to international markets.

And yet, when I asked Tim recently about the books that most helped him in his work, he
mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship. Theology, he
said, helped him better understand human nature, which directly influenced how we thought
of investing, business, and those he works with each day.

People like Tim are intentional with both their reading diet and their friendships. As a result,
they become wise (Proverbs 13:20). And they don’t read just theology, they read broadly
outside their fields. Doing so helps them make connections between topics, including
connecting theology to the secular world they live in. Broad reading, broad listening, and
broad relationships open the path to seeing a broader slice of God’s world. [xi]

Take risks based on what you know to be true.

Thinking theologically is not just an intellectually disconnected activity from the rest of life.
It’s a habit that is strengthened through practice, action, and then reflection.

Mary Poplin has spent her career teaching teachers. After a lifetime of reflection on how
Christian faith can and should be lived out as a public school teacher, Mary counsels
believers in education to take practical action steps based on the Christian worldview.

“Give kids direct instruction,” Mary says in a talk she once gave to other public school
teachers. “Be strict, but have high personal interaction with students and believe in their
potential. Teach religion in public schools in a way that’s fair. Don’t romanticize history –
either secular or Christian. Teach virtue and encourage moral conversations among
students. Pray for your students, be courageous in sharing your faith, and compassionate
with other views.” [xii]

Mary believes deeply that thinking well and living well are two sides of the same coin of
faithfulness in a secular industry.

Embrace that thinking theologically is for you, no matter your job, community, or title.

Thinking theologically is for the rich and the poor, those with PhDs and those with high
school degrees, those who are culture-makers and those who are culture-takers.

Take, for example, two very different people: Gisela Kreglinger and Gregorio Trinidad.
Gisela is a vintner who grew up on a family winery in Bavaria in south-east Germany. She
went on to get a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and write a comprehensive biblical
theology of wine in the biblical narrative, entitled The Spirituality of Wine. A world away,
Gregorio is an immigrant to the United States who works in Denver to support family back in
Mexico. His family has a small farm in central Mexico that he regularly visits, in which he
raises corn for elote. He once said about his family farm, “Today, on December 2, we sow
[seeds] in the name of our Creator and in that same name we hope with faith and patience
that by February 20 we can enjoy the fruit of that sowing.”

Though Gisela and Gregorio are from different social worlds, they both work in agriculture and they both see their work in light of Christian revelation.

Theological Action

In December 2019, University of North Carolina professor Molly Worthen wrote an op-ed for
the New York Times entitled, “What Would Jesus Do About Inequality?” She featured
leading voices on vocation in the U.S., noting that the faith and work movement today is
more interested in economic justice than baptizing laissez faire economics. She also wrote,

“In today’s evangelicalism, this is where the theological action is: the faith and work movement, the intersection of Christianity with the demands of the workplace and the broader economy.” [xiii]

I had to read that twice, before pausing to feel a proper sense of pride in being a small part of “where the theological action.” Theology, if we pursue it and know it, is indeed intended for action.

It’s easy to dismiss that “thinking theologically” is just for the few or the academically-
minded. This simply isn’t true. It is a gift from God for all the church to see our work and daily
life in light of Scripture, Christian doctrine, and the gospel grace. The Psalmist was right: “In
your light, we see light.” But to do that, we need to admit that what we think is who we
become. “For as a man thinks within himself, so he is,” (Proverbs 23:7, NASB).

This article is an excerpt from my latest book Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work that Transforms Our Outer World. It’s also available as an audio book. Click here for a free study guide.

[x] Martin Luther King Jr., “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart,” Stanford University, August 30, 1959,
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/draft-chapter-i-tough-mind-and-tender-heart.

[xi] For more on this topic, see my article: Jeff Haanen, “Broader, Not Deeper,” October 3, 2016,
https://jeffhaanen.com/2016/10/03/broader-not-deeper/.

[xii] Jeff Haanen, “What It Means to Follow Christ as a Public School Teacher,” July 17, 2005,
https://denverinstitute.org/what-mary-poplin-taught-us-about-being-a-christian-teacher-in-public-education-1-of-2/.

[xiii] Molly Worthen, “What Would Jesus Do About Inequality,” The New York Times, 13 December 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/opinion/sunday/christianity-inequality.html.

Art Theology

An Act of Creation

January 3, 2013

I was supposed to be networking. That’s what normal people do when surrounded by a city’s top leaders, as I was at a recent Q Ideas Conference at the Denver Performing Arts Center. But during the break between sessions, I found myself sipping coffee, standing alone amidst the buzzing conversation, and utterly transfixed by the artwork of Jake Weidmann.

Three paintings of a lion sat on easels. The first lion’s mane was ablaze, representing God the Father, a consuming fire (Deut. 4.24). The second lion’s mane was a barbed wire, an allusion to the suffering of God the Son. And the third lion’s mane was a river, the Living Water given by God the Spirit (Jn. 7:38). As I beheld Weidmann’s arresting creativity and Trinitarian imagination, I quietly thought to myself,“We are at our best when our daily work reflects the creative work of God himself.”

Made in the Image of the Maker

When looking for a model for work, the best place to start is God’s own work. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Both the Bible and the creeds (“I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth”) begin with the work of creation. Genesis paints a picture of the Maker of supernovas, seashores and salamanders who spawns new life and new realities through creative, joyful work (Gen. 2:2-3; Ps. 104:24-26,31). On the sixth day, God declared his creative work was very good – and the angels shouted for joy at what they saw (Gen. 1:31; Job. 38:7).

English playwright and author Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) said that when God made men and women in His image, all he had done until that point was create. Sayers writes,

“Man is a maker, who makes things because he wants to, because he cannot fulfill his true nature if he is prevented from making things for the love of the job. He is made in the image of the Maker, and he himself must create or become something less than man.”

God made grass seeds, and giraffes, and those in His image make gorilla glue, graham crackers, and grandfather clocks. Work is not only something we do for money, but rather it is the first expression of our spiritual, mental and bodily faculties. At its best, work is a creative act.

The word “creativity” should be broadened past associations with bohemian artists or ad agency professionals.To create is to initiate an object or a project (a definition of the Hebrew word bara). Bringing new products, ideas or organizations into existence is all creative work. For example, Jake Weidmann brought a trinity of lions into existence from a mere thought, which now shapes me, the beholder of his art. A landscaper conceives of a beautiful garden, plants and cultivates the roses, and sees the homeowners enjoy their color and aroma. An engineer designs a more efficient hood for a commercial stove top, and works with technicians to install his new creation. Dorothy Sayers’ masterful The Mind of the Maker argues that all satisfying human work is essentially Trinitarian in that it is creative (bringing something into existence) and follows a three-part process (idea, product, and effect, which mirrors Father, Son and Spirit). She even wonders if uncreative activities and an uncreative outlook might be “doing violence to the very essence of our being.”

Many puzzle over how to best ground a theology of work. Should it begin with evangelism, ethics, or simply a desire to do a good job? Today several leading voices are looking to creativity to understand work. Andy Crouch’s book Culture Making grounds a theology of work in both our identity as sub-creators and cultivators of God’s world. Tim Keller’s new book Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work spends no less than three chapters chewing on the creation narrative. Marketing Guru Seth Godin believes the most exciting work is found in “art” – doing something unpredictable, brave, and un-chartered. Even the staunchly atheistic Ayn Rand saw the centrality of creativity to human work:

“Whether it’s a symphony of a coal mine, all work is an act of creating, and comes from the same source…the capacity to see, to connect and make what had not been seen, connected and made before.”

I work in an office. On some days, I find myself checking email every other hour, bouncing between websites, and meandering the halls of my school. I come home utterly exhausted, feeling like old Bilbo Baggins: “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” Other days I plan my schedule, start and finish significant projects, and come home brimming over with energy for my kids. What is the difference the two days? Sustained, creative work.

Re-centering on God the Creator

Far too many churches see faith and work ministries as an optional add-on. But when viewed through the lens of the doctrine of God the Creator, integrating faith and work becomes central. We are reflections of the God who weaved together atom and galaxy, desert and DNA. Our impulse to create and work comes from bearing the image of the Maker. In a world where most work is seen merely as a means to money or leisure, the mandate to create human culture (Gen. 1:28) as a fulfillment of our very reason for being (Eph. 2:10) becomes ever more pressing. The need for joyful, satisfying work beats in the human heart. This is precisely why unemployment is so distressing. All of us, from the elderly to small children, are made to make. My four-year old daughter declares this truth when I pick her up from preschool: “Daddy, look what I painted for you today.”

A renewed commitment to teaching about God the Creator can also give deep hope to so many who despair over their jobs. Again Sayers writes,

Far too many people in this country seem to go about only half alive. All their existence is an effort to escape from what they are doing. And the inevitable result of this is a boredom, a lack of purpose, a passivity which eats life away at the heart and a disillusionment which prompts men to ask what life is all about.

When people hate their work, or perceive it as a necessary drudgery that gets them to the weekend, they go about “half alive” and often fall into a trap of boredom and meaninglessness. But the biblical story is founded in a Creator who works for sheer delight, and is making all things new. When this narrative is applied to writing lesson plans or building clinics, a renewed motivation for culture making can bring about a deep happiness to even the most mundane task. It may even bring about the cultural renewal.

As I came out of my trance staring at Jake Weidmann’s three lions during a break at the Q Conference, I took a look outside the window. The rising sun lit up the Rocky Mountains in the distance, and sprinkled its warmth on the flock of cars filing into Denver. As I sat at my table and prepared for the next presenter, I quietly wondered what life would look like if we viewed work not as a job, but as an act of creation.

Jeff Haanen

creativity and work

Do the Hard Work of Thinking Theologically