"Dirty" Theology

Dirty Theology

Here in cape Town I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to witness a few red-faced “zealots” standing on there soap boxes at various public junctions preaching to all and sundry. “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!” one cried while another screamed “You are all doomed to hell!”. The first question that popped into my head was “Why do they always seem to have American accents and secondly, “Is anybody actually listening?”. As I stood open mouthed and watched for a while, I realized that everybody around this area began to either walk a lot faster, looked in the complete opposite direction or tried miserably to cover the embarrassment on their faces. As I have carried on my way past these men, my thoughts continued down the track that these guys have plucked up the courage, put themselves out there and then probably returned to their churches to share testimony of how they “shared the Gospel”! But there is no joy in my heart as I see this done. I believe they are doing a lot more harm than good!

I’ve recently come across the term of “dirty theology”. At first I thought it was a christian response to some heretical teachings but as I looked a little closer, I realized that it was something that I kinda liked. “Dirty theology” quite simply is just a colloquial term used to describe what we need to be living out a little more. The Jesus I read about in the bible never stood up and beat people with theological arguments!(except when it was in response to the pharisees). All I ever see him doing is touching the leper that no one else would. Jesus was most often with the despised, the rejected and the down-trodden. His weekly diary was filled with visits to the hated tax collector’s house, a drink with a woman from the other side of the tracks and feeding crowds of hungry people.

For me, we have for too long preached our “clean theology” AT people!

In Luke 5 we see Jesus preaching when he notices two boats on the shore. He gets in one of them, pushes out a little distance and then continues to preach to the people on the shoreline. Next, he tells Simon (the guy who owned the boat) to cast his net on the other side. Simon responds by saying that he has been fishing all night and caught nothing, but because Jesus says so,he will do it. What follows is a miraculous hauling in of incredible numbers of fish that the nets start to break. Seeing this, Simon throws himself at Jesus' feet and cries "I am a sinful man!". This is the famous juncture that Jesus says "From now on you will become fisher's of men".
Dirty theology in action.
Jesus preaches from WITHIN their culture (in their boats) and not AT their culture. Simon realises his sinful state not because Jesus highlights it to him but because Jesus shows him his goodness! I am fast realising that the Gospel makes much of Jesus and of the fact that he is good!Our realisation of sin is not because their is a hell, but because there is a God that is good! After all, it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance!


Just a few thoughts...


Now I'm going to get myself "dirty"...


Jalaps