Every Action Has a Theology

At every moment, we are living out of belief. Whether we realize it or not, our actions flow from convictions, some of them deeply held, yet completely unexamined.

Many of these beliefs weren’t consciously chosen; they were shaped by the people and environments around us. We’re discipled into them by our families, by television, by education, or simply through experience. Over time, they become the foundation of how we actually live.

For example, if you grew up in a home where your father was neglectful or abusive, you may carry into adulthood a belief, unspoken, maybe even unconscious, that men can’t be trusted, or that authority is always dangerous. You may approach leadership with suspicion or withdraw from responsibility yourself. That belief wasn’t taught in a classroom, but it was learned all the same, and it shapes behavior.

Let me give you a personal and positive example of how belief shapes practice.

I grew up in a home that was deeply preoccupied with the occult. Not in an overtly religious way, but our lives were filled with it. We constantly watched horror movies. Vampires, aliens, monsters, you name it. I was an early reader, and the first novel I read in elementary school was Stephen King’s It. I eventually read all of his books up through the late ’90s, right up until I was saved in 1997.

All of that filled me with a deep and irrational fear, of the dark, of monsters hiding behind every door or shower curtain. Every creak in the floor was something coming to get me. Every walk in the woods felt like something unseen was watching me. I was tormented by fear of dark powers, even if I couldn’t name them.

Looking back, I think one of the reasons I turned to atheism in my early teens was an attempt to rationalize away those fears, to tell myself, there is no spiritual darkness out there. But atheism couldn’t bring rest to my soul, because the fears weren’t just in my imagination. Yes, those horror stories misrepresented spiritual darkness, but spiritual darkness itself is real. And my fear had a spiritual root.

What finally brought me peace wasn’t pretending the darkness didn’t exist. It was coming to know the doctrine of God the Father. The doctrine of Christ the King. The doctrine that I am a temple of the Holy Spirit.

After I became a Christian, I began to reason differently: If God is for me, who can be against me? If the Spirit of God dwells in me, what demon could overpower me? If Christ is King, and I belong to Him, what is there to fear?

And I started to sleep again.

Growing up in that kind of environment has lingering effects, but I confront every single one of them with the truth of Scripture. Because at every moment, we are either believing a truth or a lie. Behind every action or attitude is a belief. A theology.

Is God good? Does He love you? Then why are you afraid?

Bad behaviors must be confronted with good doctrine. Life is the incremental alignment of theology with practice. You look at a behavior and say, That must be rooted in a belief. What belief? You confront it. You test everything against God’s Word because your theology and your practice are inseparably connected.

Painting: Dark Forest, Ivan Shishkin (1890)