Toward a Theology of Fun

September 7, 2012 By 4 Comments

Photo credit: Matt Kirk

Should Christians have fun?

Is that even biblical?

What do we do with the hard teachings in the Bible?

How do we find joy?

These questions have started me on a journey, investigating these issues. I spoke last week to my colleagues at a chapel service at InterVarsity, sharing my early thoughts. It’s not particularly fun or funny.

Click to listen: Toward a Theology of Fun.  (Caution: it plays immediately when you click).

Do you think Christians are usually fun? Why or why not?

 

Filed Under: Community, Fun, Jesus 4 Comments
  • http://www.ivpress.com/ Jon Boyd

    Adam — I’m glad to see this post, because I couldn’t help thinking of your talk the other day when I read this quotation in InterVarsity Press’s fresh title, A Little Book for New Theologians ( http://ivpr.es/kkapic ):

    “The theologian who has no joy in his work is not a theologian at all. Sulky faces, morose thoughts and boring ways of speaking are intolerable in this science. May God deliver us from what the Catholic Church reckons one of the seven sins of the monk — tædium [weariness] — in respect of the great spiritual truths with which theology has to do. But we must know, of course, that it is only God who can keep us from it.”

    The quotation is from Karl Barth’s 1957 Church Dogmatics. So you’re in good company with this talk!

    • Adam Jeske

      If I had a nickel for every time people likened me to Barth…

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  • http://www.ivpress.com/ Jon Boyd

    Adam — Here’s another fresh quotation that made me think of your talk topic. (I’ll keep passing these along just in case you ever use the talk again.)

    “When I was in seminary, one of my professors made a comment about some of the guys he went to school with: “The guys who played Ping-Pong and enjoyed life during their seminary days are still in the ministry today. The guys who were so serious and never came up for air or to have some fun are not in the ministry today.” The point is well taken: we are to have a measure of joy in serving the Lord. …Be joyful and have some fun whenever you can.”
    — Mark E. Strong, Church for the Fatherless (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, IVP Praxis, 2012), 166. http://ivpr.es/churchforthefatherless