Of Course Mormonism has Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dave's post over at DMI reminded me of first time I heard that Mormonism didn't have "theology". Back then I thought, "You've got to be kidding me!" As I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithpromotingrumor\/2007\/03\/of-course-mormonism-has-theology\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Of Course Mormonism has Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dave's post over at DMI reminded me of first time I heard that Mormonism didn't have "theology". Back then I thought, "You've got to be kidding me!" 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{"id":381,"date":"2007-03-27T15:37:24","date_gmt":"2007-03-27T20:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faithpromotingrumor.wordpress.com\/2007\/03\/27\/of-course-mormonism-has-theology\/"},"modified":"2007-03-27T15:37:24","modified_gmt":"2007-03-27T20:37:24","slug":"of-course-mormonism-has-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithpromotingrumor\/2007\/03\/of-course-mormonism-has-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Course Mormonism has Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Dave\u2019s post over at DMI<\/a> reminded me of first time I heard that Mormonism<\/a> didn\u2019t have \u201ctheology\u201d. Back then I thought, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding me!\u201d As I listened, though, I slowly understood. I also agreed. However, the more I\u2019ve listened to discussions on the topic, the more I\u2019ve found the claim problematic.<\/p>\n

The problem with this, as I see it is (at least) two-fold:<\/p>\n

First of all, \u201ctheology\u201d is removed from it\u2019s broader sense of \u201cfaith seeking understanding\u201d to a more specialized\/technical sense that disqualifies not only Mormonism from having theology, but just about every religion besides Christianity (and only certain kinds of Christianity there in). Etymological concerns aside, I\u2019m not persuaded that this amounts to much more than saying Mormons<\/a> have not engaged in activities such as those done by Schleiermacher or convened councils to enact creeds. Many, if not all of these conclusions are already known, and could be arrived at without invoking the term \u2018theology\u2019. I am also not persuaded that much is gained by using so narrow a definition.<\/p>\n

Secondly (and this is the bone I really wanted to pick), it seems that all too often we use the notion of no \u201ctheology\u201d to create a convenient \u201cother\u201d for us to work in opperation against. \u201cWe\u201d are a-theological and not bound by the same constructs as \u201cthey\u201d are. We revel in our a-theology because it gives us the leeway to build multiple intellectual positions, and not be so hard and fast in our definitions and doctrines. I believe this leads to us creating ways of thinking that are \u201cOrientalist\u201d in as much as we require this \u201cother\u201d for self definition and identity.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"