Thoughts on a Title

The title “theosnob” is a bit pretentious. It is a title that almost begs a fight. Yet it is something that I think is true to who I am as a person. All through college, seminary, and in my doctoral work, I have been someone who would live passionately. In college, my passion was music. I could talk to someone for hours about composers, methods of composition, and the philosophical implications that one could consider in music. I was (and still am to a lesser degree) very passionate about music. My passion was at times annoying. I would call others to a high level of appreciation, of enjoyment. I never liked crap, and would scoff at composers like Susa or John Williams. I was a music snob.
Then I went to seminary, and began to study theology, history, bible and ethics. My passion for thinking about God and speaking about God grew, developed and emerged in a similar, annoying way as my passion for music. I would expect that others would have a high level of theological sophistication, understanding and appreciation. I especially expected this of other pastors (boy was I let down!).
But here is the thing. Not everyone needs to understand the difference between polyphonic modal counterpoint, and harmonic fugues in the style of Bach. Yet people think about God. People ask the infinite questions, struggle with the caverns of the divine and think theologically. Whether we want to or not, we think from time to time theologically.
In those moments of anguish and despair, when one looks for hope and the presence of the divine, if all one has in his or her arsenal of theological thoughts is crap, then the theological understanding is crap. “God has a plan for killing you son” – that’s crap. So I am going to be a snob and call people, especially other pastors, to a higher level of theological competency. Be consistent with your crap if you really need to hold onto it, or take a chance, trust in God, and try to find something that might just deepen your relationship with the Lord.
So hopefully I will be annoying with my theological snobbery, with a large dash of humility, because a lot of the ideas I have are also crap and I have a lot of learning and growing to do. What I will look to and rest upon is a consistent passion to learn and grow with the Lord.