Theology is Boring

Now that I have your attention.

For years now I have been complaining that theology is boring. This, somewhat understandably, tends to alienate my theologian friends. I am now going to try to explain what I mean.

All academics entered their fields for different reasons, but most of us are readers. In addition to being a reader, I love books. I love the idea of unraveling an idea in longform, and I especially like books that take a small concrete artifact and use it to explain a larger idea. Philosophers, and especially historians, are really good at this.

Below are a few examples of books I’ve loved because of their overall conceit; followed by some observations about whether theology can or can’t follow suit.

1. John McPhee, The Control of Nature (1989); Each chapter of this book tells the story of a location where humans attempted to exert control over natural forces; rivers, lava, debris flows from the San Gabriel Mountains. Through detailed accounts of these attempts, McPhee gets to a much richer, more complex question- what happens when people try to control nature? Is nature, in fact, the kind of thing that can be controlled? And what is the more basic relationship between “man” and “nature”? Here we have a big idea (control of nature) that is illustrated and given legs, through great writing and observation of the natural world.

2. Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting not to Know (2024); I’m halfway through this book, which is a series of short reflections on questions about occasions where humans choose ignorance over knowledge.

Lilla inverts Decartes’ view of the human and asks, what about those occasions where humans appear to not want to know? What then? Each chapter- one on taboos, one on innocence, one on nostalgia- takes a common occasion that seems to contradict the truism that humans desire and seek out the truth and asks- what happens when they don’t? I like how this book inverts one of our basic assumptions about humans as truth seeking and reflects on those occasions where we aren’t.

3. David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Wittgenstein’s Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute argument between Two Great Philosophers (2001); if this book were a person I’d marry it. It tells the story of a ten meeting meeting between philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. Part biography, part philosophical account with a good bit of gossip woven in, the back matter describes the two giants of philosophy as “proud, irascible, larger than life—and spoiling for a fight”- my favorite type of intellectual.

I’m finding many riveting philosophical histories as of late; consider Andrea Wulf, Benjamin Lipscomb, William Egginton, among others. Part of this might be shallow- I love gossip— but I also love real disagreements about ideas. An account that humanizes some of the most significant intellectual problems humans have considered is extremely up my alley. Why can’t theology manage this??

4. Marion Fourcade and Kieran Healy, The Ordinal Society, (2024: I need to write about this book as well, which blew me away. In truth I have been grasping after an account of how technology inverts what theologians call theological anthropology, especially on the problem of the will. This does it, with enough footnotes to substantiate their claims- but written lucidly and even with humor, at times. I absolutely devoured this.

5. Mara van der lugt, Hopeful Pessimism (2025); I gave this book a rather severe review in First Things, but if you know me, you know that is a sign of affection. I loved the questions behind this book, and so enjoyed how Van der lugt deftly described the problem so that an ordinary reader could follow the question. She takes the famous “Hope” painting from G.F. Watts and uses it, along with other literary allusions, to talk about how our view of hope can be subtly altered, and how the concept is expansive enough to include both positive optimism and devastated defeat. Just wonderfully done.

Now here is a list of the theology books I’ve read most recently.

1. David Kelsey, Eccentric Existence (2009); Dr. Kelsey, I will go down as your biggest fan. I love the way Kelsey’s mind works and how interwoven his theological reflections are. But this book is not interesting, nor is it readable. It is also 1051 pages. Now my third or fourth time through it, I’m finding that a lot of the ideas I have attributed to Kelsey were in fact my own wrestling with what he didn’t, and should have, said. I’ve advised my students to read only the “A” chapters and skip the “B” chapters, where Kelsey runs through his own method. An editor really should have addressed this. Some of it is beautifully written, but it’s not easy, nor accessible.

2. Ian McFarland, The Hope of Glory: A Theology of Redemption (2024); Ian is one of the best thinkers of our time, imo, and also a dear friend of mine. I found this book engaging and funny and beautifully organized, as all of his books are- but it is not accessible, nor does it have the sort of framing that would cause an ordinary reader to pick it up. And that’s a shame, because in it he unravels some of the most significant challenges around eschatology!

3. Hans Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ (1975): ok, I actually do think this is “interesting”. But perhaps with the added clause “interesting to me”. Frei wrote this originally as a serialized editorial in Crossroads, an adult education magazine of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. in 1967, which is the most depressing thing I’ve read of late. There are no Christian theological magazines who would publish something similar today. Frei does make his account “relevant”, including some interesting engagement with images of Christ in movies and literature, but it is still written at a level that makes it not as concrete as it might have been. I think this one could be reworked to be more accessible, with a central image taken to organize the argument, but as it stands, it lacks some of the broad appeal of the examples noted above.

So, what do the theology books I read lack, that other interesting books have??

1. A “Big Idea” that is observable and universal. I think part of the problem theological books run into is that you have to be inside the Christian imaginary, and have thought a bit about its architecture, to find most of our books interesting. Ignorance is a problem, as is pessimism, that everyone can understand to be a problem. “Christology” is not a commonly held problem in this way. Theological anthropology is, actually, it is just that the attempts thus far have failed to concretely and clearly situate the problems, imo. The books are either written too high or they attempt to be too practical, settling on concrete examples like “designer babies” or even surrogacy that are almost too black and white; give me plastic surgery, give me credit card data- something more ubiquitous. For a theology book to be interesting, you usually have to already care about the problem it presents. But for an interesting book to be interesting, all you have to do is see the problem.

Incidentally, this is why the Lisbon earthquake has inspired so many “interesting” theological books. It has an observable problem that begs for a theological account.

2. An artifact. I’m gonna need lava explosions or overflowing dams or giant fistfights to explode the question before my reader. There are some giant questions in modern theology- could someone with enough chops write a popular book on the argument around the New Perspective on Paul that gave the whole thing legs, and really got to the whats at stake? Maybe, but I’m not even sure that’s important enough of an argument (sorry!) We’re still overdue for this kind of gossipy account of Karl Barth on natural theology, imo. That could be fun in the right hands.

3. A really great structure. I want spokes on a wheel, with five chapters that give concrete images circulating around a central theme (like Grace or Forgiveness); or a book of essays on the best arguments in Christian history; or a manuscript, like the St. Alban’s Psalter, that shows a move toward a form of piety that evangelicals would take and run with. We need good thinkers and creative intellects for these sorts of books. I really hope we get them. Some of my favorite books that do this come from history and art history; perhaps we’ll get a vol. 2 so we can look at how these books make big ideas concrete.

What are your favorite, interesting books? Are any of them theological?