Welcome to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Eidig, Senior Marketing Coordinator here at Vanderblumen. In today's podcast, I get to talk with Ronnie Kurtz, assistant professor of theology at Cedarville University. Ronnie previously was a pastor in Kansas City and taught theology at Midwestern Seminary. In this conversation, Ronnie talks about his new book, Fruitful Theology. He shares how the life of the mind leads to the life of the soul and how theology can help produce the fruit of the spirit in believers. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Well, hey everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I get to talk to Ronnie Kurtz about his new book, Fruitful Theology. Ronnie, how are you today?
SPEAKER_02I'm doing well. How are you?
SPEAKER_01Doing good. Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate the invite and love what you guys are doing here. So I was glad to join.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Well, Ronnie, why don't you kind of give a little bit of background, kind of your experience? I know that you have worked with churches and just have some experience that I would love for you to share with our audience.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. So I I always kind of joke that I live something of a hybrid life. And what I mean by that is I both love the local church and being with God's people and academic theology. And kind of my educational career was me trying to decide what venue am I going to pursue ministry in. Is it going to be the local church? Is it going to be academics? And I really just decided at some point, as long as the Lord doesn't make me choose, I'm going to do both. And so I uh I did both. I during my master's degree, I helped plant a church. Uh, started with nine of us in Kansas City, Missouri. And I pastored there for just about eight years and did that all the way through a couple of master's degrees and a PhD in systematic theology. And when I finished that, I came in 2022, January, I moved to Ohio with my wife and our two-year-old daughter to be an assistant professor of theology at Cedarville University. And so this year I've been teaching uh systematic theology at Cedarville University and been here about eight months. And so it's still kind of new, a little bit of a transition for us. Uh, but it's been really, it's been really sweet. Um, it's hard not pastoring right now, kind of transitioning out of pastoral ministry into full-time academic ministry is a transition, but it does allow me to kind of live kind of that hybrid life that I talked about, having both pastoral and now academic experience.
SPEAKER_01That's great. I love when the Lord allows that. Um, I feel that way. And I think I'm really partial because I studied marketing and thought, oh, I'll go work for a big ad agency and do that, and then was torn and my heart just broke for the church. And then Vanderblumen popped up and do both, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing. I love it.
SPEAKER_01Um, so let's talk about the book a little bit. Fruitful Theology, kind of what led you to writing this? I think there has to be kind of something on your heart to get to the point of sitting down and writing a book.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I hope so. I uh yeah, there was a lot that kind of was working in my soul to bring this book about. One of those things is I love theology. For me, theology has been an avenue for my affections being stirred and getting a greater vision of who God is and what God has done has been one of the most practical things that's ever happened to me. So you often hear about theology as like this cold, stale ivory tower kind of enterprise. And it just has never really been that for me. It's always been kind of a hunt for beauty. And one of the things that led to the book being written was one just wanting to invite others on that kind of a journey to maybe think about theology for the first time in that way as an avenue to pursue beauty and truth and goodness. And then the other is unfortunately, it's not really difficult to be discouraged by theology right now. Uh, whether it's conversations online or even in local churches, uh, just the amount of things that there seemed to be in our cultural moment to divide over. And I just felt like this unity in the name of theology was kind of running rampant. And even those who take the name theologian as it as it was, um, it can be a bit discouraging to see them sarcastically commenting to one another or backbiting or uh even slandering or using theology for the applause of man instead of the glory of God and the good of neighbor. And so I wanted to write a book that kind of swam upstream from that reality. I wanted to write a book to show that theology done well, contemplating the Lord and everything in relation to the Lord should actually lead to the formation of the person and that the life of the mind is connected to the life of the soul. And so, really, it's really not that brilliant of an idea, to be honest. All I did was I took Galatians 5, Paul's listing, the fruit of the spirit, and I tried to demonstrate how contemplating theology well will lead to those virtues that make up the fruit of the spirit in your soul. So thinking about the Lord should lead you to be a loving person and a kind person and a patient and peaceful and gentle and self-controlled kind of person. And sadly, those kinds of virtues are just not really what many people think of when they think of theologians these days. And that's what I wanted to kind of work against is maybe capturing a view of theology again that leads to the stirring of your affections and the forming of your soul.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Uh, you mentioned a couple of times, kind of it almost seems like theology is getting a bad rap these days, you know. Why do you think that is? And what kind of lies are we believing about theology, believers, um, even non-believers, what kind of things are we, misconceptions are we getting?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a great question. Uh I think I I ask in the book, what's wrong with theology today? And the answer is absolutely nothing. There's nothing wrong with theology. Theology is doing just fine as it has been since the opening Salvo of Mankind. Theology is fine, but what's wrong with theologians? There's quite a bit that's wrong with us. Uh, quite a bit that's wrong with all of all of God's people. And when we enter in things like social media and divisive cultural moments, um, it can get ugly. And so I think I work through in the first chapter a few ways that you might have seen theology misused. And maybe you've seen theology misused in terms of it being a divisive thing, where a narrowing of your convictions also leads to a narrowing of your friend group, or maybe you've seen theology misused in that someone starts to pursue down the road of theology and they become arrogant, uh, which should be paradoxical and or not even just paradoxical, but contradictory to Christian theology. Or maybe you've seen theology used as an avenue for the applause of man. Uh, maybe someone really wants attention, and theology happens to be a good, a good tool to get the attention they want. So there's a lot of ways theology can be misused, let alone kind of the the old idea of like we talked about earlier, it being kind of a stale uh academic enterprise that's reserved for only a select few. And the real, the real substance of the Christian life is in loving your neighbor, um, dichotomizing loving God with your mind and loving your neighbor with your hands um has led to, I think, a false view of theology. I say in the book that a headful of truth should lead to a heart full of a heart full of love and hands full of care. And I think our minds, our hearts, and our hands are way more connected than some people might realize they are.
SPEAKER_01Right. That's wonderful. And I think there's another part of this, um, which you touch on in the book of, I mean, I think theology can be almost forgotten today because there's so many things catching our attention um when we should give our attention to theology. So why is that? Um, why do you think Christians really need to give their attention to theology? Maybe now more than ever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I would say to answer that question, there's a lot of reasons why I would say you should give your attention to theology, but maybe the best comes from scripture itself. When if you ask me, what's the underlying passage that's kind of undergirding your book? Uh, I would say it's in 2 Corinthians, uh, primarily uh in chapter three, when Paul says that with unveiled face, we are to behold Christ from one degree of glory to another. And I think that's a really beautiful illustration of what the Christian life is. It is a beholding Christ. You look at Christ until you look like Christ. And theology isn't the only tool in the toolbox to do that, to behold Christ, but it's a really good one. And I think theology done well will help Christians get an eye full of God's glory and what God is doing in the world amongst the nations. And so I think if local churches would recapture a vision of theology that's after the beautiful, the true, and the good, um, those kind of transcendental uh things that our souls long for as a means of beholding Christ from one degree of glory to another, then it's really difficult to forget. And it's especially costly to forget.
SPEAKER_01Your organization is unique. Therefore, the way you find your next staff members should be unique too. Whether you're school, nonprofit, family office, or values-based business, we are ready to help serve you. Contact us today to get started. So let's talk more about that Christ-likeness and kind of in your life, how do you feel like the study of theology has shaped your heart to becoming more Christ-like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's great. Um I think for me, uh there is a a great thinker, reader, uh, or a great thinker and writer, Jen Wilken, who listeners may know, who once said, and I just love this quote, I put it in the book in chapter one, that uh you your heart can't love what your mind doesn't know. And I think that's a good word. I think there is a direct correlation between our adoration for the Lord and our understanding of the Lord. And so the reality for me is obedience becomes sweet when I understand the one I'm obeying and understanding what he's up to. And so as I see God work, it becomes a joy to join him. And so Christlieness can be really aided by the life of the mind, a robust life of the mind. And I do want to be careful. I say over, I say frequently throughout the book that theology is a necessary ingredient for Christlieness, but it isn't a sufficient one. We can't equate theological knowledge with sanctification. Those are not the same thing, right? A sanctified believer needs not just theological wisdom, but relational wisdom and vocational wisdom and uh ecclesial wisdom, wisdom of the church. And so we can't make synonymous theological knowledge and sanctification. It's not sufficient. See, theology can't do that, but I do think it is a helpful ingredient and even a necessary ingredient. And so I think that's kind of how they're combined. As my as my mind's eye gets a clearer view of who God is and what he's doing, and my my uh the the life of my heart gets a more stirred affection for what the Lord is doing, I will be conformed into his image.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's great. I love that. I love that Jen Wilkin quote. I have that one actually written down because it's such a good one.
SPEAKER_02It's amazing. Yeah, she nailed it.
SPEAKER_01Very encouraging. Um, and that's a really good distinction that I think you made that a lot of people kind of get caught up on. And I think that's an important distinction.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Let's kind of talk about on the flip, if we don't study theology, like because so much of the life of the mind leads to the life of the soul, like what do we lose by not studying theology?
SPEAKER_02I love this question. I think what we lose is joy. And one of the things that I try to articulate in the book as an antidote to some of the biding cynicism we see take place in the name of theology today.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Instead of seeing those you disagree with as an enemy that needs to be overcome, if we can understand those we disagree with as a fellow neighbor who is leaving joy on the field by virtue of their false beliefs, that puts us in the position, instead of thinking of us versus them, of being able to take a posture of compassion and love and care of neighbor and show them, hey, I know you think this is true about the world and you think this is true about yourself, but I'm telling you, the scriptures say this. And if you if you abandon this teaching, you're not just abandoning truth, but you're abandoning joy. And I want you to be fulfilled and be satisfied and have joy and to not leave joy on the field. And so to answer your question, I think what's at stake in forgetting theology or doing theology wrong or improper is joy. And I think we should take our joy seriously because I think the Lord takes our joy seriously. The other thing I think is at stake is something that's pretty countercultural today, and that's stability. I think we are often a people who are just dealing with news overload. There are so many headlines, so many tragedies. It feels like our news cycle is just a cyclical time bomb of bad news.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And it can be easy to be let your emotions drive, and your emotions can be fickle and frail. And I think theology, while I do think emotions are important and Christians should be emotionally in tune, I do think theology can give you a sturdiness, a stability that is really lacking in a lot of today's world. And so I think joy and stability are two things that are really at stake if we don't do theology well.
SPEAKER_01That's really great. Something to base truth off of and something that exactly relate to rather than just emotions that can be up and down. Um, that's really great. Um, tell me this if for the listeners who maybe are kind of encouraged in a way, or if you have any encouragement for them of, hey, I do want that joy. I am missing out on that joy. How do I even get started? Maybe in their mindset, they thought theology was that kind of reserved thing for people. Um, what would you just tell those listeners?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a couple of things. One, I don't mean to, you know, plug the book here too much, but I literally have an appendix in the book called I'm New to Theology, where should I start? So that's that's an appendix at the back of the book. I tried to answer this question in hopes that people felt that in reading it, of like, okay, I think I believe him. I want to do theology. Where do I even start that? Uh, I think it it helps a lot first by starting with what even is theology? And I stand in a long line of people who have defined theology as the contemplation of God and all things in relation to God. That's that's kind of how I define theology. The study of God and everything in relation to Him. So if you think about that definition, it's important because if theology is studying or thinking about God, well, we all have thoughts of God, every single one of us, regardless of what your academic background is or your reading levels, or how often you read, or how smart you may think of yourself, you probably have thoughts of God. And anytime you have thoughts or words about God, you are doing theology. So, listener, uh, I don't know if you know this about yourself, but you are a theologian. If you have thoughts or words about God, you are a theologian. So that's been settled. Now, the now the more pertinent question is will you be a good one? And that's that question is still out for debate. And how we be good ones, uh, there's so much to it. The reality, uh, as you'll as readers might see in my my patience chapter, is theology is not microwaveable. You can't get a zeal for theology and become a good Christian thinker overnight. It is a wrestling with the Lord for all of our days, wrestling with his scripture, wrestling with his people, wrestling with ideas, wrestling with our culture. Uh, it is a wrestling that's going to take long and steadfast obedience towards faithfulness. And so I would say start by reading your scriptures, start by praying a lot, pray that the Lord would make you a good Christian thinker, and then get in a local church that has healthy doctrine and healthy membership that they might guide you in your um intellectual contemplation.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Thank you so much, Ronnie, for having this interview with us today. Where can listeners get their hands on a copy of your new book?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they can uh find it really anywhere books are sold. So, of course, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, um, Lifeway. It was published by BH Publishing Group, who was so phenomenal to work with. Um, so really anywhere books are sold, you could pick it up.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. Well, and I'll make sure we'll have some links to that in the show notes for listeners that want to have some quick links to grab a copy of their own and start becoming good theologians.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for the invite again, and thanks for all you do here.
SPEAKER_01Of course. Thanks, Ronnie.
SPEAKER_02Take care.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderblumen, we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, Vanderblumen.com, to learn more, and subscribe to our Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up with our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.