Measuring the Measuring Stick - Changing How Theology Meets Reality

In a recent piece on his blog Southern Fried Heresy, the Rev. Mark Sandlin posed a vital question that most Christians rarely ask: How do we actually determine if a specific theology deserves to be kept? He pointed out that while we love to defend our preferred tool for finding truth - whether that is scripture, tradition, or reason - we rarely take a step back to evaluate the tool itself.

Sandlin argues that the definitive test for any theology is its real-world yield. I completely agree. Religious ideas do not stay confined to the pages of text; they inevitably bleed into families, politics, and the way we treat one another. They leave lasting prints on the human heart. A heart that is built in the Imago Dei. A heart that deserves to be protected and tended to with care the way Jesus tended to his flock; both the 99 and the 1.

If a theology consistently leaves a trail of trauma, exclusion, and broken spirits, we have to hold the people practicing it accountable and encourage them to look at the framework they are using. We must ask the ultimate question: Can an interpretation be deemed "biblical" or "canon" and still be fundamentally destructive? Clearly, it can.

This brings us to the core concept of Theological Praxis. Praxis is the continuous, dynamic cycle of putting religious beliefs into action and then critically reflecting on those actions in light of scripture and tradition. It bridges the gap between orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right action) by asserting that faith is perfected through active engagement with the world and then by deliberating in community whether that theology truly represents the will of God for God's people.

Through the lens of liberationist, queer, and womanist theologies, faith cannot remain static. We perfect our understanding of God as our comprehension of the human experience evolves. To do that, we must be willing to examine our tools of measurement, judge them by the fruit they produce, and change them if necessary.

The Danger of Ancient Absolutism

We have to stop clinging to rigid, absolutist positions under the guise of them being "biblical." Relying blindly on the cultural consensus of writers who lived two millennia ago ignores a crucial reality: those ancient voices lacked the collective, humane understanding of identity and experience available to us today. Likewise, we struggle to comprehend the intricacies of their ancient context.

Freezing theology in the ancient past yields bitter results. Our responsibility is to extract the timeless, universal principles modeled by Jesus - love, liberation, mercy, and systemic justice - and actively apply them to our modern lives because God is still speaking.

When we look back, history shows that the church has been forced to re-evaluate its interpretive tools before when the moral outcomes turned toxic.

The Fruit Test in Practice

To see theological praxis in motion, we only need to look at how the continuous cycle of action and reflection has dismantled oppressive traditional frameworks in the past.

1. Human Freedom vs. Biblical Slavery

• The Old Absolutism: For generations, dominant religious systems used explicit scriptural mandates (such as instructions to enslaved people in the Epistles or regulation of property in Leviticus) to justify chattel slavery. It was preached as orthodox and ordained by God.

• The Praxis Pivot: The actual yield of this theology was catastrophic - systemic violence, generational trauma, and the denial of the divine image in Black and Indigenous bodies. Liberationist and womanist perspectives forced a critical reckoning. If a theology produces the destruction of human beings, the framework is broken. Today, we recognize that Christ's core message demands freedom, making the old "biblical" defense of slavery an ideological relic.

  
  

2. The Equality of Women vs. Patriarchal Subjugation

• The Old Absolutism: Traditionalists long weaponized household codes and literalist readings of Paul to keep women silent, bar them from spiritual leadership, and demand total submission to male authority.

• The Praxis Pivot: Womanist and feminist scholars highlighted the toxic outcomes of this arrangement, from domestic abuse covered up in the name of piety to the systemic silencing of divine gifts. By reflecting on the active, foundational roles women held in Jesus' ministry, the praxis shifted. We began perfecting our understanding, realizing that true spiritual equality is the only position that allows an entire community to thrive.

  
  

3. Queer Flourishing vs. Rigid Sexual Ethics

• The Old Absolutism: Modern religious institutions frequently demand absolute conformity regarding sexual ethics, gender identity, and sexuality, relying on a handful of isolated proof-texts to justify exclusion and condemnation.

• The Praxis Pivot: Queer theology applies the fruit test directly to this landscape. The real-world result of these restrictions is not holiness; it is a epidemic of youth homelessness, depression, spiritual trauma, and suicide. In medical science, if a treatment consistently makes the patient sicker, you change the prescription. Through praxis, we recognize that God rejoices in the love, diversity, and wholeness of LGBTQ+ individuals. Any theology that requires the psychological or spiritual erasure of a person fails the test of Christ.

  
  

The Fruit of Today's Absolutism: Weaponized Supremacy

When we turn the fruit test onto the contemporary landscape, the danger of theological absolutism becomes terrifyingly clear. We see ancient words uprooted from their context and weaponized to serve systemic harm, political dominance, and human subjugation.

Nowhere is this bad fruit more visible than in the rapid rise of White Christian Nationalism. This ideology systematically twists theological principles to establish and protect a hierarchy of white, Christian, male supremacy. By blending civic identity with a narrow, exclusionary religious identity, it claims divine backing for policies that strip rights from marginalized groups, enforce rigid gender roles, and concentrate political power in the hands of a dominant few.

This is not a theoretical disagreement; it is a profound distortion of the gospel that puts theology into practice to serve genuine evil. The yield of this mindset is fear, state-sanctioned discrimination, and the violent exclusion of anyone who does not fit the supreme mold.

The institutional church is beginning to recognize the toxic fruit of this movement. At the 227th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), commissioners voted overwhelmingly to formally declare White Christian nationalism and its adjacent ideologies "a theological error". They explicitly amended their Book of Order to reject any system that seeks to assert religious dominance through state power or conflates faith with racial, national, or ethnic supremacy.

This historic vote is a direct exercise of theological praxis. It is a major denomination looking at the real-world violence, racism, and oppression generated by Christian nationalism and declaring:

The tree is bad. The fruit is rotten. Therefore, the theology itself is an error completely incompatible with the life and teachings of Jesus.

A Living Faith

This evolution is not about chasing secular trends or twisting faith into whatever feels comfortable. It is about deep moral accountability.

Ideas possess real-world consequences. When a theological system consistently generates fear instead of liberation, shame instead of wholeness, and domination instead of service, that harm stands as evidence of structural failure.

Our faith is not a relic trapped in a display case. It is a living, breathing reality. By embracing theological praxis, we commit to the ongoing work of evaluating our systems, listening to the marginalized, and ensuring that our beliefs produce the only outcome that matters - the flourishing of love and human dignity.