Theology
Kingdom theology distinguishes between the world ruled by Satan, the one we live in, and the world ruled by God, his kingdom. Kingdom theology holds the importance of the kingdom of God as a core value and teaches that the kingdom currently exists in the world, but not yet in its fullness. The theology maintains that the kingdom of God will come in fullness with Christ's second coming. In the future fulfilment, evil and Satan will be destroyed and God's complete rule on Earth established. Theologian and director of the Vineyard Bible Institute Derek Morphew argued that the kingdom of God encompassed both signs and wonders and social justice. Although kingdom theology presents history as a struggle between God and Satan, there is an eschatological expectation that God will triumph over Satan, which is why suffering for the sake of the kingdom is accepted.
The theology attempts to be able to explain both spiritual victory and continued spiritual warfare, and why some people are seen to be healed by the Holy Spirit and some are not. Kingdom theologians have argued that, because of this, a tension will exist between the apparent successes and failures of prayer. Theologian Don Williams argued that to pray means to ask the future kingdom to break into the present world, rather than being to call down perfection from heaven. Kingdom theology proposes values based on the spiritual world, often different to secular values, such as when Jesus urges people to love their enemies in the sermon on the mount.
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Famous quotes containing the word theology:
“When the Devil quotes Scriptures, it’s not, really, to deceive, but simply that the masses are so ignorant of theology that somebody has to teach them the elementary texts before he can seduce them.”
—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)
“Only men of moral and mental force, of a patriotic regard for the relationship of the two races, can be of real service as ministers in the South. Less theology and more of human brotherhood, less declamation and more common sense and love for truth, must be the qualifications of the new ministry that shall yet save the race from the evils of false teaching.”
—Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)