Over the centuries theologians have defended the continuation of slavery; National Socialism in Germany; and the creation of Apartheid. This is only to reference some of the most obscene and horrific examples of the countless ways in which theology has been corrupted. The Bible pillaged for verses to undergird human atrocities, deprivations of dignity and squalid efforts to impose conformity.

In a recent performance of Esther’s Revenge during the Leeds Lit Festival I was reminded once again of this disturbing truth. Esther – played by Bola Atiteba – entered her trial, in the setting of Leeds Minster, holding a Bible. While she clutched it close for much of the performance, it was never cited. No verses were read, yet its silent presence reminded the audience that the Good Book has been used to justify wickedness and, simultaneously, to inspire those who oppose everything that diminishes human life.

The monstrous abuse of Scripture, to enable the destruction of others, has been going on from at least the time its oral state was transformed into text. I have recently started reading Hanna Reichel’s fascinating new book After Method: queer grace, conceptual design, and the possibility of theology. It begins with the question as to whether we need better theology, responding in part to Kevin Garcia’s provocatively titled Bad Theology Kills. As Reichel puts it:

“I baulked at how the church hierarchy in Argentina had been hopelessly complicit in the dictatorship. Had their theology not protected them from the seductions of power and fear, even saw in their survival a greater good over the lives that they abandoned and betrayed?”

Reichel, H. (2023). After Method: Queer Grace, Conceptual Design, and the Possibility of Theology. Presbyterian Publishing Corp.

Reichel’s words are an encouraging affirmation of what I have long believed as a chaplain. Theology should be written in intensive care, not behind the walls of ivy-clad colleges. Charles Taylor puts it succinctly in his seminal work, A Secular Age, when he laments the tendency of the Church to be ‘excarnational’. For Taylor, many theologians have failed to live up to their promise because they have driven the discipline into their heads at the cost of embodied experience and learning. This has promoted theologies that have ignored the human cost of beliefs legitimated by centres of power and education.

Heading this blog is a photograph of an installation – ‘Beast’ – by the American artist Matthew Angelo Harrison. It is featured in the inaugural exhibition of PoMo, the new gallery of modern art in Trondheim, Norway. The beast is encased in a block of polyurethane resin: like a prehistoric creature preserved in amber. However, Harrison’s work is a monster of our own time, created and immersed in acrylic only last year. Attempting to photograph such an object is not easy. Wherever I was standing, my reflection was captured. Perhaps that was Harrison’s intent. We can look at the otherness of the terrifying but make little effort to identify our own complicity in its creation. As Reichel puts it, bad theology is always at work in the creation of ‘us-and-them’ myths that strive to legitimate monstrous deeds. There are those who might think that the easy answer is to dump theology as a whole. However, disposing of words won’t abolish the things to which they refer. Theology – good theology – will always be needed, because human beings will never cease to contest questions about ultimate purposes, what is sacred, and how we treat one another as we seek to determine our destiny.