The Theologometer

Given that we've been talking about theological quality and church I thought I'd share with you an idea I had at church a few weeks back. (On a different note, this post will let you in on how my mind functions during a typical Sunday.)

Okay, I'm sitting at church and the varying theological quality is making my head spin. We're moving from sappy praise songs to a prayer about "signs concerning the end times" to a communion meditation full of penal substitutionary atonement to a sermon stuffed with Cartesian dualism and thanatocentrism. My head is just buzzing. And I'm having trouble concentrating.

So a write a note (yes, I write notes in church and sometimes read books) and hand it down to my friend Mark Love:

What we need prominently displayed on the wall is a theologometer, where we are getting a real-time readout and immediate feedback concerning the theological quality of the service.

For that particular service, beneath my note, I sketched out something like this:

I won't draw a picture of Mark's guess at the theologometer readout for the service (let's just say my patient at least showed a heartbeat; Mark's was flatlined).

My hunch is that the theologometer would work like biofeedback. In biofeedback you get readouts of your physiological arousal. This feedback allows for conscious control over previously uncontrollable unconscious processes (like heart-rate). Psychologists have even worked with neurofeedback, where you are given displays of your brain waves. I chaired thesis at ACU where neurofeedack was used to treat ADHD.

So, all I'm suggesting is why not give theological feedback? I think it might work.