Dominic

When we have a son, his name will be Dominic. Kit let me in on this decision the day before we were married...and I didn't like the name. But then I read about St. Dominic, a mendicant who lived in Italy in the 1200's. I like Dominic.

The way things worked at that time was the really religious guys would go out into the woods, retreat from the world and cast off all their worldly possessions. Francis of Assisi was the big name of the day, and he was strict in his asceticism- so much so that he didn't allow his followers any religious texts (or any other possessions, for that matter). Another movement of the time was the Albigensians, who converted the people of southern France to Catholicism by force. "Convinced there was a better way to combat heresy, Dominic set out to preach and teach orthodoxy." He encouraged his followers to be well armed intellectually, and encouraged training in truth to combat the heresies of the day.

Heresy is an idea that is held in opposition to orthodoxy, or to put in more plainly, its an idea that is skewed from what the bible has laid down for us as truth. Sometimes the heresies of our day are plain, for example, the idea some people put forward that "Jesus was a good guy but he never claimed to be God," or "There's no one way to get to heaven."

Sometimes they are more subtle (i.e "when Paul told women to submit to their husbands he only said it because that was what the world was like at the time and it doesn't apply to us today."), or the thoughts are posed in such a way where we want to scratch our heads and say, "Does the bible really line up with that?" (a la Eve).

Here is where a practical knowledge of the bible and theology comes in handy- this is what we mean by theology for daily living...A firm knowledge of God and His Word that equips us to combat the heresies of our day.

C.S Lewis in writing about the necessity of theology in our daily lives, said, "Theology is intensely practical: especially now. In the old days there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads. Everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to theology, that will not mean you have no ideas about God. It will mean you have a lot of wrong ones..."

The order Dominic set up is called the Dominicans (creative, huh?). The goal was to teach intelligent, orthodox beliefs to their followers to enable them to go forward and make sound arguments against the heretics of their day. As we talk with our non-Christian friends (and our Christian ones), its good to have a sound doctrine, a firm knowledge of what God has said, of who His Son is. Not so we can take them down a notch, not to obtain "knowledge which puffs up" but "wisdom that builds up" so that we can "speak the truth in love" and "hold fast to the confession of our faith."