Imagine walking into a room on a cold morning. The air bites a little, so you glance at the thermometer and it tells you the room is 58 degrees. But the thermometer doesn’t change a thing. It just reflects the environment. The thermostat, however, quietly kicks on the heat and begins to shape the environment.

The Thermometer of Reactive Theology

Too often, Christians develop their theology (i.e. their deepest beliefs about God and life’s biggest questions) more like a thermometer rather than a thermostat. They simply react to whatever temperature their life experiences set for them.

A hurtful church experience makes them suspicious of authority, so they redefine it.

Grandpa was a mean MAGA Christian so now they think talking politics is sinful.

A lady had bad experience in church leadership so she keeps an arms length from any church ministry or quits church altogether.

Someone was told Complementarians are chauvinistic woman haters so they reject with vigor.

Someone grew up in a janky mega-church so they denounce having a nice website as evil.

Some judgmental Christian hurt their feelings, so they swing to an uncritical tolerance.

A Calvinist was mean to them so they hate Calvinism.

A cold, theologically rigid church makes them recoil from anyone who quotes a theologian or cares about theology.

When cultural pressure pushes, their beliefs subtly shift to fit the moment.

The examples are legion, but the impulse is the same. This is reactive theology. It is throwing out babies with the dirty bathwater because of their limited perspective. It is a faith molded by our experiences, wounds, biases, or cultural moods rather than by Scripture.

The Thermostat of Proactive Theology

What we need instead is proactive theology. An understanding of God that doesn’t merely reflect our experiences but reorients them. Proactive theology begins with the assumption: God is God and I am not; his Word is authoritative and my experiences are not. A Christian with a proactive mindset wants to develop their deepest beliefs according to the true and authoritative words of God and not their present preferences or past pains. To accomplish this, they intentionally and carefully read Scripture on its own terms, test their conclusions through meaningful and humble conversation with other believers, and anchor their worldview in the character of God rather than the failures of His people or pop-culture. Proactive theology sets the temperature of our hearts and minds according to the Word of God rather than merely reflecting the hardships of the past or the present climate of our culture. They’re ruled by the thermostat of God’s Word rather than the thermometer of their hearts.

All of us carry experiences, biases, and wounds that shape who we are. No one is immune to life’s shaping influences. To claim otherwise is either embarrassingly ignorant or deeply dishonest. Yet Scripture calls us to have our minds renewed by God’s Word (Romans 12:1-2), not enslaved by our past or present (Ephesians 2:3). Our responsibility is clear: humbly, sincerely, and earnestly ensure that our experiences do not dictate what we believe. That work belongs to God alone.

If we let our deepest beliefs about God be formed by our experiences, we are doomed to build a theology as unbalanced (and as harmful) as the one we were trying to escape. In love, God forbids that. And so should we.

Beloved, don’t let your wounds write your theology.