Back in February,
Jim Kast-Keat wrote a fun piece called "
A Theology of Legos". I enjoyed the piece because of my own love of theology and LEGO, but I was also a little bit jealous that he beat me to the punch. His five points were as follows:
1. Building with LEGO blocks is fun. So is theology
2. LEGO blocks evoke creativity. Theology can do the same.
3. LEGO [can be] collaborative. Theology should be too
4. LEGO blocks come in all shapes and sizes. So does theology
5. LEGO is for all ages. So is theology.
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| My card table the other night... a different way of mixing theology with LEGO ;-) |
Here is my continuation of his list:
6. Building with LEGO is half the fun (Enjoy the journey.)
When building with LEGO you have to go piece by piece and step by step, you can’t just skip to the end and have a completed creation without the building process, much the same as in life. (Though I have certainly said more times than I can count that I
wish I could just skip to the end, but I think at least part of me knows that I would be missing out on valuable things I can only experience while on the journey.)
7. LEGO has at times been thought to be only for boys... like theology.
(Hat tip to Ellen Mandeville)
For most of my life, I wasn't even aware of the existence of theology books written by women. I'm trying to be more intentional in reading a wider variety of authors across the spectrum, because I've found that by not being intentional I still wind up reading mostly white guys. And hey, C. S. Lewis was a white guy and you know how I feel about him, so you know. But the bottom line is that
LEGO and theology is for EVERYBODY!
8. With LEGO and in life, the possibilities are nearly endless.
Imagine our lives as though God gives us thousands of pieces with which to build our lives. And He is building right alongside us, not in a
blueprint theology type of way, but in a loving Father gently guiding his children kind of way… Often there isn’t only one right way to build something. There are countless ways to build a car or a house with LEGO bricks, and there are countless decisions we can make throughout our lives that will keep us in God’s will.
9. There is a wide variety of themes in LEGO and in Theology.
LEGO had the old school space sets in the 80's, Pirates and Castle sets in the 90's, and all kinds of movie tie-in sets since the 2000's (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Superheroes and on and on.) This reminds me of how there is such a wide variety of theological perspectives and methods of interpretation. And just like the blocks from the different themes can all be used together to build something
awesome, perhaps the same is true in theology: that when we work together and learn from each other, we can build something incredible.
10. LEGO creations and faith are rebuild-able.
I've mentioned already that half the fun of playing with LEGO is actually building with them. There is also the fact that you can build and tear apart and rebuild and do it again and again. And
I've written a little bit in this space already about the deconstruction and reconstruction of my faith and theology and I expect I will write more in the future. I know most of the people I have connected with on twitter have this in common with me. A point of difference here could be that the faith deconstruction process may not always feel fun. But when God is in it, you know it's a good thing, even when it doesn't
feel like a good thing at the time...
So there you go, just a few of my random thoughts connecting LEGO with theology. You're welcome. =)
Feel free to add to the conversation here in the comments and/or on twitter using #LEGOTheology, just because it's fun!
