Doctrine, Exegesis, and Worldview

Why is Christianity so complicated? (Is that a bad question to ask?) I spent about 6 hours today catching up on my Pneumatology reading, so maybe I'm a little on overload right now.

But I'm wondering. I was reading a book written by one person to combat a book written by another person. Two scholars, studying the same Greek texts, coming to drastically different conclusions. Granted, one's methodology seems more intact than the other's, but that's not even my point here.

My problem is that there are lots of doctrinal gaps in the Scriptures. A lot of things you can figure out, but the things that are ambiguous are ultimately left up to the individual and his or her worldview. Do you believe that speaking in tongues died out after the apostolic age? Then there are certain things you're going to read into the ambiguous Pauline texts. Do you believe that Paul's teachings on tongues still apply to the church today? Then you're going to see those ambiguous texts in a totally different light.

I'm not saying theology is subjective. And I'm not saying Paul's teaching on tongues is subjective, either. Generally, he's pretty straightforward about it. I'm just saying that in those places where a gap exists (i.e., the mall...ha ha ha), your worldview will often fill it in for you. And you might not even realize it. I see it every once in a while in these books I'm reading, and it really tickles me. It's like I caught this brilliant scholar in a brief moment where his worldview determined his exegesis after all. Not that I'm capable of coming close to his level of scholarship at this point--so I'm totally not criticizing him. But it's interesting.

There's part of me that really wants to say to all of them, "Stop all the nitpicking! Why can't we just love Jesus and love people and go on with our lives?" Then there's another part of me that realizes without accurate exegesis, folks start getting into a lot of doctrinal weirdness that ends up screwing up a lot of people. So all of this really is important. It's just so...much to take in.