Vanhoozer: Doctrine and Life

Kevin Vanhoozer in a typically inimitable articulation of the necessary conjunction of what we believe and how we live (what I call strawberry-rhubarb theology):

[H]e who is tired of doctrine is tired of life, for doctrine is the stuff of life. Christian doctrine is necessary for human flourishing: only doctrine shows us who we are, why we are here, and what we are to do. The stereotype of doctrine as dry and crusty cuts a flimsy caricature next to the real thing, which is brave and bracing. Doctrine deals with energies and events that are as real and powerful as anything known in chemistry or physics, energies and events that can turn the world we know upside down, energies and events into which we are grafted as participants with speaking and acting parts.

--The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, xiii.