Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Monday, October 20, 2014

Top down theology

I often despair of the way people think about my chosen subject. They feel that theology is for the professional and not for them. I must admit however that many times they are right and theology is written by the professional and for the professional. It does not serve the church. . 

It is theology which has its source in the academy, i.e. in the seminary or university. It is primarily academic. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being academic, but the academy is the wrong place for theology to start. In this case the academy decides the themes that theology reflects upon. These themes--whatever they may be--reflect the concerns of an academic not those of the people in the pew.

For example, much of the theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were concerned with the existence of God and other philosophical issues. So theology was written which included issues such as the ontological, cosmological and teological arguments. Not for the faint hearted! The main conversation partner for theology was the non-believer. In Latin America, however, the question was not unbelief but grinding poverty. 

A missional theology does not start in the academy, with the academy's questions but in the pew, with the concerns of Christians, living their lives out in the public square. How is this done?

Next time we will examine how these concerns are identified.

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