Seeking the truth...

In my last post I covered what I view as framing problems. These are structural problems within the institutions that produce theology that hold the discipline back, limiting its utility to the church. I proposed a new location for the production of theology: the part-time, lay theologian. Their location in the real world as well as their freedom from the methodological requirements of the academic world can make them an asset to the church and the pastor. Contemporary theology is suffering from more problems than just framing problems. In this post we will deal with two major issues with the way theology is approached. The priorities of theology, at times, have been misguided, both classically and in the modern period. In the modern period, there has been an overemphasis on providing firm footing from which theology can proceed and an effort to put theology on the same level as the hard sciences. This has resulted in the dominance of prolegomena.[1] Prolegomena is necessary, but it...

As I’ve briefly mentioned in a couple of previous posts, I am not satisfied with the theology of the late twentieth and early twenty first century. I want to spend two posts outlining the problems and charting the course that we will take on this blog over the next decade or two in developing a new theology. Yes, I said decade or two, and it probably will be two. Writing a full theology is the work of a lifetime, but I see little more worth devoting my one life to. In this post, I will outline what I see as three major framing problems. A subsequent post will deal with other problems as I map out my proposed approach. Currently theology is split into two major disciplines: biblical theology and systematic theology. The goal of biblical theology is to analyze individual texts using the historical critical method or literary ciriticism and then utilize those close readings to develop a conservative synthesis that spans a book, author, genre, or occasionally a testament or the whole Bi...