Theology is not Christian theology only. A good part of this 'problem' comes from identifying religion only with Christianity (and, pretty often, just Protestantism). I'm a Wiccan Priest and theologian and our traditions and approaches are a lot more like other polytheisms - Hinduisms, the African Traditional Religions, Indigenous traditions. Ecstatic traditions, myths and stories instead of Scriptures, continuous revelation, immanentist approaches, nature-centredness, process theologies like Carol Christ, feminist and queer theologies, based in ritual and experience, and so on.
Absolutely! I can’t tell you how often people outside of the field of theology (even non-Christians) just want to reduce the field of theology to nothing but things people say about Christianity. I’m not sure why it is that so many people (Christian and non-Christian) seem to want it to be this way. But I find it so frustrating, because I know that theology is more diverse than that.
It's a deep-seated issue, how we learned what religion is. Wicca is principally a religion of converts and many of my co-religionists snap back into assumptions from their childhood religions about the natures of the gods, the appropriate morality, what forms of ritual are correct and so on. There's not as much systematic theological thinking and writing as there needs to be for us to better understand ourselves. When I was doing doctoral-level work (I have an ABD in a DMin program at St. Stephen's College in Edmonton), the very well-meaning faculty and my fellow students ran up against this, too.
Looking forward to more news of the book on theology's afterlives. As a theology grad (who has just about gotten away with it career-wise) theology's access to the "absolutely weird and uncategorizable" is a quality I've valued more and more over time
Theology is not Christian theology only. A good part of this 'problem' comes from identifying religion only with Christianity (and, pretty often, just Protestantism). I'm a Wiccan Priest and theologian and our traditions and approaches are a lot more like other polytheisms - Hinduisms, the African Traditional Religions, Indigenous traditions. Ecstatic traditions, myths and stories instead of Scriptures, continuous revelation, immanentist approaches, nature-centredness, process theologies like Carol Christ, feminist and queer theologies, based in ritual and experience, and so on.
Absolutely! I can’t tell you how often people outside of the field of theology (even non-Christians) just want to reduce the field of theology to nothing but things people say about Christianity. I’m not sure why it is that so many people (Christian and non-Christian) seem to want it to be this way. But I find it so frustrating, because I know that theology is more diverse than that.
It's a deep-seated issue, how we learned what religion is. Wicca is principally a religion of converts and many of my co-religionists snap back into assumptions from their childhood religions about the natures of the gods, the appropriate morality, what forms of ritual are correct and so on. There's not as much systematic theological thinking and writing as there needs to be for us to better understand ourselves. When I was doing doctoral-level work (I have an ABD in a DMin program at St. Stephen's College in Edmonton), the very well-meaning faculty and my fellow students ran up against this, too.
Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re doing that work!
Looking forward to more news of the book on theology's afterlives. As a theology grad (who has just about gotten away with it career-wise) theology's access to the "absolutely weird and uncategorizable" is a quality I've valued more and more over time
It’s the best of it! At least as far as I’m concerned.