Theological Scholarship as Religious Vocation

Abstract

Theological studies as a discipline committed to religious practice has come increasingly under fire from both adherents of dispassionate “religious studies” and partisans of ecclesial communities. A false solution is on offer that also emphasizes religious practices; this move, however, reinscribes the problem it seeks to solve because of its insular tendencies. The church-scholar needs the study of religion for its ability to disclose the richness of religious life on which theology comments, but theology cannot rest there. Theology must incorporate practices that care for honest, humble truth-seeking both within one's community and beyond.