"Christian Theology is not, in its most elemental form, a terribly tame and dutiful discipline; students of theology need to be intrepid and bold, even passionate"
Mark A. McIntosh, Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Blackwell, Oxford: 2008), x
3 comments:
Exactly so.
The challenge is to keep our passions and the love of neighbor correctly prioritized.
And a challenge it is.
"students of theology need to be intrepid and bold, even passionate" [but good heavens, NOT "intrepid, bold and passionate" in an "atheistic" sense].
Though perhaps this quotation also implies that theology is relatively dull, like literary criticism. It consists of juggling round the same old balls of interpretation of different sizes and weights that have hung in the air for millennia.
In comparison take something like the sciences, whose journals are popping open with new discoveries every week, from the human genome project to the discovery of micro-RNA and how that influences the genome, to a host of new issues and experiments each week from biology to atomic physics to the cognitive sciences, WHERE THE ENTHUSIASM ARISES FROM STUDYING THE SUBJECT ITSELF, EXPERIMENTING. THERE IS NO NEED TO DARE TO BE "BOLDER" or "MORE INTREPID," not WHEN NEW DISCOVERIES ARE FILLING UP SCIENCE MAGAZINES EVERY WEEK. Enthusiasm arises naturally in such cases.
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