Answer to Question #166023 in English for jan marie freilene tamargo

Question

what must have been the cause of the (or why is there a) rupture between theology and life.

Answer 1

Theology can be thought of alternatively as catechesis, criticism, or doxology, depending on whether we see its goal as the handing on of tradition, the assessment of thought and practice, or the praise of God. For a school of theology like Candler, theological education can correspondingly be thought of as equipping students to faithfully transmit the teaching of the church, or as distancing students from an unthinking acceptance of traditional ways, or as preparing them for a richer experience of worship. All these modes are actively present in our pedagogy.

But another way of construing theology is as a form of prophecy. By prophecy I do not mean the ability to predict the future. I speak of prophecy in biblical terms, as discerning in the complex circumstances of everyday life a Word from God, and speaking that Word to a world that most desperately needs to hear it. Theology understood as prophecy is a risky proposition. Risky because prophecy seeks to discover the ways of the living God, and as Hebrews reminds us, it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Risky because God’s work in the world, here and now, is disclosed only partially, indirectly, and often, darkly.

It is risky above all, though, because the theologian as prophet does not stand above or apart from the context of ordinary life but stands solidly within life as shared by all. The theologian is therefore required to discern and declare God’s Word both with boldness and with humility—boldness because the Word must be spoken: without a vision the people perish; humility because the theologian holds no position greater than that of servant, wields no power other than that of the Word itself.