"There are many clergy in the Anglican and Uniting denominations who proudly turn their back on the formal study of theology."

Perhaps these clergy are beginning to see what atheists have always seen clearly: that 'theology' is a discipline without a subject. As it is becoming ever harder to convince people that God exists, it becomes ever harder to justify taking time, money and effort to study nothing.

I concede there might be value in studying what theologians have said in the past, but this is properly part of history and/or literary analysis. It might also be useful to study what goes on in people's brains when they think they are having a religious experience -- but this is the province of psychology (or psychiatry). Theology proper has as little foundation in reality as fairyology or unicornology, and is about as useful.

Fratelle, (and Jon J),
I appreciate your unintended confirmation of my analogy between dogmatic theology and pure mathematics: I know of many dismissals of (postgraduate) pure mathematics by people who did not understand what it was about, (and what it was for), not unlike your post regarding dogmatic theology. I can understand your position, however as for myself, I prefer not to enter into discussions about things I do not understand with an emotionally loaded contribution because it would say nothing about the topic in question only about my mental disposition towards it.

George,

I may not understand pure mathematics, but I can see its results in the physical world, in bridges, planes and computers. Would you like to explain what empirical results have been achieved through the study of theology -- other than more theology, that is?

Fractelle, does a rhetorical question get a question mark/

Religion without theology is about what then? power? moralising? do-gooding? the insecurity of proponents?

Two random bits of news I heard today- our solar system is 'eating' it's neighbour and the environment is a 'stakeholder' in determining govt. policy. God is dead, long live God.

Jon J

Theology has informed the work of artists, musicians, writers, philosophers, educators, philosophers and practically every aspect of our culture, language and the very way we think.
You see Jon, theology is the shared thought of people who have doubted, questioned and challenged conventional wisdom. They invariably do not hold to your oversimplified and obviously nonsensical ideas of God which imagine a wise old white-haired man who can make everything right with a word or a wave of some magical staff.

Just as applied mathematics represents the pragmatic application of ideas having their conceptual underpinnings in pure maths so religious culture is very much a pragmatic application of concepts underpinned by systematic theology.

There have been times when religion played a more important part in politics and was very much corrupted in the process so there is certainly much to commend your analysis of religious culture. You are wrong, however, to dismiss all of theology on the basis that the church in its corrupt state has promulgated much that is unworthy.
Sola Scriptura was partly theological dialectic and partly political slogan. It was raised to correct a church culture that had diverged far from the basic principles of Jesus’ teaching. It became the founding principle of new religious communities who in turn became the pawns of European politics. It cuts both ways. As Sells points out it has become a dogma of its own.

If Sells is proposing a return to certain ‘dogmas’ purely on the basis of their place in the upholding of church traditions then he certainly does not have my sympathy. That is just a form of fundamentalism. Theology is the business of analysing what has gone before and constructing new ways of understanding that, while in continuity with tradition, are not bound to follow ‘doggedly’ in the footsteps of tradition.

It is a little difficult to tell from this article whether Sells is just nostalgic for traditions now dead or dying or if he is actually proposing a return to the sort of serious theologizing which could turn the church on its ear

George
There is some mistrust of philosophy from the point of view of theology. One of Karl Barth’s most important contributions was to insist that theology used its own methods. He famously refused attempts to impose philosophical systems on theology. Historically, whenever philosophical systems were imposed on theology things went astray. The earliest, of course was classical Greek philosophy in the form of Plato and Aristotle. However, theology did gain from this interaction as the present Pope indicated when he talked about the rationality of faith being derived from the Greeks. This is a long history. In the 17th and 18th century theology suffered from both Descartes and Locke. More recently existentialism distorted theology with its emphasis on the crisis of the individual. So I guess you can proceed to tell the story of the influence of philosophy on theology through its various phases.

Waterboy
Theology is always developing although there are things that are set in concrete. For example, that Jesus is God incarnate, that God reveals himself as Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. These and more are the fixed points by which theology navigates, a bit like the periodic table of the elements in chemistry or atomic theory in physics. Unfortunately, the word “dogmatic” has become a pejorative meaning inflexible and closed to argument