God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose
what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

The gifts that he gave were that some should be… teachers, to equip
the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of
Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity… We must no longer be
children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine,
by people’s trickery, by their craftiness… But speaking the truth in
love, we must grow up. Do not be children in your thinking; rather, be
infants in evil, but in thinking be adults. Therefore let us go on…
leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again
the foundation… Do your best to present yourself to God as one
approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly
explaining the work of truth.

I want their hearts to be united in love, so that they may have all the
riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s
mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in
him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in
thanksgiving. So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things
that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set
your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one
another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms,
hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or
deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to
God the Father through him.

The sower sows the word. These are the ones on the path where the word
is sown : when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the
word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky
ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy.
But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble
or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall
away. And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones
who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth,
and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it
yields nothing. And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they
hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a
hundredfold.

O that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
Then I shall not be put to shame,
having my eyes fixed on all your
commandments.
I will praise you with an upright
heart,
when I learn your righteous
ordinances.

Blessed are you, O LORD;
teach me your statutes.
With my lips I declare
all the ordinances of your mouth.
I delight in the way of your decrees
as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts,
and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
Open my eyes, so that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law.
My soul is consumed with longing
for your ordinances at all times.
Make me understand the way of
your precepts,
and I will meditate on your
wondrous works.
Put false ways far from me;
and graciously teach me your law.
I run the way of your
commandments,
for you enlarge my understanding.
Teach me, O LORD, the way of your
statutes,
and I will observe it to the end.
Give me understanding, that I may
keep your law
and observe it with my whole
heart.
Lead me in the path of your
commandments,
for I delight in it.
See, I have longed for your precepts;
in your righteousness give me life.
I shall walk at liberty,
for I have sought your precepts.
I revere your commandments, which
I love,
and I will meditate on your
statutes.
Teach me good judgment and
knowledge,
for I believe in your
commandments.
Your hands have made and fashioned
me;
give me understanding that I may
learn your commandments.
I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me
life.
Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
I incline my heart to perform your
statutes
forever, to the end.
I am your servant; give me
understanding,
so that I may know your decrees.
Your righteousness is an everlasting
righteousness,
and your law is the truth.
Your decrees are righteous forever;
give me understanding that I may
live.
My eyes are awake before each
watch of the night,
that I may meditate on your
promise.

1 Corinthians 1:27; Ephesians 4:11-15; 1 Corinthians 14:20; Hebrews
6:1; 2 Timothy 2:15; Colossians 1:2-3; 2:6-7; 3:1-2, 16-17; Mark
4:14-20; Psalm 119:6-7,12-16,18,20,27,29,32-25,40,45,48,66,73,93,105,
112,125,130,135,142,144,148.

You are about to do a ‘crash course’ in the subject Bible college and
seminary curricula call theology. (If you have not read many books
about Christianity, and a quick skim of this chapter turns you off,
skip it and come back to it later).

‘Theology’ comes from two Greek words – theos, God, and logos, word,
thought. Theology is about God, and how God’s will is to be done on
earth as it is in heaven. ‘Every Christian is called to be a
theologian’ (Karl Barth): it isn’t a specialized, abstract discipline
reserved for academics (Luke 10:21). Indeed the best theology doesn’t
come from ‘top down’ (from the dogma of ‘authorities’ Mark 1:22), but
is done from bottom up: theology is about life.

Because God is beyond our finite understanding, our questions will
always outnumber our answers, so we come to this task not as proud
know-alls but as humble and teachable learners.

Everything we do, individually or as churches, has a theological
dimension. Theology is about ultimate reality. Theology helps us to
know who we are, to discover our identity. It aids our understanding of
the church’s and our denomination’s roots, and to reflect on how the
past relates to the issues we face today. Good theology also studies
the faith-stories of others, and helps us understand what God is doing
in their histories.

Every church should be a miniature theological seminary (Elton
Trueblood). It is amazing that church leaders may be highly skilled in
their profession or trade, but still be in kindergarten theologically.
As one layman said, ‘We are better trained in our secular jobs than in
the great ideas of our faith’. Pastors are the churches’ resident
‘professional theologians’. Their role as teachers is to make
theologians of every Christian.

There is a lot of bad theology around, and bad theology can lead to bad
behaviour – bigotry, greed, self-interest, sexual immorality, ignoring
or rationalizing injustices, etc. Here are eight tests of a ‘good
theology’:

CHRISTOLOGICAL. Good theology begins with ‘The Lord our God, the
Lord is One’ (Deuteronomy 6:4) and quickly adds ‘Jesus is Lord’ (Romans
10:9, 1 Corinthians 12:3). Jesus is both fully divine and fully human.
Western Christians have been more preoccupied with Christ’s divinity:
he is ‘very God of very God’; third world theology with his humanity:
God’s solidarity with suffering ‘nonpersons’. A good theology agrees
with Jesus’ emphases – particularly about love and justice.

BIBLICAL. Scripture is the written record of what God has said and
done (and is still saying and doing). So Bible study – alone and with
others – is crucial if we are to find the will of God for our lives.
Scripture is like a deep mine: and we’ve still only scratched the
surface: ‘the Lord has yet more truth’ to be mined, if we dig with
humility!

COVENANTAL theology is a community’s response to God’s grace.
Covenants start with God (eg. Genesis 6:18, Exodus 6:4-5) and his
desire: ‘I will be your God, and you shall be my people’ (Genesis 17:7,
2 Corinthians 6:16-18, Revelation 21:2-3). The redeemed community
celebrates the covenant in worship, and ‘keeps’ the covenant through
loving obedience.

EVANGELICAL theology is ‘good news for the poor’: the poor in
spirit, who hunger and thirst for what is right (Matthew 5:3,5); the
hungry and oppressed poor, whom the Lord will feed and console (Luke
6:20-25). Jesus believed his theology was authentic because it was
‘good news proclaimed to the poor’ (Luke 7:22). When Paul had his
version of the good news ‘checked out’ by the apostles in Jerusalem,
they – and he – were concerned about ‘remembering the poor’ (Galatians
2:10).

CONFESSIONAL: If your theology is worth anything, it is worth giving
away! Every Christian is to be a witness (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8),
confessing what he or she has experienced of Christ, even though this
may result in suffering or persecution (Matthew 10:38) – even martyrdom
(Acts 22:20, Revelation 2:13, 17:6). ‘A Christian is someone who’s met
one’. There is no such thing as secret discipleship: either secrecy
kills the discipleship or discipleship kills the secrecy (Richard
Glover).

CONTEXTUAL: Good theology is done within the context of our real
life in the world: we must develop a ‘theology of everyday life’. In
particular, it ought to be prophetic, offering a critique of social and
political reality. For example there’s the old question of theodicy: Si
deus, unde malum? If there is a God where does evil come from? Today,
less abstractly, Si malum, unde deus? If this be evil, where is God?
Where is God, when fathers and mothers watch their children dying of
malnutrition? When people are chained body and soul to unjust
structures? When the water and air are polluted, the forests shrinking,
the earth ravaged? A good theology will save the church from
identifying too closely with the surrounding social order. It cannot
be a racial church, or a class church, or a male church, or a national
church (Galatians 3:28; cf. also Romans 10:12, 1 Corinthians 12:13).
And a good theology will also concern itself with the whole creation,
fallen and yet-to-be-redeemed (Romans 8:19ff.) from the ravages of
‘natural’ and human exploitation.

EMPIRICAL: Good theology works in our experience! ‘Is anything too
hard for the Lord?’ (Genesis 18:14) may be the key statement of the
whole Bible. God who delivered his people ‘with mighty deeds’ from the
distresses of sin, oppression, sickness, and sometimes even death
(Psalm 103:1-7) is a God whose power is still the same today (Isaiah
50:2, 59:1).

More importantly, a good theology (or, better, the grace of God at work
in our lives) produces more love, joy, peace – the ‘fruit of the
Spirit’. And when Jesus promised us his peace (John 14: 27) he was
serious. Hence the importance of spiritual theology or spirituality,
alongside systematic, moral and other theologies. Spiritual theology
teaches us that ‘everything is grace’ (Karl Rahner). It helps open our
eyes in childlike wonder and surprise to see all of life as ‘gift’.
Such theology helps us to be grateful (Ephesians 5:20) and ‘graceful’:
it sees primarily the goodness of God in creation and the image of God
in humankind, as well as our ‘fallenness’. A theologian, said Evagrius
Ponticus in the 4th century, ‘is one whose prayer is true’. But good
theology is more than ‘mystical’; it is also reconciling, forgiving,
peacemaking.

ESCHATOLOGICAL: Eschatology (from the Greek eschatos, ‘last’) is
the study of the ‘last things’. The future belongs to God, not the Bomb
or a disappearing ozonosphere. Good theology is hope-full: what God
has done for people in the past (particularly when they cried out in
their distress and God acted), God will continue to do! So even in our
despair we trust ‘the God of hope’ (Romans 15:13) whose kingdom is
surely coming. How are we redemptively involved in this process?
Through loving justice, practising mercy, and living in a humble
relationship with God, says Jesus (Matthew 23:23; cf. Micah 6:8).

Ultimately Christ is the unifying person and factor in all our thinking
and reflecting and doing. He is the One who holds this fragmented,
sin-scarred universe together and in whom everything will become
united. Only this conviction will help us to be ‘joyful in hope’ and
‘patient in trouble’ (Romans 12:12) as all things ‘fit into a pattern
for good’ (Romans 8:28) for those who love God.

Theology is the study of God and his ways. For all we know, dung
beetles may study humans and their ways and call it humanology. If so,
we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated. One hopes
that God feels likewise.

Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, London, Collins, 1973, p.91.

There are certain words that frighten people. ‘Theology’ is one of
them. Some people regard theology as something extremely dry and remote
from Christian living. Others regard the word with suspicion… This
attitude arises very largely through ignorance of the simple meaning of
theology… The term embraces the whole body of Christian doctrine and
if we understand it this way we may be less frightened by theology…

There is therefore no need to be alarmed at theology: to understand it
will make for intelligent Christian faith and living. At the heart of
every doctrine of Holy Scripture we are brought to the very heart of
God – the God who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself…
This is the God who reveals himself in holy scripture, and this God is
our God for ever and ever.

G.C.D.Howley, ‘Christian Theology’, The Witness, (Glasgow), September
1956, p. 183.

The supreme goal of theology: so to know about God that you know him,
and so to know him that you reflect him.

Michael Green, ‘The Theologian’ in John Eddison (ed), ‘BASH’: A Study
in Spiritual Power, Basingstoke, Hants UK: Marshalls, 1983, p. 93

God is UNCONDITIONAL love and forgiveness. To me [this] belief is more
than a theological proposition which one accepts in the mind. It is
rather a basic assumption by which one lives and does one’s work…
We know so little about God apart from Jesus, the human face of God, in
whom he has said all we need to know, while leaving many things
ambiguous. Human existence is surrounded by mystery, often painful
mystery, but out of the heart of it, God has spoken to his Son. I have
come to believe profoundly in that unconditional love of God. There is
nothing I can do to make him love me more; there is nothing I can do to
make him love me less.

Tom Keyte, The Chronicles of a ‘Luckie Fellowe’, Melbourne: self-
published, 1991 pp. 161-162.

Jesus taught that we should love God with our minds, and the capacity
to analyse statements, detect hidden presuppositions, and distinguish
the primary from the secondary are all important intellectual benefits
which theological study, when rightly approached, will yield. The
modern student who is prepared to have his or her mind stretched while
remaining faithfully humble before the Lord has nothing to fear from
an academic study of the Bible. It will not inevitably confuse one’s
mind or cool one’s love. (It is sometimes forgotten that Wesley felt
his heart ‘strangely warmed’ after listening to an intellectual preface
to a theological commentary on the most doctrinal of the New Testament
epistles!). And on the positive side, one’s preaching and teaching will
increase in value as one’s knowledge of Scripture deepens, because true
theology is as inextricably bound up with proclamation as the gospel is
involved in the total message of the Bible. It was not with any desire
to belittle academic study that the theologian James Denney wrote: ‘I
have not the smallest interest in a theology that cannot be preached.’

David Field, Approach to Theology, London: Inter-varsity Press, 1969
pp. 6-7

God’s Word alone is and should remain the only standard and rule, to
which the writings of no man should be regarded equal, but to it
everything should be subordinated.

Martin Luther, quoted in John Warwick Montgomery, ‘Current Religious
Thought’, Christianity Today, March 24, 1978, p.57.

While we deliberate, he reigns; when we decide wisely, he reigns; when
we decide foolishly, he reigns; when we serve him in humble loyalty, he
reigns; when we serve him self-assertively, he reigns; when we rebel
and seek to withold our service, he reigns – the Alpha and the Omega
which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Archbishop William Temple, quoted in a Christianity Today editorial,
September 27, 1968, pp. 36-37.

If there were no God, there could be no such word as ‘responsible’. No
criminal need fear a judge who does not exist; nor would there be any
need to worry about a law that had not been passed… There is someone
to whom we are accountable; otherwise the concept of responsibility
could have no meaning.

It is precisely because God is, and because we are made in his image
and accountable to him, that theology is so critically important.
Christian revelation alone has the answer to life’s unanswered
questions about God and human destiny…

As one not wholly unacquainted with Greek thought, I state it as my
belief that but one of Isaiah’s eloquent chapters, or David’s inspired
Psalms, contains more real help than all the output of the finest minds
in Greece during the centuries of her glory…

The secret of life is theological, and the key to heaven as well. we
learn with difficulty, forget easily and suffer many distractions.
Therefore we should set out hearts to study theology. we should preach
it from our pulpits, sing it in our hymns, teach it to our children,
and make it the subject of conversation when we meet with Christian
friends.

A.W.Tozer, ‘There is no Substitute for Theology’, The Life of Faith,
April 6, 1961, pp. 281-282.

There are three obvious functions that good theology can perform.
First, it edifies the church, which is founded on, and lives by, the
word of God… The function of theology is to keep the church’s memory
fresh and to rouse it from forgetfulness with respect to important
features of God’s revelation. Second, theology is summoned to preserve
the truth, because the church is always in danger of losing it. In this
world, where evil powers are abroad, the truth is never safe, and we
are charged with guarding the gospel (2 Timothy 1:14). One thing that
worried Paul was the possibility that Satan might deceive the church by
his cunning and lead it astray from a pure devotion to Christ (2
Corinthians 11:13). We stand in constant danger of twisting or losing
the truth of God. Third, theology is the art of communicating the
gospel in all its richness… If we would just display the beauty of
God and the gospel, and show it for what it is – the pearl of greatest
price – hungry souls would be attracted to it. Biblical answers are
relevant to contemporary questions; the work of theology is to show how
they are.

Clark Pinnock, ‘Why Do We Need Theology?’ Canadian Baptist, June 1981,
p.44.

Imagine a line punctuated by five types of theology. At one end, the
first type is simply the attempt to repeat a traditional theology or
version of Christianity… At the other extreme, the fifth type gives
complete priority to some modern secular philosophy or worldview, and
Christianity in its own terms is only valid in so far as it fits in
with that… Type two gives priority to the self-description of the
Christian community… ‘faith seeking understanding.’ It
insists that… Christianity itself continually needs to be rethought
and that theology must engage seriously with the modern world in its
quest for understanding… Type three comes exactly at the middle of
the line. It is a theology of correlation. It brings traditional
Christian faith and understanding into dialogue with modernity, and
tries to correlate the two in a wide variety of ways… The fourth type
uses a particular… modern philosophy… as a way of integrating
Christianity with an understanding of modernity.

David Ford, ‘Introduction to Modern Christian Theology’ in David
Ford (ed.), The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian
theology in the twentieth century, Oxford: Blackwell, 1989, pp. 2-3

Few current terms are less precise than ‘theological pluralism’… The
term gains prestige from the fact that our society is pluralistic.
Should not Christian theology, then, grant ‘equal rights’ to all shades
of doctrinal opinion…?

One is reminded of the Indian who had to follow poorly marked trails
through the forest. He had to depend upon marking a tree every hundred
yards ot so in order to return home. An enemy who wished to cause him
to get lost did not obliterate the marks: he merely marked all the
trees.

Harold B. Kuhn, ‘The Liberal Charade’, Christianity Today, August 29,
1975, p. 51.

The West has its own theological formulations derived from its own
cultural background… Yet in Asia the historical and cultural
background is quite different… and demands careful attention from
Asian Christians to their own cultures in order to make the gospel
relevant to their life situation.

Some of the issues we are facing today are communism, poverty,
overpopulation, hunger, suffering, war, demon possession, bribery,
cheating, idolatry, ancestor worship, caste system, secularism, and the
resurging Asian religions of Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism. Asian
theologians must… produce an Asian theology that wrestles with these
problems.

The task… is threefold: [to] search the Scriptures and provide
guidelines to the grass-root churches on key controversial issues such
as Christian responses to sociopolitical situations in Asia…
Secondly, [to] encourage the Asian church to adopt a holistic approach
to ministry by caring for the needs of society… Thirdly, [to]
emphasize that the priority of the church is evangelism and mission in
this vast continent which has only 3% Christian population [but] 60% of
the world’s population.

Bong Rin Ro, ‘Theological Trends in Asia’, Themelios, Jan/Feb. 1988,
p.57.

Black theology… is a conscious attempt to do theology from within the
experience of black oppression. The very fact that it calls itself
‘black’ shows that it is fully aware of starting from the particular
context of black experience… The theology that comes from and serves
the interests of white people, not surprisingly, does not call itself
white theology because it is not conscious of its limited context.

Similarly the Latin American theology of liberation is a conscious
attempt to do theology in the revolutionary situation of Latin America
– dependence crying out for liberation. The context… is the
experience of poverty, powerlessness and domination, of being totally
dependent culturally, economically, politically and psychologically
upon the so-called developed nations…

Feminist theology… is the experience of being a woman in a man’s
world; the experience of being oppressed as a woman… Other theologies
are for the most part thoroughly masculine but they never say that.
They naturally don’t call their theology a male chauvinist theology.

Cultural theology – African theology would be a form of this [and]
starts from the context of African culture…

Institute of Contextual Theology, Whose Theology?, Johannesburg, South
Africa: Institute for Contextual Theology, 1985, pp. 5-6.

Anyone’s first reaction to the ‘good news’ should be to find it bad
news, because the condition of receiving the good news is change (what
the Bible calls metanoia, ‘conversion’). To be told that we need to
change is to be told that we are presently unsatisfactory…

The source of our discomfort is not third world Christians trying to
put us down. It is not they who are giving us a bad time; rather the
Bible is giving us a bad time. They have not created a new biblical
message to make us feel guilty; they are only calling attention to the
old biblical message we have camouflaged for centuries in order not to
feel guilty…

The great hope, surely is that we can begin to be liberated from some
of the false gods – the Bible calls them ‘idols’ – that have held us in
captivity.

Robert McAfee Brown, Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third
World Eyes, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984,pp. 157-160

The choice… is not to retreat to a hermetically sealed ‘pure’
biblical theology that is relevant only when it confirms prior
ideological commitments. Rather, the only responsible choice… is to
forge a theology that is committed to seeking harmony between Scripture
and present obedience.

Martyn Newman, Liberation Theology is Evangelical, Clifton Hill,
Victoria: Mallorn Press, 1990, p. 94.

I was trained in seminary to reflect on religion from the top down –
from dogma and theology down to practical programs – and learned in
Christ the King [parish church] to work with religion from the bottom
up – from human problems and needs to religious responses…

I suspected (and would later prove) that it is the religion of daily
experience and not the religion of propositional theology which has the
greater impact on our behaviour.

[There is] a firm Catholic conviction that God reveals Himself/Herself
through the whole of creation as well as through the official teachings
of the tradition. Everything is grace, as Karl Rahner has put it. For
some things to be a ‘Sacrament’ with a capital S all things must be a
sacrament with a small s; for God to lurk in the official acts of the
Church, S/He must also lurk in all the objects and events and persons
of creation.

Andrew M. Greeley, Confessions of a Parish Priest, New York: Pocket
Books, 1987, pp. 245, 404.

A tall skyscraper could not stand against the wind unless it were built
so that it could sway. An ocean liner, if it could not bend with the
waves, would be broken by them. Flexibility is not the antithesis of
structure, but the condition of preserving it in a changing world.
Quite evidently, then, the Church… precisely because it has a mission
to every time and culture, must be able to adapt its message and its
structures. If dogma were inflexible it would be brittle; but because
dogma has an inbuilt elasticity it can and will survive.

Avery Dulles, The Survival of Dogma, New York: Crossroad, 1982, p. 203

Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead perceptively stated that ‘religions
commit suicide when they find their inspiration in their dogmas’… All
faith statements… involve a tension between mystery and meaning. Too
often [we] subordinate mystery in search of meaning.

Carnegie Samuel Calian, Today’s Pastor in Tomorrow’s World,
Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982, p. 59

I have known pert young ministers fresh from [theological] college
bring forth new things in such a way as to cause the utmost distress
to faithful Christians, who were living by the Word of God long before
the minister was born. After all, we are not saved by knowing that
Isaiah 53 was almost certainly not written by Isaiah; and it may well
be that the deaf old granny in the front row knows more than you will
ever understand of what it means that the Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all.

Stephen Neill, On the Ministry, London: SCM Press, 1952, p.86.

It behoves all of us to be accepting of others. Those whose thinking is
rooted in ‘simplicity this side of complexity’ must not be too harsh
with others who enjoy ‘complexity the other side of simplicity’.
Ideally, we are all moving towards ‘simplicity the other side of
complexity’, but we need to be patient with one another on the way
there… So our aim in wrestling with theological issues is to be both
radical and conservative, in fellowship both evangelical and
ecumenical, in attitudes espousing both truth and love, and in
spirituality given both to reflection and action. We must develop a
‘Christian mind’ on the big issues of our day, but also learn to ‘fold
the wings of the intellect’ and open our hearts to God as well…

Sometimes in our questioning we have lost the ‘sure word of the Lord’.
But sometimes, too, in our resistance to change we have not listened to
the wind of the Spirit.

Rowland Croucher, Recent Trends Among Evangelicals, Heathmont,
Victoria: John Mark Ministries, 1991, pp. 40-41.

Lord God, what impertinence that we humans should create an academic
subject called ‘theology’. All of life is theology. There is no place
where you are not present, nothing about which you are unconcerned. We
know you a little because you have revealed a little of yourself to us,
but you have infinitely more to teach us about yourself. Give us a
hunger and a thirst to know more of you, and knowing more to love you
more, and loving you more to obey you in this world (not some other
world), and love the people you cause to cross our path (rather than
merely loving humanity in the abstract).

Lord please give me humility to realize that I know so very little;
grace to listen to others, who have learnt
other things about you;
courage to relearn some things I learnt wrongly,
or partially;
conviction when I put what I learn into preaching,
diligence when I put what I learn into practice.

God, we praise you:
Father all-powerful, Christ Lord and Saviour, Spirit of love.
You reveal yourself in the depths of our being,
drawing us to share in your life and your love.
One God, three Persons,
be near to the people formed in your image,
close to the world your love brings life.

Daily Mass Book, Lent 1991-1992 Brisbane, The Liturgical Commission,
p.217.

Benediction: May God who is light illumine your way,
May God who is truth enlighten your mind,
May God who is love enrich your heart,
May God who is grace fill you with his joy
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

FURTHER READING: (1) See article on David Tracy in Martin E Marty &
Dean G Peerman (eds) A Handbook of Christian Theologians, 1984, 677 ff.
(2) James D Smart, The Rebirth of Ministry, 1960, and The Teaching
Ministry of the Church, 1964; Carnegie Samuel Calian, Today’s Pastor in
Tomorrow’s World, 1982. (3) Article ‘Hermeneutics’ in The New
Dictionary of Theology, IVP, 1988. (4) See E J Yarnold, ‘Sacramental
Theology’ in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.) A New Dictionary of
Christian Theology, SCM, 1983, p.516 (5) J. Metz, Theology of the
World, 1969. (6) J. Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit,
1977, 106. (7) Walter Brueggemann et al, To Act Justly, Love Tenderly,
Walk Humbly, 1986. See also the booklets published by the Institute for
Contextual Theology, Johannesburg, South Africa (available from A C R,
154 Elizabeth St Sydney, 2000). Or, part 2 ‘Towards an Evangelical
Theology of Social Justice’ in Rowland Croucher, Recent Trends Among
Evangelicals, John Mark Ministries, 1991. (8) David Steindl-Rast,
Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, 1984. Rowland Croucher (ed.), Still
Waters, Deep Waters: Meditations and Prayers for Busy People,
Albatross/Lion, 1987 (9) Matthew Fox, Original Blessing:
Creation-centred Spirituality, 1983. (10) Kenneth Leech, True Prayer:
An Introduction to Christian Spirituality, 1980. (11) J. Moltmann,
Theology of Hope, 1967.