C U LT U R E S

Tuning in Theology
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versation to be as essential to the discipline as the isolating for research? What if s theology a communal discipline? It the crowded dinner table were as suitable seems that it ought to be, in that the an icon of theological scholarship as the term names a language and a spirit of cloistered desk? inquiry that characterizes a community. This past year, Baylor University theology The very fact that theological arguments professor Peter M. Candler, Jr., and I began exist, say, about the bread and wine on an initiative to test those questions. The the altar suggests that this language is Theology Studio (theologystudio.org) is an accountable to more than my own cononline gathering point for a theological viction: if you can talk someone out of community (the bricks and mortar kind of Memorialism into a belief in the Real studio being much more challenging logisPresence, or even if you cannot but try to tically and economically to pull off, it turns anyhow, you are both out). We write and colimplicitly in agreement that lect weekly reflections the language Christians on theology as an acaspeak about God is one demic discipline; we that holds both of you interview some of the accountable, and thus is at first names in theolheart a shared discourse, a ogy; we are collecting communication. a shelf of resources, The trouble, though, is including my favorite, that theology is often not the The 3 Books practiced this way. ProtesShelf, which contains tant theology in particular Think of that iconic listings and links to the has, in the last two cen- image of Karl Barth, works which some of turies, become the realm curled low over his desk, our current great of Great Minds, many of minds call the most whom were great indeed. madly scribbling out the influential on their writBut where great minds Church Dogmatics. ing and teaching. The dominate, theology begins site also houses a to look like a task best undertaken in podcast that Seminary of the Southwest utter isolation: think of that iconic image professor Scott Bader-Saye and I convene of Karl Barth, curled low over his desk, monthly, in which we attempt to model madly scribbling out the Church Dogtheological discourse through discussions matics. Even if Barth himself was very of new ideas and publications. much engaged with the Church and So stop by the studio, download the academy he served, he, like others before podcasts (on the site or on iTunes), read and after, looms in our consciousness as the reflections, and enter the conversation. a solitary scholar, conjuring great You will be most welcome. thoughts from out of his great mind. How would it reshape the task of theoAnthony D. Baker is Clinton S. Quin Associlogical thinking and theological educating ate Professor of Systematic Theology at if we considered the gathering for conSeminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas. By Anthony D. Baker

26 THE LIVING CHURCH June 3, 2012