Theology

Theology, words about God, nowadays refers to things we do (praxis) as well as things we believe (confessions) which intentionally reveal what we think about God. Historically, systematic theology sought to organise beliefs about God, since even as they come to us in the Bible, words about God are not often organised around themes or propositions, and dogmatic theology was concerned with the dogma or teaching of a church. Theology needed philosophy to help it think clearly about the meaning of words or epistemology.

Discussion about theology and mission often includes thinking about the phrase mission is the "mother of theology" (Martin Kähler, 1908, quoted by David Bosch, Transforming Mission, page 489). This highlights how much what we think about God, and the things which flow from a commitment to seek to know and follow Jesus, arises out of experience on the job. A great deal of Paul's theology, for instance, was forged through needing to answer questions about the place of Gentiles in the early Christian church. However worship and theology also impact mission as we know from our experience that it is often a renewal experience in a worship setting which motivates people to get involved in mission to others, and all mission activity starts with some theological understanding. "Mission as the mother of theology" does tell us something about the contribution of mission to theological understanding, but it is not the whole story. Mission, Worship and Theology all relate to each other.

The place of mission in theological education is a related and practical issue. Since awareness of mission as a distinct though integral dimension of the life of the church has developed, people have not quite known where to put it. Is mission a slice of the theological education cake taking care of non-Western church history, Third World Theology, and cross-cultural Pastoral studies, or is it a layer of the cake underlying the traditional disciplines of biblical studies, theology, church history and pastoral studies? Or is it both a slice and a layer? As with other dimensions of thinking about God and training future leaders, every speciality is only complete when it takes account of the others - rather like Paul's image of the Body of Christ in Ist Corinthians.

Those involved in mission are also often asking questions of earlier theological formulations which are threatening. This goes back to Paul at least. Mission involves risk as well as expansion, and the expansion is also theological. Missiologists are often at the theological edge because of the very nature of their calling, and the seminary needs biblical studies, theology, history, mission and pastoral care to work together to discern the words about God which time and culture will prove reliable.