Years ago, The Atlantic had an article entitled, “Study Theology, Even If You Don’t Believe in God.” The author of the article (Tara Isabella Burton) is a Clarendon Scholar at Trinity College, Oxford, where she is working on a doctorate in theology and literature. In this piece, she talks about studying theology as a secularist.
While reading, I was immediately drawn into thinking about my own theological education in various schools in the States and the UK that confessionally are very broad. As well, my pastoral ministry sparked many thoughts reading this, as a member of clergy for over two decades in a theologically minimalist denomination embedded in a complex urban center (Los Angeles, California) that is filled with many traditions, ideas, dogmas and questions. I thought, “If a nonbeliever can study theology, certainly believers should be studying theology with folks of different theologies.”
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