Prolegomena or Theological Method
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
8:11 PM
Prolegomena or Theological Method
Classical Liberal Theology—represented by Schleirmacher—was born out of the Western European struggle to make Christian Theology make sense within a secular, agnostic and often hostile, academic context.
Neo-Orthodoxy—represented by Barth, Bruner, and Bonhoeffer—was born out of the need to assert a version of Christian faith that had an authority that was not grounded in culture and therefore stood as a corrective to the secular authority (particularly important in the face of Nazism).  
Latin-American Liberation Theology and Black Liberation Theology is theology drawn from the experience of people living under the oppression.  
Feminist theology, Womanist Theology and Mujarista self-consciously approach Christian theology in ways that examine the living experiences of women, Black women, and Hispanic women respectively as a source for Christian theology.  These theological movements generally see "traditional" Christian theology as saturated with patriarchy that often generates more injustice than it cures.  
Evangelicalism represents a particular branch of Christian theology that was born out of the 18th Century and 19th Century Revival movements.  
Ecumenical theology represents the work particularly from the early 20th Century and into the 21st Century to articulate a consensus Christian faith born out of the movements that formed the World Council of Churches and National Council of Churches.  
This is a representative not a comprehensive list.  It is offered to suggest point to three practical items:
Christian ministers ought to be familiar with the movements within Christianity.  
Christian ministers ought to demonstrate respect for theological positions that differ from their own. 
Christian ministers ought to be open to hear the critiques that theological frameworks that are not their own might present to them. 