What's theological about a theological school?

Christian Century, Feb 5, 1997 by David Kelsey

Theological schooling is not movement from theory to the application of theory in practical techniques. Seeking to understand God by critically disciplined attention to those concrete realities through which God makes Godself known begins not with theory but with messy concrete realities. Theological schooling makes use of bodies of theory to keep itself self-critically honest, but it does not generate much theory. Instead, it seeks to generate the insight and wisdom that shape lives.

David Kelsey is Luther A. Weigle Professor of Theology at Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. His article is based on his convocation address this past fall inaugurating a new academic year in which YDS, under the leadership of its new dean, Richard Wood, set out to develop new curriculum and programs recommended by a review committee, which was chaired by Kelsey.