What does it mean to teach theology at a Christian liberal arts school?
I define theology for my students as the discipline of thinking like a Christian. The story of the triune God and his self-involvement with his creation makes sense of us, and empowers us to make sense for others. This sense and the power it brings to all believers, whatever their vocation, sums up my assessment of the role of theology in a Christian liberal arts education. To think like a Christian is still to think in and about the world. God created beings who inhabit God s creation. Most of our time is taken up in the concerns of our creaturely existence. This is as it should be; it is not simply an effect of the Fall. Unlike the angels, we are earthly (min-ha-adamah). We belonged in a garden; we were always meant to attend to the world around us. We attend to God through the media of our physical actions and physical thoughts. We represent God in the created order by reigning justly over God s other terrestrial creatures, and we worship by presenting our bodily lives as a living s
