Theology - what it is and what it is not

Theology has developed within the Christian tradition as a critical study and interpretation of the sources and forms of that tradition.

Theology is critical scholarship. It is not advocacy on behalf of Christianity.

• It is an endeavour supported by those churches who believe that there is something to be gained by open, critical analysis.
• Theology can be a controversial discipline. It sometimes faces distrust from who are averse to critical thought and it sometimes faces prejudice from those who lump together anything to do with Christianity as unserious.
• The majority of students who study theology do so because of prior commitment to Christianity and its values, but there are also students who do theology without any such commitment. Both are at home in the Theology programme.

Academic Theology has been foundational to the development of universities.

• In its rigorous commitment to open, critical study, Theology best belongs within the university.
• It has been there since the beginning in the world’s oldest universities because of its commitment to universitas, the universal quest for truth.
• It has an important place in major universities of the western world, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, London, in the UK; Yale, Harvard, Chicago, Emory, Princeton, Duke, in the USA; Tübingen, Heidelberg, Berlin Humboldt, Göttingen, in Germany.
• Its failure to find a place from the beginning in the older Australian universities reflected fears of sectarian strife at the time.
• Now a number of Australian universities offer degrees in Theology: Sydney, Griffith, Flinders, Charles Sturt, Murdoch, and many include some Theology within the broader field of Religious Studies.
• Only Murdoch offers a total Theology programme fully integrated within the university and on campus, through the relationship with the Perth College of Divinity.
• Theology is not Religious Studies, which seeks to do the same but more in overview in relation to the religions of the world, although Theology would welcome Religious Studies as a neighbouring discipline.