A Sound of Sheer Silence

On the recent post on contextual theology , reader "Carl" left a good comment that I started to address as a response comment, but it began to get very long so I decided to split it off into a separate short post.  Carl's concern, in the main, was that embracing the idea of contextual theology leaves you in a position where you have no basis for ruling out bad or destructive theologies, since everything has contextual value. My first response is to say that affirming the contextual reality of theological positions and systems doesn't mean that there is no content to the theological systems that you have.  Theology may come from a place, but the place that it comes from is not the sum and substance of the theology.  Black theology and feminist theology make very specific and concrete claims about the nature of Christian truth that go far beyond "African-Americans and women have a place in theological discourse and in the church."  Even in the narrow world o...