Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2007, Side 51

Duncan B. Forrester
The future of theology:
The Vocational and the ‘Academic in Theological Education1
Theological and religious links between Scodand and Iceland go back a very
long way, to the Celtic hermits who sailed in their frail coracles all the way
from Scotland to Iceland, seeking in Iceland the solitude they could not find in
Scotland or in Ireland. And since these days, there has been a continuous, and
usually harmonious, relationship, with clergy and students, fishermen and war-
riors, moving between the two small countries, and finding that they had much
in common. My friend, Bjorn Bjornsson, has from his student days onwards,
made a major contribution to the maintaining and enhancement of theological
relationships between Scotland and Iceland, and I am honoured and delighted
to take part in this celebration of his distinguished contribution
In this paper I intend to argue something close to Bjorn’s heart: that truth
is essentially something done, lived, loved and enacted. Theology as a subject
concerned with truth is involved in practice and practices. It is not primarily
a theoretical discipline.2 Thus it follows that theology is not only or primarily
concerned with ideas, or with the mind, but with the whole person, and thus
with formation, with the orientation, the commitment, the practices, the re-
lationships and the feelings of the whole person in community. I want also to
suggest that theology should not be ashamed to renounce academic status and
seek what service (or ministry) it might offer to the church and to the world.
1 A fuller treatment of some of the issues in this paper may be found in my Truthful Action: Explorations in Practi-
cal Theology. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000.
2 Cf. Kierkegaard’s statement that ‘It is impossible for a professor of theology to be saved!’ Theology is to be lived
rather than talked - or lectured - about in a detached way.