Abstract This article reflects on theology as practical reason, as ethnography, and as contemplation. It addresses some of the potential shortcomings of each of these approaches, with particular attention to the reduction of theology to its usefulness for us and to the idealization of our practices. It ends with some examples of successful attempts to integrate the three approaches into a way of doing theology that is vulnerable to God and to the experience of those who suffer.
William T. Cavanaugh (Wed,) studied this question.