ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three specific contexts (influences, settings) of the faith community, the religious traditioned past, the problematized past and present, and the victimized present. When context becomes part of a thinking or an agenda for thought, it takes on a new meaning. It is one thing to say that any and all of human life is contextual (influenced). The triad of shaping influences that constitute the community of faith specifies that which gives thinking its theological character. As such it describes a dimension of the theologian's context that shapes the theologian's identity (location) and provides resources and tasks for thinking. Thus theological thinking is 'contextual' not simply when it departs from the community of faith into something else, but when it thinks from a traditioned past, thinks towards what has become problematic, and thinks on behalf of those who are victimized, all within a selected problematic of situation, background and location.
