ABSTRACT
Theology's closest analogue is no longer a perennial philosophy, addressing the most general questions of human moment purportedly common to every time and place, but a political theory (broadly construed) of cultural meanings that is quite situation-specific in its focus. Theological construction, figuring out what it is that Christians should 'say' and 'do' in one's present context, therefore requires a highly complicated and subtle reading of the whole cultural field into which Christianity figures. Theology is always a matter of judgments regarding the practices of the wider society and about the degree and manner in which they should also figure in Christian lives. Knowledge of how Christians have made such judgments at other times and places, and one's own sense, in hindsight or at a distance, about whether they did so correctly, in suitably Christian fashion, provide invaluable insights and practice in tackling the issues of one's own time and circumstance when the personal stakes are much higher.
