This opens a new area of discussion, to which I have long been devoted. It has been made possible though AI, which I embrace a remarkable tool that has quickly presented thoughts that I have sustained over many years.
so into living theology in a congregation,
and writing it on human hearts
that I did have the heart to do what was required
in order to qualify for living theolog in academia
and doing theology in classes so transient
and in books so problematic, largely un read.
I left the editorial work undone and went on.
Toward a Parochial Theology: Recovering the Local as a Theological Venue
Modern Christian theology is often mapped according to its venues. Scholastic or academic theology arises within the university, shaped by dialectical reasoning and conceptual precision. Monastic theology emerges from the cloister, formed through contemplation, ascetic practice, and the rhythms of communal prayer. Yet a third venue—arguably the most ancient and the most neglected—remains underdeveloped: the parish. A theology rooted in the life of a local community, shaped by its liturgy, its stories, its struggles, and its shared discernment, may be called parochial theology.
The term parochial has suffered from a modern narrowing. In common usage it suggests small‑mindedness or provincialism. But its etymology tells a different story. The Greek paroikia refers to dwelling near, living alongside, being a resident alien. Early Christian communities understood themselves precisely in this way: local, embodied, provisional, and yet deeply theological. To recover the older sense of parochial is to recover the parish as a genuine theological locus.
A historical precedent for such a recovery can be found in the Devotio Moderna. Emerging in the late medieval Low Countries, this movement occupied a space between monastic withdrawal and secular life. The Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life lived in towns, under parish priests and civic authorities, committed to prayer, work, and the sanctification of everyday life. Their spirituality was neither speculative nor cloistered. It was practical, interior, communal, and deeply embedded in the rhythms of ordinary Christian existence. In this sense, the Devotio Moderna anticipated a parochial theology: a mode of theological reflection arising from the life of a local community rather than from the academy or the monastery.
By contrast, modern pastoral theology—at least in its dominant forms—has drifted away from this communal grounding. Over the twentieth century it absorbed the language and methods of psychology, especially through the rise of Clinical Pastoral Education. Pastoral identity became increasingly therapeutic, individualized, and client‑centered. Doctrine, liturgy, and ecclesial life receded into the background. The pastor became a quasi‑counselor, and pastoral theology became a discipline concerned primarily with the interior life of the individual rather than the shared life of the parish. In losing the parish as its venue, pastoral theology lost much of its theological depth.
A parochial theology offers a corrective. It restores the parish as the primary site where Christian life is lived and where theological meaning is generated. It treats the liturgy not as background ritual but as the community’s interpretive center. It understands doctrine not as abstract propositions but as the grammar of a people’s shared life. It takes seriously the stories, wounds, hopes, and histories of a particular community. It is neither anti‑intellectual nor anti‑monastic; rather, it insists that theology must also arise from the lived experience of the people of God in a specific place.
In this sense, parochial theology is not a narrowing but a nearness. It is theology that smells like the sheep, theology that listens before it speaks, theology that emerges from the life of a people dwelling together in faith. It retrieves the ancient sense of paroikia—a community living alongside, dwelling near, seeking holiness in the midst of the ordinary—and reclaims it as a vital theological venue for our time.
