Theology As “Intellectual Game”

A blast of truth-telling about heterodox contemporary theology comes from Fr. Thomas Weinandy in this John Allen story: “Theologians can be a ‘curse and affliction upon the church,’ according to the U.S. bishops’ top official on doctrine, if their work is not grounded in church teaching and an active faith life, and ends up promoting ‘doctrinal and moral error.’… Capuchin Fr. Thomas Weinandy, executive director of the Secretariat for Doctrine at the U.S. bishops’ conference, has warned of a ‘crisis’ in Catholic theology, caused by theologians who ‘often appear to possess little reverence for the mysteries of the faith as traditionally understood and presently professed within the church.’”

Fr. Weinandy describes heterodox contemporary theology as an “intellectual game” that is not about God but about the “fun of being cleverly and sophisticatedly entertaining, or the thril and buzz that comes with academic sparring.”