Why a local theology school? - Theology serves the church. The great theologians of the classic Christian tradition were always rooted in the realities of church life, whether Irenaeus in Lyons, Augustine in Hippo, Luther in Wittenberg or Calvin in Geneva. Theology was a discipline of faith seeking understanding, not an abstract academic discipline primarily to be conducted in the clinical atmosphere of university classrooms.
Theology was therefore a discipline intimately connected with the realities of ordinary people living the Christian life in the local church. Theologians were those set apart by the church, and sometimes into an academy which was closely linked to the church, to be its “doctors” – those who reflected on the faith of the church, its experience, life and doctrine, to guard it, teach those entrusted with the cure of souls, and develop it to meet new challenges and questions. During the Enlightenment theology began to be rooted primarily in an increasingly secularized academy, distanced from the life of the church. Theology needs to come back to the heart of the living church, both for the sake of theology (to enable it to be connected into the actual living of Christian life and encounter with God), and for the sake of the church (to enable it to bear witness to the grace and rule of God with theological integrity and distinctiveness).