Well, unless you’ve found a good and sound school (and they’re certainly out there), in your first theology courses you may not learn much about the biblical Jesus, but you’re almost guaranteed to come out knowing what these early 20th century theological neologism’s mean:

formgeschicte, heilsgeschichte, eschatologiegeschichte, Menschheitsgeschichte, Gottesgeschichte, Heilsgeheimnis…

I personally never found them edifying when, as a wee lad, I was studying (and teaching some) theology in Evangelical college circles.

You’ll undoubtedly also discover the deeper meanings of terms like Proletariat, “People,” “Equality,” “demythologizing,” “binary,” “fundamentalist,” guillotine, and so on.

Heaven Can Wait! … theology is more interesting.

Instead of the Gospels, Epistles and Saints, you’ll learn about the new Gospels of Renan, Schweitzer, Bultmann, Heidegger, Barth (on the book of Romans), and Niebuhr. You’ll chuck out real biblical eschatology, and trade it in for Realized Eschatology otherwise known very simply as an aspect of Eschatologiegeschichte. It means you ain’t going nowhere.

In short, you’ll get what Saint Paul called a “Jesus other than we preached,” a “different gospel,” and a “different spirit” — 2 Pet. Ch. 11

None of this will avail for Eternal Life, but you’ll almost certainly get an invite to the next Wine and Cheesegeschichte.

—- Stephen Hand