Doing Local Theology: A Guide for Artisans of a New Humanity

Doing Local Theology: A Guide for Artisans of a New Humanity By Clemens Sedmak Maryknoll, Orbis, 2002. 182 pp. $22.00.

Modernity, given its predilection to epistemology, has especially nourished two approaches to theology. The first, systematics, fits nicely with the perceived need for a foundational structure of knowledge. The second, a concern for methodology, addresses the question of the system's rational justification. Clemens Sedmak, professor and chair of religious studies at the University of Salzburg in Austria, offers a version of the latter while downplaying the former. Sedmak's graduate work on the philosophy of Wittgenstein, furthered by doctorates in social theory and theology, gives this work a healthy postmodern flavor, though without any of the explicit attempt to be postmodern.

Broadly speaking, Sedmak's work is especially helpful for two kinds of audiences. As a United Methodist, I inhabit a tradition founded by John Wesley: very much a theologian, but also very much not a systematic theologian. Wesley, like Luther, is known as an occasional theologian. Sedmak's writing, though clearly from within the Roman...