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great books of the Christian tradition there now stand selected volumes from one or more of the world's religions. They stand there on one's shelves, full of possible meanings and uses, though without any label which helpfully determines how one is to assess and catalogue them, or to locate them in terms of importance and pedagogical value. Effective symbols of the expanded possibilities of learning and of what counts as theology, these volumes also contribute to a subtle transformation of the standards by which theological literacy is determined. |
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One realizes at that point that one can no longer be well-read if literate only in the home tradition. Then, for the sake of the community and the coherence of theological education, the comparativist becomes a good librarian, expert in the acquisition of texts, and in strategies of recataloguingin the mind's library, but perhaps literally so tooso that texts are properly arranged, not merely according to religion or by theme, but according to the emerging schemata of comparative theology. As new books are introduced, the recognized classics of one's home tradition must inevitably be granted less space, and priorities set up about which books are sent to storage, so to speak, to make room for the new books. So too, the new learning is not easily assimilated to the old, and requires its own support systems of grammars, dictionaries, atlases, journals, etc. In turn, the expected student who comes for an education is faced with this larger array of materials, and her or his reading is slowed down considerably, as a mastery of new writings is only gradually acquired and familiar texts slowly reread in a new light, for new purposes. In the short run, the student may seem merely to know less about more, and there may be some honest doubt as to the value of this arduously achieved superficiality. In the long run, however, the theological possibilities opened by this new learning are immeasurable. |
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The most important implications of this expanding practice of comparison are those which are most practical, most directly issues of education. For eventually one has to devise new ways of educating theologians, and so new versions of the entire theological curriculum, the list of what needs to be researched and to be taught. The undaunted comparativist begins then to |
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