Sometimes one can get the impression from contemporary theology that it is so pleased with its progress – certainly very welcome – in the ecumenical field, and so glad that it is succeeding in moving old boundary stones (if only in most cases to erect them again at a different spot), that it does not pay sufficient attention to the direct questions of the men of today, questions which often have little to do with the traditional points of conflict between the various denominations.
For example, who can ever tell an enquirer comprehensibly and reasonably briefly what “being a Christian” really means? Who can explain comprehensibly to someone else why he believes and what the plain direction, the nub, of the decision implicit in faith is? When people do begin, as they have done recently, to put such broad questions to themselves, they quite often simultaneously slip into watering down Christianity into sweet-sounding generalities, which certainly flatter the ears of their contemporaries (cf. 2 Tim 4:3) but deny them the strong meat of the faith to which they are entitled.
Theology is not measuring up to its task when it concentrates happily on itself and its own erudition; it is failing even more radically when it invents “doctrines to its own taste” (2 Tim 4:3) and thus offers stones instead of bread, its own talk instead of the word of God.
From” Introduction to Christianity, pp. 182-83
