Crying peace, peace, when there is no peace.

Such an attitude would not be condoned in any other intellectual discipline. Imagine a trainee doctor informing his lecturers that he is adopting alternative medicine in the place of the set curriculum. Such a person would not be let loose on the public. The discipline of theology is just as exacting as any other but Protestant denominations happily ordain candidates for ministry who clearly do not have a grasp of central concepts. This is significant because it indicates that we do not think spiritual damage as important as physical damage.

I have focused on the divide between liberalism and fundamentalism because it is the most obvious divide. The reality is more complex and exacerbated by lazy theological education. These two camps are by no means the only contenders in the theological stakes. There are alternatives that arise out of a deeper scholarship that involves the reassessment of the Church Fathers and how modernity, in particular, has affected theological discourse. If I am right that both liberalism and fundamentalism live in the shadow of modernity then such a correction is overdue and very fruitful.

Such scholarly attempts may be found, for example, in the Radical Orthodoxy movement that has emerged from mostly British theologians. There is an attempt here to understand the traditions in a deeper fashion and to see how these traditions upset the church in our time. Roman Catholic theologians, following in the wake of Vatican II have also written theologies that have been cleansed from past mistakes and which define a more faithful understanding.

Perhaps never before has the Church been so in need of theological research and training. The solution to the schism in our parishes can only be addressed by heads of Churches and educators deciding on theological training that is critical of both liberalism and evangelicalism and forging a path towards standards that will not be compromised. After all, this is only to adopt the view that most of our educational institutions maintain. The Church must ask itself why theological education has so lost the plot and allowed personal theologies to survive the rigor of theological training.

Thompson describes the scholarly posture as iconoclastic by which he means that scholarly activity destroys the comfortable and easy assumptions of pious people. There is something amiss when theological students are unchanged by their education. Thompson quotes Nicholas Lash (a post Vatican II theologian): "all positive expression of faith in God, which cannot stand the strain of exposure to negativity, is suspected of illusion." By "negativity" Lash means the "experience of mortality, of loneliness and the loss of meaning; of all forms of physical and mental suffering; and the recognition of the sheer finitude, impermanence and ambiguity of all particular human achievement."

Thomson indicates that "the desire for faith insulated from ambiguity and directed to something objective and graspable is idolatry." When we look at evangelicalism and liberalism we see this writ large. Preachers make all kinds of promises from life after death for the faithful to a happy and secure marriage and safe family life. You name it and at some point it has been promised. It is no wonder critical thought outside the Church will no even bother with it.

To quote Lash again: "The critical dimension of the theological task is to be sought in the direction of the critique of idolatry – the stripping away of the veils of self-assurance by which we seek to protect our faces from exposure to the mystery of God." The Church of our time has largely domesticated the symbol of the cross. In our search for safety and assurance we forget that the one reliable image of God the gospels give us is of Jesus in despair and agony nailed to wood.

Unless the Church in all its forms reclaims the centre of the gospel then its decline will continue for it will continue to be seen as promising what it cannot give and comforting those who refuse to face the realities of human life. As the Church continues to decline there is much pressure to resort to simple theological pronouncements and tricks to "drum up some business." This must be named for what it is: idolatry.