Harvey Cox’s book on pentecostalism, Fire From Heaven, is his usual mix of scholarship, journalism, and diary. But partway through, he comes up with an interesting definition of theology.

You see, from the point of view of professional theologians, pentecostals don’t have any real theology, because they don’t have any professors of theology writing treatises on pentecostal theology. So many people say that there is no such thing as pentecostal theology. Cox writes:

There are, of course, theologians who take exception to the phrase ‘pentecostal theology’ as a kind of oxymoron. But I disagree. By its ‘theology,’ I mean the symbolic cosmos of the pentecostal movement, which is articulated not through formal treatises but in the songs and prayers, the sermons and testimonies. This is where the most fundamental revolution is going on … [p. 201]

Hmmm… The same thing might be said about Unitarian Universalism. The few professional theologians we have these days hold little interest for me — to be honest, I have no interest in doing systematic theology, nor am I interested in reading dead German theologians who write badly, nor do I want to base theology on psychotherapy.

But there are theologians whom I believe are doing really interesting work. Anthony Pinn, an African American humanist who has sometimes aligned himself with Unitarian Universalism, has done a number of books where he goes out into the African American community and simply describes the theologies he finds. Pinn contends that most other African American theologians claim that African American theology is entirely Christian — but Pinn finds a wide range of theologies out in the African American community (see his book Varieties of African American Religious Experience). I think of this as doing “descriptive theology,” whereas most academic theologians do systematic theology [yawn] or “prescriptive theology,” where they tell us what we should believe.

If we started doing descriptive theology of Unitarian Universalism, it might get pretty interesting. It might be fun looking at UU sermons, UU pamphlets, UU songs, and so on. Yes, this means the current hymnal should be studied as a theological work — as should the songs Susan C. is writing for our children’s choir — as should….

In any case, Harvey Cox has gotten me thinking that maybe there’s a better way to do theology. Maybe theology should consist of a mixture of scholarship, diary, and journalism. Maybe we’d be surprised if we started doing Unitarian Universalist theology that way — maybe we’d find out that we really do have a theology that has little to do with the “seven principles” and more to do with the way we lead our lives.