Academic theology and life

Academic theology in the modern West has taken a number of twists and turns, but the divide between theology and spirituality is a legacy that more often than not obfuscates a working understanding of the Christian life. Whereas Christianity is in many ways declining in the trans-Atlantic North, it is flourishing in the global South, and these developments may well represent at least a partial indictment of some of the most troubling features coming out of the modernization of the West, one of these being the splintering and dissolution of theological knowledge. As a case in point, those in the global South are often able to speak of God out of a more confident posture than their Northern counterparts. Sadly, the latter, in a manner further indicated their malaise, might deem the former as naive and simplistic; the former constituency, however, may very well claim to be the future of Christianity on this planet, asserting that the latter have lost their theological and spiritual bearings.—Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, page xvi

<idle musing>
I guess you could call me naive! I firmly believe in the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the individual and the world. Anyone who has followed this blog very long should be aware that I frequently bemoan the "practical atheism" of most christians in the Western world in general and the US specifically. If we don't believe God is active in our lives on a daily basis, talking to us, prompting, empowering us, then what is our claim to historic Christianity?
</idle musing>