“You have a poem called “Bad Theology.” What would you call a bad theology?I guess any theology that presumes to have God in its pocket. Can I explain this without sinning further? We’ll find out. The community in which I was raised did what they would call theology, but it was always a kind of cranky, brutal reduction of lush and beautiful complexities into the lowest common denominator, the dullest version. But when I went away to school and started reading more, I became increasingly dissatisfied with any theology that replaces the enormous, immeasurable real with very measurable and very calculated replacements. I’m not saying this very eloquently, but I guess bad theology articulates as definitive and conclusive that which is unknowable and without end.”

“I would like to coin the phrase alimentary theology, a theology that is more attentive to and welcoming of the multiple layers contained and implied in the making of theology. This is a theology that not only pays closer attention to matters related to food and nourishment, and the many ways they can relate, inspire, and inform theological reflection. Most importantly, it is an envisioning of theology as nourishment: food as theology and theology as food. Alimentary theology is envisioned as food for thought; it addresses some of the spiritual and physical hungers of the world, and seeks ways of bringing about nourishment.”

“Faith is first of all not attachment to a body of doctrines but a process of responding in obedience and trust to God’s Word. God has given us the possibility of hearing the Word, since it was spoken in the humanity of Jesus, which we share, and since it continues to be spoken through the Holy Spirit, which dwells in us. So also theology is first of all not the study of doctrines, but a process of reflection on this response in faith. The classic definition of theology, “faith seeking understanding”, remains always valid. Faith seeks to understand the one to whom it responds. It also, thereby, seeks to understand itself, and the implications of being so called and so gifted to respond. … Who, then, is qualified for theology? The theological task is implied by the very life of faith itself. Every Christian is therefore called to do theology in this sense. Every Christian must seek an understanding of his or her response to God and the implications of that response for the rest of life.”

“If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology. ”

“Theology alone doesn't convine anyone.Only those words which are pregnant with action, theology that is born of suffering, of struggles, of the poor--this theology is a testimony. This theology leads to conversion. (Leonardo Boff, p. 169)”

“This much is certain, that we have no theological right to set any sort of limits to the loving-kindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Our theological duty is to see and understand it as being still greater than we had seen before.”