About the Center of Theological Inquiry

The Center of Theological Inquiry is well described by its name. It is indeed a center, a place at the heart of a web or a radiation of paths.

The Center is a place to which people come: for residence of some months or a year, for an evening's lecture with discussion afterward, for two or three days' concentrated work with a continuing research group, for a special conference, or for consultation with a resident member or someone on the staff of the Center. Paths of thinkers and scholars who might otherwise never meet cross here. And at those crossings new ideas are conceived and old ideas newly examined.

The Center is a place from which people and ideas go out: to schools and universities, to congregations, to the dedicated study of a single scholar. Books or articles written in the interplay of thought which occurs here are often very different than they would otherwise have been, and these differences make a difference, in academy, church and society. People who have been here are thereafter often different than they might have been, and those differences make even more difference.

The Center of Theological Inquiry exists because visionary ecclesial and academic leaders looked at the theological landscape and saw that something was missing. In the ages of Christendom, there was regularly a great university or churchly institution that served as the center of a wide network of theological inquiry; and elements of this structure persisted long after Christendom was in collapse. Theology was acknowledged queen of the sciences, and concentrations of scholars working together did the queen's work. But in this very different age, the Center's founders saw no institution ready to play a similar role. So they set out to create one.

In 1978 Princeton Theological Seminary's Board of Trustees established the Center as an independent, ecumenical institution for advanced theological research, "to inquire into the relationship between theological disciplines, [and of these with]...both human and natural sciences, to inquire into the relationship between diverse religious traditions . . . , to inquire into the present state of religious consciousness in the modern world, and to examine such other facets of religion in the modern world as may be appropriate . . . "

The institution that came from their vision is so far as we know unique: an international, ecumenical center for the advanced study of Christian theology. It has its own board, funding, mission and staff, yet maintains close relations with Princeton Theological Seminary.

The Center of Theological Inquiry is committed to theology and is persistent in that commitment. It is arguable that at no previous time has the intellectual world devoted so much time and energy to learning about religion, and this is no doubt praiseworthy. But the Center exists to foster something different.
As classically understood, Christian theology is faith's own intellectual labor, as it seeks understanding. Otherwise stated, theology is the church's effort to achieve clarity about its message and life.

Particularly in the present situations of the church and of the world's cultures, we should reckon with the reverse movement also, with understanding's now somewhat desperate quest for constituting faith. Theology can and should contribute to the better self-understanding also of persons and communities outside the church. To this end, that faith may gain greater understanding and understanding be nurtured by faith, the William H. Scheide Fellowship in Christian Theology was established.

Theology, particularly at the Center's level of inquiry, is not done in a spiritual or cultural vacuum. There must and inevitably will be critical engagement with cultural and social developments, with the whole range of intellectual disciplines, and with the truth claims and practices of the religious world.

By the intent of its founders, the Center is particularly committed to conversation with the methods and results of the modern sciences, in support of which the J. Houston Witherspoon Fellowship in Theology and the Natural Sciences and the Witherspoon Lecture were established.

The church did not come into the world fitted out with a complete theology. At every step the church has encountered intellectual and spiritual questions to which answers were not immediately at hand, occasions of genuine inquiry. The church's living theological tradition is the deposit and growing edge of this history.

The Center of Theological Inquiry is a place for theology's new questions and new thoughts. It therefore cannot be predicted what investigations may here be pursued at any time. Theology casts a wide net; its urgent questions may range from the proper translation of a Hebrew text, to the foreseeable impact of economic globalization on the mission of the church, to the proper conceptual acknowledgment of God's hiddenness-—examples chosen at random from those recently investigated by resident members and research groups.

The Center is in principle free to promote advanced theological inquiry by whatever means seem feasible. At the present time, the program of the Center has five parts: the resident community, group research projects, a pastor-theologian program, single meeting conferences, and a public lecture series. The Center also sponsors a book series, "Theology for the 21st Century," with Trinity Press International.

The Resident Community

Vital to the Center's work are the resident members, who come from around the world and around the ecumene. Most are chosen from among scholars who initiate their own applications and propose their own projects. Applicants are selected for demonstrated scholarly and constructive ability, for their projects' feasibility and possible contribution, and for the esteem of colleagues. The Center also tries to maintain balance in its resident membership, among the several disciplines and ecclesial traditions, and between more established and more junior scholars.

Members are in residence for periods of from several months to one year; thirteen can be accommodated at any one time. Resident members have studies in Luce Hall, the Center's Georgian-style home at 50 Stockton Street, adjacent to Princeton Theological Seminary's Speer Library. Studies are comfortably furnished and equipped with telephones and computers networked to printers, local libraries, and the Internet. A basic reference library occupies a neighboring room. Members are provided, rent-free, two- or three-bedroom townhouses in the Center's own complex located in a wooded area three miles from Luce Hall. Limited financial assistance is available to scholars in residence on the basis of need.

The members in residence make a remarkable community, whose special quality mirrors the Center's mission. The heart of this community is doubtless informally constituted, maintained by encounters in the townhouse complex, and in the corridors and meeting rooms of Luce Hall. But members are expected also to participate in more organized features of the community's life, which the Center regards as decisive for its mission but tries not to make burdensome for individuals' work. Recently the program has been as follows: once during each member's residence, he or she presents the state of his or her work for an evening's discussion and critique by the other members; members who wish join in morning prayer once a week; members attend the Center's public lectures and participate in a subsequent seminar with the lecturer; members eat lunch together once a week, sometimes with a set discussion topic; and members with their families are invited to a number of social occasions throughout the year.

Not only is the Center of Theological Inquiry a unique institution, it is uniquely located for its mission. Members have close and full access to the unrivaled theological collections of Speer Library, as well as to the general and specialized collections of Princeton University's Firestone Library and through it, the Institute for Advanced Study. They participate as they wish in the wide-ranging intellectual and cultural life of the Princeton community. In addition, there is speedy access by bus or train to New York City and Philadelphia.

Research Groups

A second major effort of the Center is its research groups. These are international teams of scholars recruited to investigate pressing questions. Membership is by invitation only. In the fall of 1999, as a typical period, there were research groups on the relation between scientific and biblical eschatologies, on the church's use of Scripture, and on theological anthropology. By present plans, at any time three or four such groups will be at work.

Typically, a group consists of some fifteen persons, from a variety of theological and other disciplines, who meet twice a year for several days at a time and continue for three years. Typically also, the work of a group concludes with publication of a volume or volumes of joint results, and with publication of one or two monographs by individual members, sometimes written in residence.

A Program of Public Lectures

For its own community and for the wider Princeton academic community, the Center of Theological Inquiry offers a series of public lectures each year. Two of these are endowed: the Palmer lecture for the relation between faith and culture, and the Witherspoon Lecture for theology and the natural sciences. These series bring eminent scholars and thinkers together with a unique audience, for highly charged evenings at the theological edge.

Conferences

Single-meeting conferences are undertaken as the occasion arises. We may instance two held during the academic year 1999-2000: a conference in Princeton, jointly sponsored with the Faith and Order Commission, on the feasibility of a second North American Conference on Faith and Order; and a conference in Cape Town, South Africa, jointly sponsored with the Ecumenical Foundation of South Africa, on the role of the church in the new South Africa.