Goetz lists a number of factors which he thinks have contributed to the rise of contemporary theopascitism: the decline of Christendom; the rise of democratic aspirations; the problem of suffering and evil; and scholarly critical work on the Bible in the light of the foregoing.5 While Goetz does not claim his list to be exhaustive, it seems apparent from the point of view of this study that something more internal to theology itself is a major cause: the failure to see that proclamation is the only