and practices can be normative for Christians, who belong to a particular tradition and community, but to be noncommittal regarding the universal validity or ontological veracity of these beliefs. Theology, it is said, consists basically in a phenomenological analysis of Christian experience rather than in an affirmation of Christian truth. Against those who envision theology as essentially descriptive (George Lindbeck21) or as constructive (Schubert Ogden22), I contend that theology is fundamentally