Consider the way we learned about God in the past. A select few individuals would groom their academic pedigrees, earning their Ph.D. in theology or biblical studies. They would become professors at prominent seminaries or divinity schools, where they would be afforded the luxury to study and write for publication. These individuals were (and still are, in many ways) middle to upper class, white, and from North America or Europe. These theologians would write for publication through a few publishing companies, who would sell the books to those who could afford them (usually pastors). If you haven’t noticed, the unofficially educated, minority groups, and the 1/3 world at large were left out of the process. In addition, much of the systematic theology produced from such ‘ivory towers’ lacked the street cred, the horse sense that was (and still is) desperately needed by those attempting to live out their belief systems in the real world: at the marketplace, in the public schools, in the streets of the urban neighborhood, or in the local church. The stuff simply didn’t translate. It’s not that the ideas were bad, so to speak. The application was simply lacking.