A long time before the Research Institute in Systematic Theology (RIST) found fame in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, it was already famous among theologians. Founded by Colin Gunton and Christoph Schwöbel in 1988, it became an internationally renowned centre for systematic theology. (I write in the past tense because I'm not sure it still is internationally renowned. It still exists, but not in the same way. I know there are some in london trying to develop a new place for theology to happen). The RIST was both a place for good theology and also a theological community, a place where friendships were made and forged, despite theological and denominational differences. Many of those who have written about Colin since his death, remark that one of his gifts was making friends and the RIST was about friends having conversations about theology. From its inception many books and papers had their first hearing at the weekly RIST seminar and many who presented were grateful to this small community for its theological engagement.
1988-89 Persons, Divine and Humans (published in 1991)
1990 Trinitarian Theology Today (published in 1995)
1992 God and Freedom (published in 1995)
1994 The Doctrine of Creation (published in 1997)
1997 The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics (published in 2006)
Gospel and Gender (one day conference) (published in 2003)
1999 The Theology of Reconciliation (published in 2003)
The Theological Significance of Soren Kierkegaard (one day conference)
2002 The Doctrine of Atonement (one day conference) (Murray Rae's paper 'The Travail of God' was published in IJST in 2003)
2003 The Person of Christ (published in 2005)
Michael Polanyi and Christian Theology (one-day conference jointly with the gospel & culture network)
King's College London was definitely the place to be during the 1990s for theology. Over at Waterloo, Andrew Walker set up the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture in 1995. This hosted conferences on Harmful Religion (1996, published in 1997), a critical examination of Revival(2002, published in 2003), as well as others. The Centre for Philosophical Studies ran a conference on Religious Pluralism in 1995, where Gavin D'Costa gave his famous paper 'The Impossibility of a Pluralist View of Religions'.
I guess this post is a little nostalgic. I only started at King's in 2000 and so my only access to these theological conversations is through the books that emerged after them. I did attend the final 3-day conference on The Person of Christ in Sept 2003 and from January 2003 I attended some of the weekly seminars. I remember emailing Colin asking whether I could come (I was only a 3rd-year under-graduate at the time) and get his response which said yes. I was privileged to hear Colin read some of the chapters from his unpublished first volume of his Christian Dogmatics (which will be published one day). These kinds of theological communities are sorely needed. Communities that cross theological boundaries, places where ideas can be tried out and positive critique can be given.
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