Karl Barth, a theologian in Germany during WWII, once “advised young theologians ‘to take [their] Bible and take [their] newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from [the] Bible.’” His advice is that to truly be a theologian, our making sense of faith must be done in conversation with, not isolation from, the world.  For too long however, instead of taking up the call of Jesus to be fishers of people, sending us into the world, we have become “keepers of the aquarium.”  An aquarium is a closed system — a beautiful thing to look at, but rather meaningless on its own as it is only a sampling of the life of the sea.  As fishers of people, in order to form faith both inside and outside of the church, we must be willing to leave the aquarium in order to sail the open sea and see the activity of the one who made the sea.

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