mars-hill, I disagree. Let me make a case here. There appears to be somewhat of an assumption in your response that all theology is "systematic" theology, or, the type of theology that is done by professionals and academics. [This is evidenced in the structure of your Barney metaphor.]

Theology as reserved for professionals seems to me to be more of a modern concept (as pastoring or preaching or teaching should be left to professionals is modern in the same way) and not a helpful one at that. I might want to call that "high theology". What if there were an important "other," namely "low theology"?

I always tell the college students under my care that anyone who has a thought about God, about who God is or God’s relationship to people is by definition a theologian. Reading a narrative, therefore — under this definition — would cause one to think, reflect and find themselves (what you call "emotionally engaging" the text) in the story in a unique way. Each will have their own thoughts based on their own backgrounds, cultural influences, worldviews and socio-economic and racial standings. What one "sees" in the text is heavily influenced by these factors (as you note when you call it "eisegesis") and, therefore, what one deduces about God, who God is, and God’s relationship to people is influenced accordingly. Each individual, therefore, is "doing theology" by engaging the text — whether in a systematized way or not. I don’t think we can assume we can abstract ourselves (i.e.: clean out all of our eisegesis tendencies) as a matter of principle (an assumption of modernity as expressed through the scientific method), although we should make our best efforts. Furthermore, Humans don’t need academics to create abstracts ("frames of reference") to make abstract conclusions — we do this as a matter of course in the processing of the text. A rigid (or "high") definition of theology as you provide, I feel, is perhaps not as helpful as a "low" definition?