Jana, I am basically a ‘biblical’ theologian - I am much more comfortable working from texts than from more abstract or theoretical premises - so to some extent the emphasis on the Bible is a personal preference.

However, I do feel strongly that both modern and postmodern forms of Christianity have not really given the Bible a chance to explain itself properly. Modern approaches tend to impose alien systems of thought on it; postmodern approaches rightly highlight inconsistences, etc., but are too quick to dismiss it. I think we still need to work a lot harder to understand it properly - not to the exclusion of other ways of doing theology, but there are good ways and bad ways of integrating divergent ways of thinking.

The other point I would make is simply vthat we are never going to get away from the Bible as long as we profess some sort of allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth. It is a given and inescapable reference point. We can do all sorts of things with it, but the text remains with us in a pretty much immutable form, the one tangible thing we have by which we define ourselves. In that sense, at least, I think the Bible will remain a ‘primary source’.

Feel free to disagree.