A few years back a west coast bishop returned home from a meeting of his denomination's bishops in Kansas City. He reported on the meeting to his staff. He worked up the most energy in talking about the three major speakers. "One of the speakers," he told his staff, "teaches Bible at one of our seminaries. She did an excellent job of tracing all the currents of biblical research that have brought us to the present. She gave an excellent review of the recent and not so recent past in biblical studies." "A second speaker," the bishop continued, "was a theologian. He did much the same thing as the biblical teacher. He reminded us of our heritage. He talked about the giants of theology in the early 20th century. He outlined the major streams of theology that have brought us to our present stat…