I've been going nuts over the past day trying to remember where I saw this statement because it was so insightful. Turns out it was in Larry Wall's interview!
"Systematic theology" is an oxymoron. God is not a system. Christians are fond of asking: "What would Jesus do in this situation?" Unfortunately, they very rarely come up with the correct answer, which is: "Something unexpected!" If the Creator really did write himself into his own story, that's what we ought to expect to see. Creative solutions.
That's exactly what I've told myself for as long as I can remember whenever I asked myself "What would Jesus do?". I can only answer, "I don't know, something way wiser than I would do, and probably something I wouldn't expect".
I don't believe systematic theology is an oxymoron though, but I can understand why he made the statement that way given the context. Systematic theology doesn't deal with what Jesus would do in a given situation. It's a systematic study of mostly the "whats", "hows", and "whys" of the Christian faith. How does Jesus's death atone for our sins? Why did he have to die? Predestination, Election, Original sin: these are all topics that a book on systematic theology covers, not "WWJD".
For instance, check out this page on theology which has a lot of great stuff, and for a great book, see Robert Reymond's A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith
Sunday, September 8, 2002
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