What’s a jazz theologian?  Let’s divide and conquer.

What is jazz?

Most people think of jazz as music, I think that it is more than music.  Music happens to be the realm in which most of us recognize it but I think that Ralph Ellison was correct when he said that all of American life is "jazz-shaped."  Jazz is more than music.  It is a way of thinking and a way of viewing the world.  It is about freedom within community.  It is a culture, that is, a set of values and norms by which we can experience life in general and faith in particular.  It is about how we know things.  Jazz knowing is a knowledge born out of experience.  It is a knowledge based upon taking proposition and living it.  It becomes truth when it is lived.  Jazz is indigenous to the United States of America. 

What is theology?

The study of God.  The interaction with what God has stooped to reveal to His creation.  Often times codified in books and systems.  Theology is the truth we know about God. 

So what is a jazz theologian?