Postliberal theology, associated with George Lindbeck and Hans Frei, is past its heyday, but it has two methodological contributions of lasting importance: an emphasis on religion as preeminently a matter of communal social practices (as opposed to intellectual doctrine or individual experience) and an emphasis on biblical narrative as the touchstone for theology. Lindbeck and Frei draw from anthropologist Clifford Geertz and his understanding of religion as culture and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and his understanding of social practices in order to develop their methodology. Indeed, Frei even likens the task of the theologian to a Geertzian ethnographer: the job is to thickly describe the practices of the church, not construct their own doctrines. Many have charged postliberalism with having conservative tendencies, and they are not wrong to do so. Seemingly, Geertzian theologians would no more criticize unjust features of Christian practice any more than Geertzian ethnographers would criticize the communities they are describing. If we are concerned for social equality and justice, then critical and normative tasks are inescapable for the theologian, in addition to the descriptive task. To that end, I propose that the proper insights of postliberalism can be retained and its deficiencies addressed by relying less for inspiration on Geertz and Wittgenstein and more on Georg W. F. Hegel. Hegel, like Geertz and Wittgenstein, prioritizes social practices. He gets right what they do. But, more so than them, he has a place for the critical exercise of reason in evaluating and modifying our received cultural and religious inheritance.