02/07/2026 17:20 - 19:30

HALL: Pola - A106

Contact: Chilian L.

Chair: Chilian L.

This panel explores how inductive theology reshapes the ways theology is taught, developed, and communicated across academic, ecclesial, and societal contexts.
Inductive theology has emerged as an approach within systematic theology, emphasizing knowledge that arises from engagement with empirical material, lived experience, and concrete practices. Inductive theology thus explores theologies "from below," bringing them into dialogue with academic theories. By taking concrete experiences, practices, and contexts as starting points, inductive approaches also offer resources for identifying, critically engaging, and potentially transforming social, epistemic, and religious inequalities that shape theological knowledge production and communication.
This shift has implications not only for theological research but also for how theology is taught, developed, and communicated across contexts. Organized by the International Network of Inductive Theologies (InIT), this panel invites papers addressing one of the following areas:
(1) Teaching inductive theology - exploring how students can integrate theologies from empirical material, lived experience, and concrete practices in systematic theological reasoning.
(2) Communicating inductive theology in society - discussing the relevance of inductively generated theological insights for public discourse and societal contexts, for example in applied ethics, healthcare, or ecological debates.
(3) Communicating between academia and church - reflecting on how academic inductive theological approaches may contribute to church context, and in particularly how the inductive approaches, starting from shared practices and experiences, can open new spaces for ecumenical dialogue across denominational traditions.
(4) Communicating across academic disciplines - asking how inductive theology can engage in dialogue with other academic disciplines.