Remix: Big Theology & Tiny Stories

Date: Thursday, September 11 @ 7:00pm
Location: Station 26 Brewing Company
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83219357817
Curriculum: Coming Soon!
Password: brew

Join us this week for a remix of our topic - Big Theology & Tiny Stories. This will be more discussion on the same topic from September 4. Not able to join us last week? No problem, we will have some notes to catch you up!

When we think about theology, we often imagine big systems, cosmic truths, and sweeping histories of creation and salvation. But theology also lives in the small spaces: in our families, in local traditions, in meals and stories passed down around tables—or shared over a pint. Karl Rahner famously wrote that “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all,” pointing to an everyday mysticism rooted in ordinary experience. Gustavo Gutiérrez, father of liberation theology, insisted that God is revealed in the lived histories of marginalized communities, not just in abstract doctrines. James K.A. Smith, in his work on “cultural liturgies,” reminds us that the rhythms of our ordinary practices—from meals to neighborhood rituals—train our desires and open us to God.

Jewish thought also underscores the holiness of the everyday. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that “the Bible is not man’s theology but God’s anthropology,” stressing that God’s presence is encountered in the lived patterns of human time, especially in practices like Sabbath that sanctify ordinary life.

In Hindu philosophy, Ramanuja emphasized that devotion (bhakti) is not detached from daily life but woven into it—ordinary acts like cooking, farming, or sharing food can become offerings to the divine.

These “small histories” may not make it into every textbook or sacred writing, but they shape how we experience God. Could it be that the personal, local, and cultural stories we carry are themselves a kind of sacred revelation?

There is no better way to further interrogate the question than over a delicious beer at Strange Craft Brewing Co in Denver - see you there!