From InstaPundit.Com comes this link to an article about Stanley Hauerwas, a Methodist theologian hitting it big currently.

A few years ago, I heard a religion reporter on C-Span2 discussing his book about the Mormons, express incredulity that they have no theologians. How can they know what they believe, he asked, if they don't have theologians?

Ah, well, how did Isaiah know what to write? Or Amos? Or Peter, James or John? The fact is that God never has operated through the "educated" elite, the scribes, or the social elite, the Pharisees.

The real leaders of true religion are prophets, called from various walks of life, if the Bible is any guide. They don't usually get much credit in their own time or from their own home towns, although there are times when they are honored, as was Moses or Samuel. Others are treated like more like Jeremiah.

So turning to the intellectuals for guidance on the mind and will of God, even one hailed by Time as "America's best theologian," is unfortunately as likely to get at the truth as seeking it from Mullah Omar or Ayatollah Khomeini.

Hauerwas hates warfare, the death penalty, abortion and probably cloning. He seems to see himself in the Jeremiah role, chastising us for going after al Qaeda.

But one doesn't get to pick and choose from Scripture, although textual criticism is a pretty good way of keeping it at bay, to keep from having to deal with the really tough questions about God being angry with Saul for his failure to totally destroy the Amalekites, man, woman, child and cattle. Christians like to say, that was the God of the OLD Testament, but that's a pretty facile way to sidestep the real issue.

So, who can fathom the mind of God? I suppose no one. Who can justify His ways to man? Milton tried, but succeeded more in making Satan seem heroic.