Understanding intellectual life as “regional” (a practice in a particular cultural space) will mean that the particularity of Christian theology will be allowed to be itself without being too anxious about its standing visa-vis other disciplines, especially its near neighbors in history and philosophy. And this, in turn, may ease one of the most damaging side effects of modern ideals of critical inquiry, namely their homogenizing tendency, their eliding of difference, and their preference for what is common across all contexts and situations. Or again, calling into question some modern ideals of responsible intellectual activity may help us to begin work on a task which has so far scarcely been touched, namely telling the story of modern theology from the perspective of the culture of faith. Told from that vantage point, the story will not be organized around the idea of gradual release from the tutelage of authority into the free and open spaces of critical Inquiry; rather, it will be a story of loss of roots, of detachment, and of the declining accessibility of the space within which to cultivate the Christian life of the mind.