I do not like comparative theology ....

I am re-reading Fr Sophrony’s ‘His Life is Mine’, which I present to our multi-denominational Christian bookclub next week. Personally I prefer it to his life of Silouan. In ‘His Life is Mine’, which he published at age 81 (he was 52 when the published his life of Silouan), Sophrony casts Silouan’s mantle aside and takes responsibility for his own experience.  

It is this theologizing out of experience that attracts so much. Without this experience theology becomes empty.  Perhaps no one should receive a degree in theology before age 50, if at all, certainly not without gaining a first-and experience of life and of prayer.

Which is perhaps why I do not like comparative theology (pace Fathers Koslov and Vasechko). For me it tends to compare dogmatic statements, not Christian experience.