the messiness of life and, therefore, of theology

Life cannot be lived as a theory, not even when lived theologically. Though theology's cognitive aspect functions as a framework within which one chooses to live, neither this nor any other such framework (philosophical, political, ethical) is 'pure'. The practicalities of living intervene, and it is right and proper that they should. This reality of 'unsystematic living' ... confirms the importance of living as both embodied and influenced, even shaped, by both habits and interruptions, the precise content of which is not predictable or controllable.

Clive Marsh, Cinema and Sentiment: Film's Challenge to Theology (Paternoster, 2004), 132.