The recent merger of the VU Faculty of Religion and Theology with the faculties of humanities and social sciences reflects the changing position of academic theology in academia. Theology is occupying less and less space in the academic landscape, for example, due to declining student numbers and reduced funding (KNAW, 2015). Its marginalization is evident in how it is often dismissed as socially irrelevant, economically unproductive, and epistemically deficient, largely because of its qualitative methodologies and religious underpinnings. As a result, theology does not meet the increasing demands of marketization, instrumentalization, and quantification of academia (Leišytė et al., 2023).

According to scholars such as Castoriadis, Ricoeur, and Taylor, how we value, shape, and approach institutions and social practices, like academia and academic theology, is dictated by social imaginaries. Social imaginaries shape the human encounter with the world, and form a shared, tacit background horizon that is comprised of social meanings (Adams, 2023). This study will focus on the epistemological consequences of social imaginaries, examining how they shape what is considered true, knowable, and worth studying. For clarity, the shared frameworks rooted in broader social imaginaries, which shape what is considered true, knowable, and worth studying for a group in a given time period, will be referred to as epistemic imaginaries.

Contrary to the popular belief that the dominant modern Western epistemic imaginaries, specifically in the Netherlands, are objective, absolute, or the endpoint of rational progress, this research contends that it is shaped by historical developments. Academic theology appears problematic within these imaginaries because it does not align with dominant values such as objectivity, instrumental rationality, or measurable impact. In response, theologians have pursued different strategies:

1. Adapting methods or subjects to fit the dominant epistemic imaginaries better, as seen in the rise of popularity of religious studies and practical theology.
2. Calling for a reshaping of dominant epistemic imaginaries to allow for a revaluation and flourishing of (traditional) theology.

Yet, given the status of theology in Western academia, the predicament of theology has not been substantially improved by this effort. Therefore, this research explores a third possibility:

3. Investigating whether it is feasible to move beyond, or outside of, the prevailing epistemic imaginaries to enable a reimagination of academic theology.