THE results for this year’s A levels and GCSEs are evidence of a sharp rise of interest in religion. For the second consecutive year the largest rise in A level entries was for religious studies — up by 16.9 per cent.

With half of all pupils now sitting GCSEs in religious studies, there is every chance that the study of religion will continue to flourish. And this seems not to be a temporary phenomenon, since the steady rise began before the events of 9/11.

This is certainly good news for university departments of theology and religious studies, which also report a rise in applications. It is surely good news for British society. And it ought to be good news for religious communities in Britain.

But there is a danger that academic theology and religious studies have become so detached from the religious communities whose traditions they study that a rise of interest in religious traditions will have little impact on the life of church, mosque, synagogue or temple. There are three reasons why this might indeed be the case. The first is that, because the study of religious traditions takes place in non-religious academic institutions, quite properly, a student’s personal convictions and faith commitment are not at issue in their applications to study or in the assessment of their work. This can hardly be otherwise if departments of theology and religious studies want to be treated on a par with departments of mathematics or philosophy. But it means that students themselves should be left — the reality is occasionally different — to make connections between their theology and the practice of faith. And that is something few achieve.

A second reason is much less understandable. British churches are increasingly characterised by uncertainty about what purpose theology serves in the Christian life, or worse, by a worrying suspicion of sustained theological study. Faced with a decline in income and a rise in the average age of those seeking ordination, most churches have decreased the length of time ordinands spend training. Changes, many necessary and good, in approaches to ministerial formation mean that today’s trainee ministers typically spend less time studying the Christian tradition and more undertaking and reflecting on practical experience gained on placements. Yet few in the Churches seem concerned by the loss of biblical and theological skills that often results.

Changes in ministerial training also contribute to the widening gap between religious communities and academic theology. Ministerial training is teaching led: university departments are increasingly research led. Departments of theology and religious studies exist in a competitive market where they are often candidates for closure because of the ideological prejudices of irreligious university administrators.

Such departments must succeed in research to survive. But this is making it harder for those involved in ministry to move into university departments where heavy teaching loads preclude research and their practical experience of the life of the church fails to configure with the all-important research assessment exercise.

It is hard to think of a parallel: in business studies, engineering or medicine, practical expertise is not regarded, as typically it is in academic theology, as irrelevant to theoretical skills, but as the other side of the same coin.

The key question is: what — or who — is theology for? Academic theologians argue for its place in the secular university on the basis that religion continues to be a fundamental feature of human life, and battle to justify their survival on the basis of their research record.

But the religious leaders and theologians whose lives and work they study have not the slightest hesitation in stating that theology exists for the sake of the community of the faithful — serving, answering, questioning and challenging them in their daily life.

Dr Stephen Plant teaches in the Cambridge Theological Federation and in Cambridge University