TheologyWebsite.com - The Saga

The following is a mix of old and new. Our mission statement has been posted as-is for years. I've updated the other sections since their last revisions years ago. (~sdf)

• Mission Statement
• Site History
• the Webmaster
• Our Site Design

Our Mission

• In a NutShell
  We are dedicated to providing the internet community with academically rigorous and doctrinally sound theological content in a public forum characterized by open mindedness and genuine engagement toward diverse convictions and beliefs.

• Academic Rigor
  We are committed to content meeting high academic standards. With the exception of our Discussion Forums, we do not allow exclusionary or critical expression without providing supporting Scriptural or academically reliable documentation.

• Sound Doctrine
  We are committed to traditional, evangelical and reasonable standards in our presentation of Scripture and theological discourse. We assume, among other things, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the exclusive offer of salvation through his life, death and resurrection, and the Scripture's authoritative role in informing mankind regarding God and his movement in history. We do not, however, require or expect our visitors or participants to hold to these same convictions.

• Theological Content and Exchange
  We intentionally limit our content to what we think relevant to Theology and Christianity. Under the rubric of Theology we encourage and expect dialogue on philosophical, scientific, ethical, social, and cultural topics as they impact theological discussions and views of God, Christ and the Scriptures.

• Open-Minded and Genuine Engagement
  We promise to strive toward continually providing an open and inviting forum for anyone wishing to discuss, inquire into, learn about, or discover Theology or more broadly, Christianity.

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Site History

• September 1997

  This site first appeared in September 1997 as the web page of the Historical Theology Department of Trinity International University (TIU) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). The site was started by Scott David Foutz (aka "sdf"), a PhD student who was then Teaching Fellow, and later Department Fellow for the Historical Theology Department. The site was housed on Trinity's intranet at the web address: tiunet.tiu.edu/acadinfo/teds/chdept/. Site content consisted of links related to historical theology, basic introductions to certain aspects of theology, and departmental information amounting to lists of Trinity historical theology faculty and students. This was the first (and to my knowledge the LAST) departmental page developed by students (for reasons described below).

  [Highly relevant tidbit: For whatever reason, TIU had its "intranet" exposed to the world wide web. Thus while the university considered the site an "internal, intranet" site, it was accessible to the public. :P Now onto the rest of our story...]

• December 1998

  Due to the increasing and noticeable popularity the site received, TIU moved my site to its primary internet server and gave me a simpler, more intuitive web address: www.tiu.edu/churchhistory/. Now the site was increasingly accessed by the public until public access of the site wholly overwhelmed student acess. I started archiving the site's growing email newsletter and offered an automatic subscription service. Site content at this time had grown to include a much larger link database, a well-visted interactive discussion forum, an email newsletter, and some academic humor. We also began to see our first awards trickle in.

  [Highly relevant tidbit: It is during this time that a particular forum user calling himself Avi became a singularly reliable site-based friend. ]

• March 1999

  In March 1999 came the first formal publication of Quodlibet Online Journal. Starting with this issue, Quodlibet commenced publishing three new articles by diverse authors each month. Issues prior to this had been sporadic and had not always offered 3 articles per issue.

  [Editor's Note: Quodlibet Journal now publishes each quarter between 15 to 20 academic articles by scholars from throughout the globe.) ]

• July 1999

  In July of 1999 our site received two recommendations which brought our site to the attention of the largest number of surfers we had encountered up to that time. Both NetSurfer Digest and WebVillage's Believer's Weekly sent very positive reviews of our site to their email newsletter readership.(You can read their reviews in our Email Newsletter Archive.) Apparently their subscribers were quite numerous because we (and others) noticed an immediate increase in traffic.

• August 1999

  The effect of the previous month's recommendations continued to snowball and in August of 1999 we consequently received two very significant recommendations and rewards. We received a very positive review and award by the federally funded Scout Report which provides information on academic internet resources to faculty and researchers. On the heels of this recommendation came news that we had been selected by USA Today as one of their Hot Sites.

  The site's traffic simply sky-rocketed. Perhaps as a protective act of God (of those prayerful server admins) Trinity WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING THAT VERY NIGHT (!!!) rendering my wholly flexing site completely powerless and inaccessible throughout its potentially most-trafficed evening. This was both a lesson in patience beyond any I had expected as well as a realization that the online community was looking for reliable theological resource..

• September 1999

  Due to the previous months' awards and traffic, the site traffic began to clearly surpass every other aspect of TIU's web site in terms of number of visitors and the time they spent at our site surfing. My site was at the top of the university's web access reports. I was soon thereafter called into the university's administrative office on several occasions to discuss with various web-oblivious individuals the direction and supervision of the site. It quickly became clear to me that the site was more important to me that the administration's good graces and so I decided to move it en toto out of their domain of control. I moved both the theology site and Quodlibet Journal to their own domains, TheologyWebsite.com and Quodlibet.net respectively. The cost for the move, domains and web site hosting has been out of pocket to date. But the cost has been worth the enjoyment and learning.

• January 2000

  A positive review and photo of TheologyWebsite (as THEOLOGYWEBSITE.COM !!!) appeared in print in the January-February 2000 Issue of Christianity Online Magazine highlighted our site and provided a color screen shot of our layout and logo. The combination of the article and the New Year holiday resulted in new all-time high records in numbers of visitors per day.

  Also in January 2000, Quodlibet Journal moved to a quarterly publishing schedule and had been registered with the Library of Congress as an International Electronic Publication with its own ISSN.

• This is where the last version left off. I'm now in October 2005.

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the Webmaster

Scott David Foutz has been the sole webmaster and proprietor of this site since its inception. Scott is also the creator, principal editor and frequent contributor (what a coincidence!) of Quodlibet Online Journal. Scott started building web pages while a student at Yale and quickly offered to build a departmental web site after becoming a PhD student and Department Fellow at Trinity University. His departmental web site soon grew beyond the bounds of Trinity and has developed into the site you are currently visiting. Scott is in the process of completing his fourth and final (?) degree in theology. He holds a BA in Biblical Theology from Moody Institute, an MDiv in Systematic Theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, an STM focusing on Medieval Philosophical Theology at Yale University Divinity School, and is now a PhD student of Systematic Theology at Trinity International University. He is a part-time faculty member at North Park University in Chicago where he teaches courses in Biblical Studies and World Religions. He is (also) by trade a full-time Internet Developer for the American Academy of Pediatrics. You are welcomed to contact Scott at webmaster@theologywebsite.com.