I think it important to remember that genre issues have everything to do with the theologians' desire to be read. For some time, theologians have desired to be read primarily by other theologians, which has resulted in theology being weighted down with jargon. I take this to be an indication of what can be described as the academic captivity of the discipline of theology. I want to be clear that the scholarly character of theology done in an academic mode has been very important for helping us know how and even what we should think as Christians. The genre for such theology is the monograph or the scholarly article. The articles are usually written by their authors to ensure that readers of the article will be people who write the way the author of the article writes. In other words, such articles are written to make Christians who are not academics know that they will never understand what Christianity is about.

—Stanley Hauerwas, Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism of Karl Barth, p. 174