movement between the Spirit, scripture and the concrete needs of current audiences is also crucial for the unlocking of the liberating meaning of those ancient canonised texts. It is precisely their potentially persuasive power to affirm, to nourish and sustain life - to facilitate new possibilities, to encourage and to console, to invite, move and challenge their receivers to imagine and re-imagine - that makes them authoritative!Where do such metaphorical acts of redescription occur? It is within the creative yet complex interaction between Spirit, text and context that the imaginative, transforming and authoritative power of Christian Theology comes to the fore. The continuing, risky process by which the early Christians had to learn to match their new identity to a lifestyle and language worthy of their calling, occurred in the creative, liminal tension between their understanding of torah and their memories of Jesus (Mouton 2006:64-66). From within this space their hope for the future and their courage to live faithfully in the present were shaped.This movement from one insight (position) to another may be described in terms of the typical metaphorical processes of orientation, disorientation (alienation) and reorientation (Ricoeur 1976:46-53). It is in this context that I find the concept of liminality, from the Latin limen for threshold, particularly helpful for describing the complex and ambiguous interface between academia, church and society - the epicentre of Christian Theology.2 Liminality involves experiences of both the wonder and discomfort when one is suspended between different groups, persons or viewpoints. Such delicate processes are implied by the very identity of Christian Theology itself. The majority, if not all, of the implied receivers of the biblical documents found themselves within liminal or transitional phases - characterised by comprehensive changes in the attitudes of their minds, from within their concrete political, economic, social and moral contexts. In fact, the creativity, tension, paradox and risk of liminal spaces are implied by these texts as the optimal context for moral (trans)formation and spiritual growth.In continuation with the rich yet fragile nature of these texts I wish to argue that liminality should be embraced as an essential characteristic of the Christian life, and of Christian Theology in general. Categories and skills developed by related disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, literary science, classical and modern rhetoric, history, philosophy, hermeneutics - and particularly the arts - would therefore be needed for ongoing explorations of the communication processes represented and stimulated by these texts. That is why Theology needs the larger context of a university to become what it is meant to be. This brings us to a second crucial choice for Christian Theology in a pluralist society. 2. THEOLOGY ON THE THRESHOLD OF INTER-DISCIPLINARY AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUEIn terms of David Tracy's well-known "publics", Christian Theology today is challenged particularly to account for the dynamic yet complex interface between the church (and its foundational texts), society (where those texts are appropriated or ignored), and the academy (which explores a universum of knowledge). I wish to argue that i t is at the very epicentre of these interrelated and interdependent publics or "spirals" that