Perhaps the time has come when theology must learn to live without the support of canon and classical authorities and stand in the world without authority. Without authority, however, theology can only teach by an indirect method. Theology is indeed in a strange position because it has to prove its purity by immersing itself in all the layers of human existence and cannot claim for itself a special realm . . . Theology must remain incognito
in the realm of the secular and work for the sanctification of the world.

Jacob Taubes, 'On the Nature of the Theological Method' (1954), From Cult to Culture: Fragments towards a Critique of Historical Reason