I’ve been slowly building something that probably only a handful of theology nerds on earth would ever find exciting: a massive cross-reference index (currently) spanning more than one hundred and twenty-five systematic theology texts across the whole Christian tradition. Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Reformed, Baptist, Lutheran, a cautious dip into Eastern Orthodoxy (which, if you know, you know). Every work mapped against the traditional loci, from prolegomena all the way through eschatology. Think Turretin sitting next to Bavinck, Rahner arguing silently with Erickson, and the Cappadocians peering over everyone’s shoulder wondering why we insist on organizing everything so neatly.

The idea sounds straightforward, right? It is, until you actually try it. Authors refuse to cooperate. One theologian hides hamartiology inside anthropology; another treats ecclesiology as an appendix to soteriology; someone else scatters pneumatology like confetti across three volumes. Scholastic writers are their own adventure altogether. You open Aquinas expecting clean categories and instead discover questions nested inside objections nested inside replies, like theological Russian dolls. I’ve recently started folding in major scholastic texts, which means tracking distinctions so fine they practically require a jeweler’s loupe.

Eastern Orthodox material has been the real puzzle. Not because it lacks depth, quite the opposite, but because it resists the Western instinct to systematize everything into tidy doctrinal compartments. You go looking for a clearly labeled locus and instead find liturgy, doxology, mysticism, and theology braided together. Beautiful, honestly. Also maddening when you’re trying to build an index.

I have no idea whether this will ever benefit anyone besides me. Maybe someday a student will want to compare how twelve traditions handle divine simplicity or the ordo salutis and stumble onto it. Or maybe it will just remain a glorified personal map of theological rabbit trails. Either way, I keep coming back to it. There’s something oddly satisfying about watching centuries of Christian reflection line up, overlap, disagree, and occasionally harmonize.

It’s weirdly fun. Also tedious. And yes, it probably qualifies as a mild form of theological OCD. But there are worse compulsions than tracing how the Church has tried, generation after generation, to speak carefully about God.