The Theology Table is a Christian website created for the purpose of linking churches and Christian communities via the web and promoting theological debate and discussion. Started in August 2013, it has since been expanded to include several social features and a large number of Bible study tools.
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Purpose
The website's stated goal is "...to promote the reading and discussion of the Bible, to allow believers to congregate and civilly debate matters of theology and faith, to encourage the church to be united, and to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world." The website's official motto is: "Knowing the Bible. Growing in the Faith." Elsewhere, it has been stated that "The Theology Table is a Christian website that aims to be a unique Christian social network promoting discussion, debate, Bible reading, and growth in the Word of God."
Version 1.0
On August 15, the website was officially registered under "thetheologytable.org" and released to the general public. At the time, it was being hosted by WebStarts and contained a basic Bible reading plan with commentary features, a poll section, a Bible trivia section, and a weekly Biblical case study that users could respond to. After a limited advertising period, the site slowly grew but was used minimally, primarily due to inconsistencies with the membership system.
Version 2.0
Shortly before November 1, the website was temporarily down as a series of changes occurred. It was announced on the Facebook page of The Theology Table that the site would be transferred to a new WordPress platform at the domain "thetheologytable.com" and that the old domain would be redirected. Reportedly, Version 2.0 of the site would contain enhanced features. At midnight on November 1, "thetheologytable.com" opened, but its first day was problematic due to server issues. A new server was installed, and the site was reopened the next day. Despite complaints that its overall visual design was inferior to Version 1.0, the new version contained many previously unavailable features, including a social network, a daily Bible reading page, improved theological forums, sermon illustrations, interactive Bible games/studies, large online cloud storage for users, and extensive file/document sharing.
Eventually, a new feature, WikiBible, was released. According to the website, WikiBible strives "...to be an online library of Christian articles on the Bible, theology, etc."
Version 2.1a
At the beginning of 2014, major work on the website was completed. On Friday, January 3, a new theme was released as part of Version 2.1a to counter complaints of the poor design on v2.0. The same features of v2.0 now remain, but the website's style and user interface have largely been updated. ePanel, the former social networking system, has been renamed 'TablePress'. Likewise, the Discussion center and the Tools and Resources center have been renamed 'TableDiscuss' and 'TableTools', respectively. Thus far, debugging and redesigning have been actively occurring as part of the 2.1b beta tests.