Three approaches to practical theology, theological education, and the church's ministry

International Journal of Practical Theology

Volumn 9, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 63-94

  Cahalan, Kathleen A ^a  

^a Global Business Leadership Department   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949996559     PISSN: 14306921     EISSN: 16129768     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1515/IJPT.2005.005     Document Type: Review

References (62)

1. Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion, Princeton (Princeton University Press) 1988
2. Wade Clark Roof/William McKinney, American Mainline Religion. Its Changing Shape and Future, New Brunswick (Rutgers University Pres), 1987
3. Paul Lakeland, Postmodernity. Christian Identity in a Fragmented Age, Minneapolis (Fortress Press) 1997, 1-12
4. Edward Farley, Theologia. The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education, Philadelphia (Fortress Press) 1983
5. Don S. Browning, ed., Practical Theology. The Emerging Field in Theology, Church, and World, San Francisco (Harper & Row) 1983
6. James N. Poling/Donald E. Miller, Foundations for a Practical Theology of Ministry, Nashville (Abingdon Press) 1985
7. Lewis S. Mudge/James N. Poling, eds., Formation and Reflection. The Promise of Practical Theology, Philadelphia (Fortress Press) 1987
8. Barbara G. Wheeler/Edward Farley, eds., Shifting Boundaries. Contextual Approaches to the Structure of Theological Education, Louisville (Westminster/John Knox Press) 1991
9. Farley contends that theology was always considered practical in so far as it was considered a habitus, or a disposition of the soul in relationship to God. Theology was a kind of practical knowledge or wisdom about the Christian life that was never purely theoretical. See Farley, Theologia; and Edward Farley, Interpreting Situations. An Inquiry into the Nature of Practical Theology, in: Formation, eds. Mudge/Poling, 2
10. On practical theology as public theology, see Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society. Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, New York (Seabury Press) 1980
11. David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination. Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism, New York (Crossroad) 1981
12. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory, Notre Dame (University of Notre Dame Press) 1981
13. Lakeland, Postmodernity, 28
14. David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order. The New Pluralism in Theology, New York (Seabury Press) 1975
15. Tracy, Analogical, 47-99. Tracy defines practical theology in terms of a revised correlational method, though he has not employed the method in relationship to practical concerns to the extent that Browning has developed and utilized that method in his work on the family
16. Don S. Browning and others, From Culture Wars to Common Ground. Religion and the American Family Debate, The Family, Religion, and Culture Series, Louisville (Westminster John Knox Press) 1997. Browning serves as the general editor for eleven volumes in this series and has authored numerous articles on the family, most published during the 1990s
17. Don S. Browning, A Fundamental Practical Theology. Descriptive and Strategic Proposals, Minneapolis (Fortress Press) 1991, 46
18. Don S. Browning, Integrating the Approaches. A Practical Theology, in: Building Effective Ministry. Theory and Practice in the Local Church, ed. Carl S. Dudley, San Francisco (Harper &Row) 1983, 222
19. In earlier definitions of pastoral theology, Browning argued that practical theology must be philosophical because ministers (chaplains and therapists) must "articulate their role before various professions and constituencies within the public world." "It is better to articulate one's faith assumptions in a more public and philosophical language ... better than lapsing into the jargon of the social sciences as is the case with so many of our pastoral specialists today." Again, "Pastoral theology should be understood as philosophical reflection on the major themes of the Judeo-tradition with special regard for the implication of these themes for a normative vision of the human life cycle. [...] Pastoral theology must attempt to discern and articulate the relevance to care of both the religious dimension of common experience as well as the explicit faith themes of the historic Judeo-Christian tradition. [...] Pastoral theology should understand itself as an expression of theological ethics, primarily concerned with the religio-ethical norms governing the human life cycle. [...] Pastoral theology should be concerned with specifying the logic, timing, and practical strategies for relating theological-ethical and psychodynamic perspectives on human behavior." Browning, ed., Practical, 191-198
20. Any claim about practical theology has implications for how theology is defined. For Browning, all theology essentially is practical theology. He defines theology as the "systematic reflection on the historical self-understanding of a particular religious tradition;" Browning, Fundamental, 5
21. Randy L. Maddox, The Recovery of Theology as Practical Discipline, in: Theological Studies 51, 1990, 650-72
22. Practical theology must support "implicit validity claims if it takes part in the discourse of a free society aimed at shaping the common good. [...] The arguments that a critical practical theology advances cannot be foundational arguments assuring absolute certainty. Its arguments can have the status of good reasons that, although not absolutely certain, can advance discourse about the action we should take;" Ibid., 71
23. Browning, Integrating, 223
24. Students would learn practical thinking through the revised correlational method in relation to the five levels of practical moral thinking, which makes it possible critically to correlate: (1) the gospel witness at each of the five levels; (2) significant cultural options in terms of their implications for each of the five levels; and (3) one's own personal experience in terms of its implications for the levels. "This three-way critical dialogue should run throughout the student's theological education and provide the structure that will bridge the existential and theoretical aspects of the student's learning;" Don S. Browning, Practical Theology and Religious Education, in: Formation, eds. Mudge/Poling, 97
25. George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine. Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, Philadelphia (Westminster Press) 1984, 16
26. Craig Dykstra/Dorothy C. Bass, A Theological Understanding of Christian Practices, in: Practicing Theology. Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, eds. Miroslav Volf/Dorothy C. Bass, Grand Rapids (William B. Eerdmans Publishing) 2002, 21. The works to which I am referring relate primarily to the concept of practices as defined by MacIntyre, although there are other definitions of practices stemming from the social sciences, Marxist, philosophy, and spiritual theology. For example, see the essays in Practicing Theology by Kathyrn Tanner and Sarah Coakley
27. Craig Dykstra/Dorothy C. Bass, Times of Yearning, Practices of Faith, in: Dorothy C. Bass, ed., Practicing our Faith. A Way of Life for a Searching People, The Practices of Faith Series, ed. Dorothy C. Bass, San Francisco (Jossey-Bass Publishers) 1997, 5. Dykstra has put forth several definitions: "A practice involves people doing things with one another, and normally at least some part of the time people will be doing what they do in physical proximity to one another;" and "Practice is participation in a cooperatively formed pattern of activity that emerges out of a complex tradition of interactions among many people sustained over a long period of time;"
28. Craig Dykstra, Reconceiving Practice, in: Shifting, eds. Wheeler/Farley, 40, 43. Bass's definition states, "Christian practices are patterns of cooperative human activity in and through which life together takes shape over time in response to and in the light of God as known in Jesus Christ. [...] Focusing on practices demands attentiveness to specific people doing specific things together within a specific frame of shared meaning;"
29. Dorothy C. Bass, Introduction, in: Practicing Theology, eds. Volf/Bass, 3
30. Other views in Practicing Theology include Serene Jones's definition of practices in relationship to the language of sanctification: "... practices are the things that Christians do as their lives are conformed to patterns of living that embody God's will, patterns embedded in the Law and manifest in the life of Christ, patterns of holiness - sanctus;" Serene Jones, Graced Practices. Excellence and Freedom in the Christian Life, in: Practicing Theology, eds. Volf/Bass, 60
31. and Kathryn Tanner's: "Social-scientific (especially neo-Marxist) accounts of the prerequisites for large-scale, ongoing forms of coordinated social action aid in understanding the features of Christian practices that generate theological reflection;" she emphasizes the "effort-filled and always only temporarily successful struggles to make Christian practices a whole way of life;" Kathryn Tanner, Theological Reflection and Christian Practices, in: Practicing Theology, eds. Volf/Bass, 228ff
32. Also in The Practices of Faith Series are: Stephanie Paulsell, Honoring the Body. Meditations on a Christian Practice, San Francisco (Jossey-Bass) 2002
33. Dorothy C. Bass, Receiving the Day. Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time, San Francisco (Jossey-Bass Publishers) 2000
34. and Thomas G. Long, Testimony. Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, San Francisco (Jossey-Bass) 2004
35. Dykstra's list of practices includes interpreting scripture, worship and prayer, confession and reconciliation, service, witness, social criticism, and mutual bearing of suffering. Margaret Miles includes ascetic practices, worship and sacraments, service, and prayer. Margaret Ruth Miles, Practicing Christianity. Critical Perspectives for an Embodied Spirituality, New York (Crossroad) 1988. Interestingly, Langdon Gilkey also called for practical theology to take up "spirituality" or "piety" or the "health or nurture of the soul" that would include a "number of modes of behavior both individual and communal: meditation, contemplation, yoga, prayer, worship, participation in sacraments, in dance, in chanting - and so on." In response to the modern problem of practice, Gilkey contends that if our spirit is sick and estranged, certainly we deal with "praxis that deals with the health of our being." "Are there modes of practice in Christian life which assist or encourage the deepening of faith, the unity or strength of the spirit, the dedication of the spirit to others, the discerning power of the spirit to see what is good - the 'non-attachment' of the spirit to itself and its own well-being?" Practical theology would address the sorts of practices that contribute to the "nurture of faith, spiritual strength and ethical motivation," how practices can be studied and theoretically understood within the academy, and how they can be "oriented forwards towards agency as well as backwards towards the growth of piety." Christians need to learn from other traditions, as well as their own, what practices can nurture the soul under present cultural traditions. Langdon Gilkey, unpublished manuscript presented at the University of Chicago, 1985
36. Dykstra/Bass, Theological Understanding, in: Practicing Theology, eds. Volf/Bass, 16-17
37. Dykstra/Bass, Times, Practicing Our Faith, ed. Bass, 2, begins with an example of the pressures of "having too much to do" and the "yearning to understand what the too-much-to-do adds up to."
38. The basic argument is that thinking and doing, belief and practice, are "inextricably entwined;" Ibid., 21
39. Dorothy C. Bass, Congregations and the Bearing of Traditions, in: American Congregations, eds. James P. Wind/James W. Lewis, vol. 2, New Perspectives in the Study of Congregations, Chicago (University of Chicago Press) 1994, 169-91
40. See Dorothy C. Bass/Craig Dykstra, Growing in the Practices of Faith, in: Practicing Our Faith, ed. Bass, 199-201, for a description on how to teach practices in the congregation
41. That same volume also has a guide for congregational study groups. Both Browning's and Bass's projects have produced numerous books as well as websites, videos, study guides, and materials for congregations. The Religion, Culture, and Family Project can be found at http://divinity.uchicago.edu/family/. The Practicing Our Faith Project can be found at http://www.practicingourfaith.org/
42. Dykstra, Reconceiving, 54ff
43. See also Craig Dykstra, Growing in the Life of Faith. Education and Christian Practices, Louisville (Geneva Press) 1999
44. For other remarks on the relationship between the congregation and the seminary, see L. Gregory Jones, Beliefs, Desires, Practices, and the Ends of Theological Education, in: Practicing Theology, eds. Volf/Bass, 185-205
45. MacInytre, After Virtue, 181-82, points out that politics constitutes the "making and sustaining of forms of human community - and therefore of institutions - that constitute of a community's form of life."
46. Though in many respects different from one another, Lakeland claims these thinkers have three things in common: the rejection of the subject at the center of epistemology, a "contextual and relative" understanding of reason, and reason's dependence on power or desire. Lakeland, Postmodernity, 16. See p.42, for a discussion of theology and radical philosophy
47. Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, rev. ed., Faith and Cultures Series, Maryknoll (Orbis Books) 2002
48. Robert J. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, Maryknoll (Orbis Books) 1985
49. Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity. Theology Between the Global and the Local, Maryknoll (Orbis Books), 1997
50. In his address to the Catholic Theological Society of America in 2001, Steve Bevans raised many of the issues facing the true postmodern theologian in the context of his own discipline, missiology. In terms of practical theology, he embraces a praxis understanding of theology that is characterized by: (1) an inductive rather than deductive method; (2) a method that listens to traditional sources as well as those "beyond the boundaries," particularly those voices from "local churches around the world" (especially in Ruether's terms of the "prophetic principle" that is at the heart of "countercultural movements"); and (3) a method that takes inculturation seriously ("such a theology will never pretend to universality or timelessness, but will be rooted in cultural and historical particularity)." Bevans argues that if systematic theology becomes practical theology, it will be interdisciplinary (in conversation with the social sciences); "occasional" in terms of reflecting on particular questions within particular communities; listening for questions outside the normal range for classical theology; employing a variety of methods depending on the context; and finally, it will be communal and collaborative, and perhaps less discursive and more aesthetic. See Stephen Bevans, Wisdom from the Margins. Systematic Theology and the Missiological Imagination, CTSA Proceedings 56, 2001, 32-35
51. Bevans, Models, 3
52. Rebecca S. Chopp, Saving Work. Feminist Practices of Theological Education, Louisville (Westminster John Knox Press) 1995, 11, criticizes Edward Farley's and David Kelsey's proposals for theological education as being too formal, seeking a "unity above and beyond the fragmentation and pluralism."
53. Chopp is here relying on the work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Discipleship of Equals. A Critical Feminist Ekklesia-ology of Liberation, New York (Crossroad) 1993
54. Chopp, Saving Work, 58, identifies three spaces in ekklesia that names and opposes sin: lamentations of suffering, critical analyses of systems and oppression, and the depth order of sin as idolatry
55. See Christie Cozad Neuger, ed., The Arts of Ministry. Feminist-Womanist Approaches, Louisville (Westminister John Knox Press) 1996
56. Denise M. Ackermann/Riet Bons-Storm, eds., Liberating Faith Practices. Feminist Practical Theologies in Context, Leuven (Peeters) 1998
57. Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore/Brita L. Gill-Austern, eds, Feminist and Womanist Pastoral Theology, Nashville (Abingdon Press) 1999
58. An early proposal for theological education and ministry that comes out of the "true post-modern" position is Joseph C. Hough/John B. Cobb, Christian Identity and Theological Education, Chico (Scholars Press) 1985, 84. They propose the minister as a "practical Christian thinker" who has "a clear sense of Christian identity" with an "extensive and reflective understanding of what constitutes that identity;" a sense of how Christian identity shapes how we understand "world-historical situation;" and wise discernment for action
59. Bass affirms that theology is a communal enterprise: "... those who lead theological communities need to find ways of learning with and from people of varied views and histories, while also preventing theological reflection from becoming overly abstract or distant from the messy realm where human beings dwell and where Christian life and ministry take place." Bass, Introduction, in: Practicing Theology, eds. Volf/Bass, 5
60. Boston University has revised its curriculum according to Browning's model of practical theology. Robert C. Neville, Theses Regarding Direction in Theology Education, unpublished manuscript, 1998
61. Browning, Pastoral Theology, in: Practical Theology, ed. Browning, 187, has long argued that ethics must be more central to practical theology, advancing an ethic of obligation rather than a virtue ethic: "Pastoral theology should rediscover itself as a dimension of theological or religious ethics. It is the primary task of pastoral theology to bring together theological ethics and the social sciences to articulate a normative vision of the human life cycle. [...] In addition, pastoral theology should express a theology of those pastoral acts through which this normative vision of the human life cycle is appropriately mediated to individuals and groups in all of their situational, existential, and developmental particularity. Furthermore, pastoral theology in the future increasingly must express itself within a pluralistic society of diverse religio-cultural assumptions, differing cultural disciplines, and conflicting ethical patterns of life."
62. This is similar to what Robert Schreiter calls "revanchism, an attempt to regain territory that has been lost." Schreiter, New Catholicity, 22-23