Wendy is the author
of Practical Theology for Women: How Knowing God Makes a Difference in Our Daily Lives, and she spent four years teaching theology to women at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.
Not exact matches
East Eastern Christians see a dichotomy
of God and creation Eastern theologians are largely unaffected by modernism Eastern theologians do not agonize over the existence
of God Eastern theologians systematize the transcendent, the miraculous, and the mystical into their
theology, without a concept
of «supernatural» Eastern theologians have coherent and helpful answers
for most
practical spiritual problems (such as during bereavement) Eastern clergy, monastics, and lay experts have resources
for spiritual direction, moral direction, and Eastern clergy, monastics, and lay experts have resources
for spiritual direction, moral direction, and bereavement counseling; thus they do not outsource religious problems to secular experts.
Enlightenment Philosophers founded empirical sciences Western theologians attempt to apply empiricism to
theology Western theologians agonize over the existence
of God Western theologians lose, deemphasize, neglect, marginalize, or explain away the supernatural Western theologians no longer have coherent answers
for many
practical religious questions Western churches outsource the treatment
of religious problems to secular therapists
To make the congregation a central concern
for theological education, we need a new pedagogical strategy that assumes that
theology is a form
of practical knowledge.
The topic
of hope has been a consistent theme
of process
theology.9 The weakness
of process
theology has been not neglect
of the topic but neglect
of its
practical meaning
for public problems.
Indeed, in a complex society where no one can grasp more than a few
of the details, some
of the most important
practical theology will have to be done by specialists in medicine, law or business, or by theologians and ethicists whose training equips them
for specialized roles in those institutions.
«
Practical Theology» provides the theme
for much
of today's discussion about theological education.
More than 1,000 people are expected to enjoy a mixture
of accessible
practical theology for new believers and deeper Bible study this year.
This vision
of doxological
theology is at odds with the standard fourfold division
of seminary education in the West, which keeps «Bible,» «church history,» «
theology» and «
practical ministry» cordoned off from one another,
For the Orthodox, theology is simply commentary upon the saints» commentary on scripture for the sake of the church's worsh
For the Orthodox,
theology is simply commentary upon the saints» commentary on scripture
for the sake of the church's worsh
for the sake
of the church's worship.
Of course, there are new questions in dogmatic and moral theology, which have been discussed more openly at and after the Council and which have not yet been solved, among them questions of great importance also for the practical lif
Of course, there are new questions in dogmatic and moral
theology, which have been discussed more openly at and after the Council and which have not yet been solved, among them questions
of great importance also for the practical lif
of great importance also
for the
practical life.
Theology as a
practical discipline does not invite fascination with the subjectivity
of the believer,
for its primary concern is how the self should be shaped to correspond to the object
of religious language.
When I wrote Blessed Rage
for Order, I did state that even if the arguments
for the public character
of fundamental
theology in that book were sound, those arguments could not determine the distinctive form
of publicness proper to systematic
theology or that proper to
practical theology.
There is also variance on the centrality
of theological ethics
for practical theology and, in addition, there are different ideas about how theological ethics should be conceived.
As much as this ethic is needed, as much as we are all indebted to the new clarifications which have come from the contemporary ethics
of virtue and character, and as much as we must never lose its accomplishments, the new
practical theologies must strive
for something more rigorous.
Although Thomas Groome in his widely celebrated Christian Religious Education (Harper & Row, 1980) does not actually use the term, he does in fact present a powerful
practical theology of Christian education that constitutes the major reason
for the book's success.
I am now attempting to develop public criteria
of ethical (personal and societal) transformation
for practical theology.
A
practical theology of virtue and character must be supplemented and supported by a
practical theology of procedure and one, I believe, that also builds an important role
for ethical principles in theological reflection.
I am making the stronger claim,
for which I am indebted to Julian Hartt, that ethics is at the heart
of theology because the grammar
of Christian discourse is fundamentally
practical.
A book on
practical theology now preoccupies me in the same way that an earlier struggle
for public criteria in fundamental
theology concerned me in the early «70s and the struggle
for criteria
of meaning and truth in the disclosures
of the beautiful and the holy in the classic works
of art and religion preoccupied me in the late «70s.
This work is necessary to provide
for practical theology a method and procedure (built at least in part on an ethic
of principles) and help it to avoid the danger
of associating the ethical core
of practical theology with an ethic
of virtue and character.
Each
of them —
practical theology included — is also theoretical: each requires
for its effective pursuit the exercise
of theoria — that is, the comprehensive envisioning
of both the Christian witness and the theological task in their unity and complexity (cf. 67).
Thanks to you brother
for this solid bit
of practical theology.
When it comes to
theology and the
practical outworking
of the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ
for our life as Christians, Paul's writings are among the best.
I am relatively discouraged (although not despairing) about exactly how to take the next two steps: the development
of a model
for a Christian systematic
theology that will be in continuity with, but also a genuine development upon, the earlier model
for a revisionist fundamental
theology; and the development
of a model
for a public Christian praxis (or
practical theology) which will be in continuity with, but also a genuine development upon, both «fundamental» and «systematic» concerns.
Yet
for an increasing part
of theology, this
practical implication is quite indirect.
The author provides a
theology of communication, a critique
of the Electronic Church, and concludes with
practical suggestions
for those who are concerned about the impact
of American television worldwide.
Practical theology —
theology that is addressed to the lives
of communities and grows out
of the lives
of communities,
theology that is done
for the sake
of a way
of life — is a growing, exciting dimension
of theological studies.
The Valparaiso Project is now in the process
of becoming much more explicit about how our work is situated within
practical theology and what its implications are
for ministry.
Edward Farley has come up with the best characterization
of Schleiermacher's picture
of «
practical theology»: the «normative field which critically apprehends the rules
for carrying out the tasks
of ministry» (Theologia, p. 91).
Before I had any content
for the title, I thought
of myself as a
practical theologian whose function it was to integrate
theology and the various dimensions
of ministry as they relate to church and society.
In this curriculum, three disciplines represent the theoretical side
of the dichotomy (biblical studies, church history and systematic
theology), while
practical theology represents the task - oriented program providing the requisite skills
for those preparing
for the professional ministry.
The
practical importance
of an inclusive cosmological
theology for the future increases in proportion to growing cosmic awareness.
The goal
of strategic
practical theology is to devise, and then to defend and communicate, specific recommendations
for congregational ministries.
What matters is a lively dialogue among the branches
of theology, with full appreciation
for the
practical interest that governs them all.
Instead
of Reinhold Niebuhr's Nature and Destiny
of Man, the better model
for an ethic pertinent to strategic
practical theology might be H. Richard Niebuhr's The Responsible Self.
Part
of its fruitfulness
for me has been that it acts as a check on
theology's being too doctrine - centered, and not taking account
of the imaginative and the
practical.
No doubt it failed finally
for the same reason it lasted as long as it did, because it was a
theology, gigantic and rigid and intricate, taking authority from its disciplines and its hierarchies even while they rendered it fantastically ill suited to the
practical business
of understanding and managing an economy.
How do we reconcile the Christian
theology of a reign
of grace with the
practical need to hold a higher standard
for our leaders?
It may be an arrangement that factors out different aspects
of the school's common life to the reign
of each model
of excellent schooling: the research university model may reign
for faculty,
for example, or
for faculty in certain fields (say, church history, or biblical studies) but not in others (say,
practical theology), while paideia reigns as the model
for students, or only
for students with a declared vocation to ordained ministry (so that other students aspiring to graduate school are free to attempt to meet standards set by the research university model); or research university values may be celebrated in relation to the school's official «academic» program, including both classroom expectations and the selection and rewarding
of faculty, while the school's extracurricular life is shaped by commitments coming from the model provided by paideia so that,
for example, common worship is made central to their common life and a high premium is placed on the school being a residential community.
In philosophical
theology par excellence these three items are welded together indissolubly — abstract concepts, concrete matters
of fact,
practical affairs — so that Weiss's comments are
of special relevance
for us in our discussion at this conference.
For ten years previously he was the Dean
of the Uniting Church's Theological Hall and Lecturer in
Practical Theology in the United Faculty
of Theology in Melbourne.
Most
of the others were based more on favorite
theologies than any
practical or relevant strategies
for successfully dealing with addiction.
James N. Poling and Donald Miller, Foundations
for a
Practical Theology of Ministry.
James Poling has written with Donald Miller, Foundations
for a
Practical Theology of Ministry (1985).
The model
of excellent theological schooling symbolized by the inclusion
of a faculty
of theology in the University
of Berlin tied «
practical» education
for a socially necessary profession (the clergy) to the «theoretical» education
of a research university on the grounds that future clergy would be best equipped
for their ministerial functions if they acquired capacities
for rigorous critical research.