In Pastoral Care in the Classical Tradition, Andrew Purves argued that pastoral care and theology has long ignored Scripture and Christian doctrine, and pastoral practice has become secularized in both method and goal, the fiefdom of psychology and the social sciences. He builds further on this idea here, presenting a christological basis for ministry and pastoral theology.
Advancing Practical Theology argues that the practical theology as a discipline does not at present fulfil its radical potential and addresses some directions that the discipline needs to take in order to respond adequately to changing social, ecclesial and global circumstances. This book will generate debate as a polemic contending for a future of the discipline that features an enhanced role for the lay (i.e. non-professional) practical theologian who is radicalized with respect to the discipline’s preferential option for the broken in which practical theology addresses and is addressed by postcolonial concerns.
This book argues that the discipline of practical theology needs to be re-shaped in the light of the impact of various influences created through the encounter with globalization. Essential to this is an engagement with the insights of other disciplines, e.g. sociology, politics, economics and philosophy. The content and authority of the Christian tradition is being challenged by the blurred encounters with more fluid lifestyles, alternative spiritualities and indeed other faiths as mediated through information technology and the breakdown of attachments to all forms of institutional life. Traditional ways of belonging and relating to places and structures are being eroded leaving the established patterns of ministry, worship, church organisation the province of an ageing population, while those who are now more inclined to search for communities of interest avoid being drawn into the practices and structures of formal religion. What is the future for practical theology in this rapidly changing context? By examining the familiar concerns of the subject John Reader shows how it is in danger of operating with zombie categories - still alive but only just - and presents the possibilities for a reflexive spirituality grounded in the Christian tradition as a way into the future.
Through a series of essays contributed by leading experts in the field, The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology presents an introduction to practical theology as a major area of Christian study and practice, including an overview of its key developments, themes, methods, and future directions. The first comprehensive reference work to provide a survey, description and analysis of practical theology as an area of study A range of leading scholars in the field provide original contributions on the major areas, issues, and figures in practical theology Reviews an extensive range of methods for studying theology in practice, along with sub-disciplines in theological education such as pastoral care and preaching Covers developments in the discipline in a range of global contexts and distinct Christian traditions Shows how practical theology is relevant to everyday life
This groundbreaking study offers an innovative critical analysis of poetry as a resource for reflective practice in the context of continuing professional development. In the contemporary drive in all professions for greater rigour in education, training, and development, little attention is paid to the inner shape of learning and meaning-making for individuals and groups, especially ways in which individuals are formed for the task of their work. Building on empirical research into the author’s professional practice, the book takes the use of poetry in clergy continuing ministerial development as a case-study to examine the value of poetry in professional learning. Setting out the advantages and limitations of poetry as a stimulant for imaginative, critical reflexivity, and formation within professional reflective practice, the study develops a practical model for group reflection around poetry, distilling pedagogical approaches for working effectively with poetry in continuing professional development. Drawing together a number of strands of thinking about poetry, Practical Theology, and reflective practice into a tightly argued study, the book is an important methodological resource. It makes available a range of primary and secondary sources, offering researchers into professional practice a model of ethnographic research in Practical Theology which embraces innovative methods for reflexivity and theological reflection, including the value of auto-ethnographic poetry.
In Collaborative Practical Theology, Henk de Roest documents and analyses research on Christian practices as it can be conducted by academic practical theologians in collaboration with practitioners of different kinds in Christian practices all around the world.
Catholic sacramental doctrine has lost much of its credibility. Baptized people leave the church, adolescents stop attending shortly after they are confirmed, supposedly indissoluble marriages regularly dissolve, few go to confession, and many do not believe in transubstantiation. Drawing upon his decades-long study of the sacraments, Martos reveals how teachings that seemed rooted in the scriptures and Catholic life have become unmoored from the contexts in which they arose, and why seemingly eternal truths are actually historically relative. After carefully constructing Catholic teaching from the church's own documents, he deconstructs it by demonstrating how biblical passages were misconstrued by patristic authors and how patristic writings were misunderstood by medieval scholastics. The long process of misinterpretation culminated in the dogmatic pronouncements of the Council of Trent, which continues to dominate Catholic thinking about the church's religious ceremonies. If the sacraments are released from their dogmatic baggage, Martos believes that the spiritual realities they symbolize can be celebrated in any human culture without being tied to their traditional rites.
This is a collection of essential passages on the ministry of the church. By selecting significant sources which share a common assumption concerning the nature of theology and its methodology, the editor presents a single consistent theology of ministry. The book is carefully organised to allow a thorough exploration of the different aspects of ministry. Contributors include Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans Küng, Helmut Thielicke and Thomas F. Torrance.
This volume probes the nature of gratitude as a virtue and identifies its moral value in the Christian life in order to enhance pastoral effectiveness in ministering to those gripped by sins of desire. Such impulses are explored in terms of the seven deadly sins, which this inquiry regards as distorted desires for the good God provides. Utilizing a method of mutual critical correlation, this volume brings philosophical and psychological claims about gratitude into conversation with the Christian tradition. On the basis of an ontology of communion in which humans are inextricably situated in giving-and-receiving relationships with God, others, and the world, this inquiry defines gratitude as a social response involving asymmetrical, agapic reciprocity, whereby a recipient freely, joyfully, and fittingly salutes a giver for the gift received in order to establish, maintain, or restore a personal and peaceable relationship. Critiquing especially the reductions of gratitude by Aristotle and Jacques Derrida, this inquiry recommends gratitude as a virtue which, when embodied, practiced, and ritualized especially, though not exclusively, in the Eucharist, has potential to repel the destructive idolatries generated by the seven deadly sins and thus function as a crucial ingredient in human social flourishing. Familiarity with the virtue of gratitude as a vital ingredient in moral flourishing therefore equips pastors for greater ministerial effectiveness.
