Approach to Bible Through the Experience with Theology Free Essay Example

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Evolution

There are a number of definitions, descriptions, approaches, suggestions, biases, contexts and even debate concerning practical theology and who is really practicing such a thing. I hope to suggest a way to enter into the room that is filled with notions based on what I have learned in my years of being a learner, pastor, scholar, and Jesus follower. This also says what I am not trying to do: offer the historical or a portrayal of the Stone-Campbell movement, or a specific all-encompassing offer of an answer to the question of what practical theology is.

I will approach the topic as a voice among voices, with a perspective among perspectives, which ends up being more of a conversation with values, convictions and a context, which places a great value on the conversation itself. The conversation is filled with debate.

It seems practical theology was a more Protestant preoccupation in regard to its concerns. Often the very notion is acknowledged in the awareness and work of Friedrich Schleirmacher, the German theologian. He is often referred to as the “father” of modern theology. His work, Brief Outline on the Study of Theology: Philosophical, Historical, Practical, was published twice, once in 1811 and following that in 1830. In his work he offers an idea about theology as “a positive science, whose parts join into a cohesive whole only through their common relation to a particular mode of faith…a particular way of being conscious of God. Thus, the various parts of Christian theology belong together only by virtue of their relationship to Christianity.” In his efforts he is speaking of practical theology as a distinctive branch of theology. As he does this he is saying it is more than merely putting theology into practice. He claims that, “The purpose of leadership is to hold the vaiours concerns of the Church together and to build them further….The knowledge concerning all its different branches, we designate Practical Theology.” He also created what we might say were boundaries that focused the interests of practical theology to “those in whom an ecclesial interest and a scientific mind are united.” It may be safe to assume that early attempts of any community toward theology tends to be practical.

Karl Rahner, in his Theological Investigations, defines the discipline as an area of theology. He was very attentive to the practices of the church and life in the faith community. On the topic he says, “Practical theology is that theological discipline which is concerned with the Church’s self-actualization here and now – both that which is and that which ought to be. That it does by means of theological illumination of the particular situation in which the Church must release itself in all its dimensions.” In this definition it encompasses all that a church is doing in practice and distinguishing itself in these areas in relationship, such as the sacraments, liturgy, and government. It is how a church en-fleshes itself and demands the voice of the theologian, “Practical theology challenges the other theological studies to recognize the task which inheres immanently in them, oriented to the practice of the Church; the second demand it makes it makes is that they should apply themselves to this task..”

Donald Browning wrote, A Fundamental Practical Theology, insisted that theology is always to be concerned with the beliefs, behaviors, interests, commitments, and convictions of the church, and in doing so suggests that all real theology is practical theology. This is a strong claim. Peering into his work you find the voices of Aristotle’s practical wisdom, congregational studies, Gadamer’s hermeneutical theory, and the critical theory of Gary Habermas. He created a place for the social sciences in regard to faith and practice with four movements – the descriptive, systematic and strategic vision of practical theology. He espouses what he called the critical correlational method that means that practical theologians must include the classical disciplines, traditions and the congregations be blended together for the evolution or furthering development of theology in this particular domain. It is most common today to always consider that our ideas and theological efforts and ideas emerge out of context. We are not neutral. By nature practical theology is contextual, grounded in a kind of wisdom of the particular. Discovering this concept of wisdom is found in the relationship of interaction between practices and theories, which make it a dynamic situation to work in. As Browning suggests in his work, “The view I propose goes from practice to theory and back to practice. Or more accurately, it goes from present day theory-laden practice to a retrieval of normative theory-laden practice to the creation of more critically held theory-laden practices.”

This idea is also a significant segment of James Polling: “Practical theology is the academic discipline that studies practices of the church in conversation with other branches of theology and the modern social sciences…and designs programs and strategies for salvation / transformation of the church and the world.” He is also concerned about power structures, and the issues of abuse, economics, social injustice, and race. This concern is prevalent and very crucial for his paradigm to create space for the overlooked voices of the marginalized who have often lived in the margins of theology. This type of discourse potentially transforms ecclesiology. As we might consider how theology is formational for the life of a congregation and the church universal in the interaction between theological notions and the actual practices of the faith community. This creates contextualization. With contextualization we have an abiding concern for paying sincere attention to practical theology’s epistemology. We have to keep asking how we know what we know and whose particular set of experiences and presuppositions inform and shape and control our theological efforts. This allows the work of theology to recognize situated social locations that impact the practices and theology and how we exist, live, move, and flourish.

Theology

Practical theology insists then on the lens of an anthropology that is theological and incarnational. We have to take Jesus seriously. He offers a model through the incarnation of God becoming flesh and coming into our world and the human condition. He becomes an important component with our understanding not only of God but of our understanding of humanity. This requires a serious endeavor to examine the Bible to enrich and determine with lived experiences. The Bible narrative is not without its own value-laden issues which sometimes silences or ignores the experiences (Genesis 16:1-16; 21:1-19 note Hagar’s place in the story as the outsider with her intimacy with God, and naming him El-Roi (the God who sees) and this as a part of the social context. Our work must pay attention to a hermeneutic that adds the social contests of the text and the reader so something is not missed. This creates implication for theological inquiry in the sources we use, the commitments we make, and the suffering of unjust practices. We see, read, and are witnesses as we live and theologize.

Karl Barth offers a challenge to those who don’t see the relationship between the theories of theology and the praxis of practices describing the improper understanding as the “primal lie, which has to be resisted in principle.” He also suggests that our understanding of the mission of Jesus is only discerned as a “theory which has its origins and goal in praxis.” John Swinton suggests that we need to, “examine theological understandings in light of contemporary experience, in order that their meaning within God’s redemptive movement in the presence can be developed and assessed. Theological truth is this seen to be emergent and dialectical, having to be carved out within the continuing dialogue between the Christian tradition and the historical existence of church and world.”

This impacts the local congregation in real ways of structures, ministry styles, governance, and more for the church. As Carlson notes a needed facet: “…to explore the place of the Bible and culture informing the images by which ministers understand their leadership and church’s polity.” There is a relationship between the Word and the World due to the Holy Spirit sovereign role as power and presence of the Divine. This makes the theological and the sociological a place of intersection in order to further the Kingdom of God. This cannot be hidden, distorted, or blurred and must be intentionally renewed and recovered in a prioritized place of empowerment and discernment.

Reflection

An approach to the biblical text is a place to inform practical theology. It enlightens the categories for search, rescue, and application. We read the writings knowing the authors do not write in a vacuum but in situated places of context. They reside in a community and speak of a God who works in human history and in the places where we are. The narrative and theology of the authors presents a God active in a place of faith at a specific time with intentional actions. In a sense, the authors not only tell the truth of scripture, they do so with specific concerns for specific communities. While we might believe there are some general or universal truths for the sacred literature, it cannot be overlooked that it provides situational guidance and recollection. A reading of Peter in Acts 10 becomes a place to consider. He has a vision. It is of a vessel descending from above with all kinds of food to eat and leads the apostle to say: “God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean” (10:28), and then, “Truly, I perceive that God shows no partiality” (10:34), which leads him to conclude in a practical way: “Can anyone forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (10:47). When reading through the episodes they lead to “a growing awareness of the dimensions of what God has initiated.” Peter declares that God had taught him, “The divine cleansing of food in the vision is a parable of the divine cleansing of human beings...”

His discernment of the work of God offers a valuation and critique. He is calling upon the previous ideas for a conversion. The ideas and actual practices of the new faith community is not aligned in regard to the Gentiles and the thought that they needed to be circumcised to be true followers of Jesus. “For Peter. The decisive factor was that God gave the same gift to them, the Holy Spirit, as he gave those in the upper room when they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Their practice of exclusion, in that place and time, was profoundly challenged. Inclusivity mattered to God and needed to matter to his new people. “Inclusivity began to replace prejudice. God continues to act. God gives visions to Jews and Gentiles – (even Gentiles who have yet to hear and accept what God did in Jesus. And so Peter’s first line of testimony in Cornelius’ house is that God is no receiver of faces.” This message is received to the congregation, to a situated community with practices embedded in their spiritual culture. The implications of their theology and exclusion meant that their understanding of exclusion means that their notions were not aligned with what God was doing in the world. They had a flawed incomplete understanding of the good news of Jesus. They did not discern the full meaning of salvation and God’s loving acceptance through Christ.

Peter’s vision and narrative in Acts say something about the practices of the church at that time and place, the impact of ideas and theology upon the practices of the church, and theological reflection on exclusion and oppression, as well as a form that finds itself situated in a particular religious and social cultural context. He had a dream and the message was interpreted, that occurred in the common language of people, he interpreted the visionary experience in awareness of the current issues, and offered an awakened idea of new practice and theology based on what God had accomplished through Jesus the Christ. He was open beyond the official position doctrinally or what was then culturally accepted as the norm. He did lean into the environment he was inside through the theology, traditions, language, and symbols of his day. He prescribed with inspiration a new inclusivism and hospitality. “Peter was quick to draw the inevitable conclusion.” The paradigm shifted with the illumination from God and the vision, and throughout the book of Acts through the Holy Spirit. The new clarity of the information transformed the people and also transformed the practices. This is the interaction of theology and practice with a kind of reflection needed at the time.

Context is important. We pay attention to context and what God is doing in his world and in his mission. Ray Anderson says that the experience of life events and ministry precede theology, “Ministry cannot be construed soles as the practical application (or technique) that makes theological knowledge relevant and effective. Theological activity must emerge out of ministry and for the sake of ministry…. The ‘practice’ of ministry, then, is not only the appropriate context for doing theological thinking, it is itself intrinsically a theological activity.”

Works cited

Browning, D. S. (1991). A fundamental practical theology: Descriptive and strategic proposals. Fortress Press.

Schleiermacher, F. D. E. (1928). Brief outline on the study of theology: Philosophical, historical, practical. Open Court Publishing.

Rahner, K. (1975). Theological investigations (Vol. 12). Darton, Longman & Todd.

Patton, C. (2011). A guide for the perplexed: Practical theology as embodied theology. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Tisdale, L. L. (2012). Prophetic preaching: A pastoral approach. Westminster John Knox Press.

Osmer, R. R. (2008). Practical theology: An introduction. Eerdmans.

Miller-McLemore, B. J. (2012). Christian theology in practice: Discovering a discipline. Eerdmans.

Pattison, S. (2014). Seeing things: Deepening relations with visual artefacts. SCM Press.

Scharen, C. (2005). One step closer: Why U2 matters to those seeking God. Brazos Press.

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