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Blend theology and praxis
James Walters urges teachers of parish and sector ministries to use this book
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| Theological Reflection: Sources Elaine Graham, Heather Walton, and Frances Ward, editors
SCM Press £25 (978-0-334-02977-9) Church Times Bookshop £22.50 IN THE PAST, the perceived need for teaching the practice of “theological reflection” was based on some derogatory (but often quite fair) suppositions about academic theology: it was too theoretical and ungrounded, and it paid insufficient attention to the realities of life in the Church and the world. But in its reaction to these abstractions, “theological reflection” became liable to the charges that the editors of this anthology acknowledge in their introduction: that it “suffered from a lack of rigour”, and proceeded “with no clear idea of how tradi-tional Christian sources such as scripture are to be handled”. One might go further and suggest that its deliberate prioritising of subjective experience betrayed a rather half-hearted belief in God as the self-revealing source of theology at all. And one could add that, in reducing theology in this way, “theological reflecters” have been complacently parasitic in their use of language and conceptual tools on the work done for them by “theologians proper” down the ages. After all, you can’t theologise about day-to-day experience unless you get that language from somewhere. Graham, Walton, and Ward’s work seems to mark a new era. The seven models of theological reflection they outlined in their original volume (Theological Reflection: Methods) set out some credible and intelligent approaches to discerning the activity of God in the world, which serve as quite a useful survey of contemporary theological modes per se. This compilation of core texts now goes on to demonstrate their contention that a theological inquiry that is grounded in the practical “is a perennial feature of Christian tradition”. Their choices are many and varied. We have the core classics, both ancient (Augustine, Aquinas, the Didache) and modern (Bonhoeffer, Romero, Gillian Rose, C. S. Lewis). We have the best of contemporary theology (Rowan Williams, Stanley Hauerwas, Tim Gorringe), as well as writers more traditionally associated with this genre. Vocational theology students cannot help but enjoy and benefit from these rich texts, and their teachers have been provided with a invaluable resource. Indeed, the overall effect is like a call to those who train the people who have to think theologically in parish and sector ministries to “up their game”. And we’ll all be the better for that. I have only two gripes, and they are minor ones. The first is about presentation: these extracts are not well formatted, and the layout is initially confusing. For example, the first extract in the introductory chapter is, in fact, the introduction to another book entirely, which is disorienting to someone unfamiliar with the project. Use of different founts and of text-boxes would make a second edition more user-friendly. And, second, given how far this volume goes in overcoming the praxis/theory dichotomy set out above, I want to ask: can we go back to calling this “theology proper”, please? The Revd Dr Walters is Assistant Curate of Hampstead Parish Church. To order this book, email the details to Church Times Bookshop |
