The Field of Practical Theology : Key Texts and Reviews
From the Shores of Silence
Conversations in Feminist Practical Theology
Edited by Ashley Cocksworth, Rachel Starr and Stephen Burns with Nicola Slee
SCM Press 2023 £30.00
(ISBN 9780334060963)
This book moves feminist theology from a sub section in the library catalogue of choices into the heart of the study of theology – a vital redrawing of the theological map enabling us to understand the richness of the gift of theological voices as they shape both faith and action. It is a reminder that our theology is grounded and formed in our bodies, feelings and experience of insecurity and anger, dislocations, and oppressions. It shows us how we embody the complex network of power and agency in the seen and the hidden. Creative theology calls us to acknowledge power both within ourselves and in relation to others. This is always uncomfortable and disturbing work as we search for words and images to set us free from our illusions and limitations.
Read the Review here ( first published in Modern Believing Volume 65.1. )
Within the context of our engagement in the processes of theological reflection we shall certainly need to consider the nature of theology. What have we been taught about this area of study? What do we need to remember? Indeed what do we need to forget?
This is not an easy or comfortable read but herein lies the books generativity. Read it slowly. Read it with a trusted colleague, friend, or study group. It may be that this age needs some honest deconstruction and disorientation to know what we can trust and where wisdom can be found. Theology that should be ‘re-centered’ is, for Wigg-Stevenson, at the heart of our journey. How the Cross and the Incarnation are re-centred, transgressed and described lie at the heart of the questions that are asked of progressive theologians. No refuge is taken in easy solutions. At every turn of the page her reader is taken deeper into a creative self-honesty. It is moving and challenging in equal measure. It is real, poetic, suggestive, demanding, heartful and imaginative. It offers a different mode of theology.
Here is the review
Mary C. Moschella
Ethnography As a Pastoral Practice: An Introduction, 2nd edn.
London: SCM Press, 2023. Pp. xvi, 352. Pb. £19.99.
ISBN 978-0-334-05996-7
The second edition of this book (first published in 2008) is skilfully crafted and any student will feel solidly resourced by this careful introduction to the field. Key concepts are outlined with the reader us carefully taken through practicalities.
This review was first published in Modern Believing Further to the acceptance of your review for publication in Modern Believing, Issue 65.4. (2024)
Full review below
After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging Willie James Jennings Eerdmans 2020)
Where we do our theology and who with our key questions for this challenging book.
This short book is uncomfortable and inspiring in equal measure. It exposes to this reader the staleness of much of UK theological education as lacking vision, independence, originality, and inclusion. Five carefully woven chapters combine poetry, memoir, analysis, and Gospel to push constantly at boundaries as distortions are exposed. This is a theological critique of the presumptions of theological education. Jennings pushes back on the questions that drive the way institutions are organized, on what it means to be a theological educator, and the motives and aspirations that lie of the heart of education.
Here are some of my thoughts shared within the context of a Sarum College Academic Faculty Day.
There are a range practical theologies that shape our understanding of the Church. This book is worth reading
Helen D. Morris, (2019) Flexible Church: Being the Church in the Contemporary World. London: SCM Press. 288 pages, isbn: 978-0-334-05813-7 (pbk), £25.
and reviewed here Ecclesiology ECSO Volume 16 (2020), No. 16:3.
Pete Ward is an innovative and creative pastoral theologian who is presently leading one of the leading national and international taught doctorates (DThM ) from Durham University.
Ward is an ambitious writer and theological educator. This is demonstrated in this well organised volume that will find its way onto core student reading lists as a guide to the literature which seeks to explore the practical nature of theological knowledge. It succeeds in enabling the reader to understand what has happened in the field of Practical Theology, and especially the nature of empirical research and theological reflection.
Here is a review of his book first published in 2017 but still clear and relevant
Printed in Modern Believing 60.2. (2019/20)
Faith, Hope & Love – Interfaith Engagement as Practical Theology
by Ray Gaston
(SCM 2017) £19.99 pb ISBN 978 0 334 0549 7
This book is grounded in the experience of living alongside and learning from people of other religions in the diverse contexts of Leeds and West Midlands. The voice here is authentic, honest, reflective, and grounded as it mines for wisdom. There is a passion for how we might live with difference and diversity as being received as a gift from God. Gaston also offers his reader a clear and rigorous methodology of practical theological method. The chapters also reflect the skill of a theological educator whose methods and processes have been tested out at the Queens foundation for ecumenical theological education in Birmingham. Conversation partners and especially an impressive range of writers and ideas are named with carefulness and skill.
It is an important reminder of how context can shape and mis-shape our theological reflection.
Fiona Stewart–Darling, Multifaith Chaplaincy in the Workplace: How Chaplains can support Organisations and their Employees, Jessica Kingsley publishers, London 2017
The context within which we sit and engage profoundly shapes our theology and theological reflection. Visibility, approachability and personality seem to be key qualities in the relative success of such a work based ministry. Freedom from both buildings and ecclesiastical structures should certainly not be underestimated as a means of enabling human connectivity and Christian witness. Stewart-Darling offers a radically distinctive model of Church and poses challenges to inherited models of ministry, which deserve further consideration. There remains a set of unanswered questions about the Christian nurture of lay people and their empowerment to engage theologically with the world. Released to do this we might live within a very different and creative spiritual confidence about the living and practice of faith. Perhaps a new revolution of ministry from community (of parish) to workplace beckons?
See my full overview below :
Practical theology and Pierre-Andre Liege Radical Dominican and Vatican II Pioneer by Nicholas Bradbury AshGate 2015 £65.00 ISBN 9781472418708
This is one of my favourite books that takes a deep dive into the life and thinking of a Roman Catholic pioneer. It has deep resonances for my own journey into practical theology. The review was published in the Journal Crucible in 2017/18
Conundrums in Practical Theology. By Joyce Ann Mercer and Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Boston: Brill, 2016. 320 pages. $76. (PBK). ISBN 978-90-04-32423-7.
The field of practical theology as developed significantly in the pst twenty years enabled by its journals and national and international networks. This is a demanding book but still stands the test of time by asking relevant questions about the agendas and methods of Pastoral Theology. Take a look at my overview below
In a Glass Darkly: The Bible, Reflection and Everyday Life
Zoe Bennett, Christopher Rowland SCM Press 2016 £25
One of the challenges of Pastoral Theology is to understand what sources shape its methods and content. In particular how are to handle the Bible ? How does its authority shape our thinking and practices ?
This book, by a practical theologian and biblical scholar, reminds its reader of the importance of implementing and practising the fruits of decades of critical reflection on the Bible. We are reminded of the effects of a distorted handling of sacred texts, which lead to inhuman behaviour and broken lives. Religion has as much potential for harm as it has for good. Read more below
Practical Theology and Qualitative Research (second edition) John Swinton and Harriet Mowat SCM Press, 2016, 301pp, pbk £25
This book models excellence in interdisciplinary conversation especially in the way in which the methodologies of social sciences can assist and deepen the tasks of theological reflection. The text is grounded in an understanding of the development of practical theology is a discipline and the way in which theology might work across its disciplines (historical, systematic and biblical theology) to develop informed practice. The reader is constantly enlightened with case studies offering a very wide range of grounded experience. See the short review below
Heather Walton, Writing Methods in Theological Reflection., London: SCM Press, 2014.
Heather Walton is one of the most innovative of pastoral theologians and this volume of collected pieces or writing comes out of her teaching in the University of Glasgow and especially her influential (I think) co-directorship of the Centre for Literature, Theology and the Arts. The book begins by acknowledging a wide range of influences (including particularly the development of a multi-centred doctorate in practical theology) and offers an excellent introduction to reflective theological writing.
See the short review below