Theological Reflection and Ecumenical Dialogue
What approaches to Theological Reflection might most fruitfully contribute to ecumenical dialogue, for example between Liberal Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical perspectives.
Experiential situation
The current (2004/5) team of teachers for the Core Module Pastoral Theology in History and Practice of the Cambridge Theological Federation's MA in Pastoral Theology comprises 2 centrally- and liberally-inclined Anglicans (a Bishop and myself as a lay woman), one ordained member of the United Reformed Church inclined to a biblically oriented post-liberal perspective, and one ordained Methodist of 'higher church' Methodist persuasion with a background in social anthropology. (My descriptions, not their own words!) We are also all white and all British, though we are 2 men and 2 women, 3 ordained and 1 lay.
Our students range through Unitarian to Orthodox and all stations in between, including a small number of Roman Catholics and a large number of Evangelicals of various denominations, including Pentecostal. Many are international students, which adds cultural diversity to ecclesial diversity. (Bennett Moore, Faltin and Wright 2003)
It is immediately apparent that the teaching team represents a much narrower range of background and approach than does the student body. The total team for the MA is much wider (though not yet nearly as diverse as the student body) but it is here in the Core Module that issues of the methodology of Theological Reflection are first raised for students, and most sharply focused in the teaching. Methods of TR are a central component of the Core Module.
Practical issues arising - 'pinching points'
Predominantly 'liberal and/or protestant' approach to TR, reflected in the following areas, can cause serious problems for students from other perspectives.
- Bibliographies
We all naturally gravitate in default mode to those books which we know best and which reflect our traditions. Much recent literature specifically addressing Pastoral/Practical Theology is itself from a liberal protestant perspective. For example, we use the Pattison and Woodward Blackwell Reader and the Willows and Swinton collection of articles from Contact as base-line texts from which to cull material to enable TR. - Staffing
See above. The staffing of this particular module is one example of the way in which as a Theological Federation we clearly have majority and minority voices, the delineation of which is a complex mix of factors involving finance to pay staff, numbers of students, and the question of where particular voices are able to be heard. - Methodological expectations with implications for assessment
An Orthodox student memorably described the task set for the Core Module assignment as 'unsporting'. This is in part because it asks students to reflect theologically and sociologically on a pastoral situation in a way which seems to the Orthodox to presuppose that modern insights, eg from psychology, hold an equal place at the conversation table with the writings of the Fathers of the Church. Methodologically this is not only or primarily a question of 'authority' but more of how TR might be a way of growing into holiness at least as much if not more than a way of critical questioning. Roman Catholic students bring similar aspirations, expressed for example by a Polish Religious Sister who wrote a dissertation on Edith Stein, struggling ( very successfully eventually) to present to us something which we could understand not as uncritical hagiography but as entering through story and image into the holiness offered by a woman's life and work. Some evangelical students also feel an analogous sense that the Bible is being 'reduced' to an equal partner in the TR 'conversation' and that therefore their perspective is not starting on a level playing field with others'. - Voices in seminars
It is always more difficult to contribute to a discussion if you are working from different presuppositions from the dominant tone of the group. This situation is compounded by the fact that many 'minority tradition' voices are also not using English as a first language.
Theoretical issues underlying
It is important to look at 'criticality' critically. Critical thinking is the gold standard of HE in Britain today . As teachers of TR we need to look at issues of criticality in relation to the inhabiting of a tradition. We might ask the following questions:
- Is critical thinking always suspicious?
- If so, how does the place of trust in TR relate to that suspicion?
- How do those of us who inhabit traditions informed in various ways by the Enlightenment engage in TR with traditions which have very different historical, geographical and theoretical relationships to the Enlightenment? Eg Pentecostal (Bridges-Johns 1997) and Orthodox.
- Are the critical task and the task of trust inevitable related to a third task - the task of risk?
'Theological reflection, then, is a critical task, a task at once holding fast to the accrued wisdom of the church, but is also willing to risk the promise of an encounter with the "stranger" who may come in the guise of diverse races, cultures and genders, and intellectual traditions.' (McCarthy 2003)
Some helpful approaches
- Use of literature
We start the course with reading and discussion of 4 articles from different perspectives - Jillions (Orthodox: liturgy, inner life, image, prayer) , Pattison and Woodward (liberal protestant: conversation, contextuality, provisionality), Rahner (RC: critical approach, church-centred, deals with relationship of pastoral to other theology - problem is this article is out of kilter with others being longer, weightier and older), Tidball (Baptist Evangelical: explicitly biblically orientated in both content and method) - Team teaching
Modelling conversation among staff even where team teaching cannot be predominant method for reasons of resources, by inviting in once-off conversation partners, guest teachers, or observers - Opportunities for listening
Seminar style teaching. Example of 'apostasy' in case study - Clear and explicit exploration of the relationship of criticality to tradition
Value movement of 'entering in' (paideia, habitus) as well as of 'standing back' - Expansion beyond the rational/critical mode of TR
Use of playful, prayerful, art, music, poetry, body (egs. of painting in assessment and of body sculpture in class; cf also BJTE 13.2 'The Teaching of Pastoral and Practical Theology', especially articles by Henderson; Pattison, Thompson and Green; Moore; Vassiliades 1996.21) - Recognition that otherness and difference may be irreducible
TR tends to work in schemes and models which have a 'totalising' or imperialistic effect. Intention may be to invent a circle or spiral which includes all, but this may include in a way which violates the particularity of a perspective - its content or its method - and disallows its foundational questioning of the approach.
We need an approach to TR which is indeed a conversation, but which holds open the paradoxical and the unresolved - paradoxical and unresolved methods, a priori commitments and approaches to truth, as well as paradoxical and unresolved content.
Bibliography
Bennett Moore Z., L.Faltin and M. Wright 'Critical Thinking and International Postgraduate Students' in Discourse: Learning and Teaching in Philosophical and Religious Studies Vol.3 No.1 Autumn 2003 pp 63-94
Henderson J. 'What is Wrong with Pastoral Theology?' in British Journal of Theological Education 13.2 Jan. 2003 pp107-117
Jillions J.A. 'Pastoral Theology: Reflections from an Orthodox Perspective' in BJTE 13.2 Jan. 2003 pp161-174
McCarthy J., 'Theological Education in a Postmodern Era' paper given at the WOCATI conference December 2003 http://www.wocati.org/mccarthy.html
Moore, P. 'Pastoral Theology and Spirituality in the Pre-Reformation Church' in BJTE 13.2 Jan. 2003 pp153-160
Nolan P., Learning to Live Together: Communiy Relations in Northern Ireland Journal of Adult and Continuing Education Vol9 No2 2003 pp140-149
Pattison S. with J. Woodward 'A Vision of Pastoral Theology: in Search of Words that Resurrect the Dead' in Willows D. and J. Swinton eds. Spiritual Dimensions of Pastoral Care Jessica Kingsley 2000 pp36-52
Pattison S., J. Thompson and J. Green, 'Theological reflection for the Real World: Time to Think Again' in BJTE 13.2 Jan. 2003 pp119-131
Rahner K. 'The new claims of pastoral theology on theology as a whole', in Theological Investigations, vol. 11, 115-136, London, DLT 1974
Tidball D. 'Practical and Pastoral Theology' in Atkinson D. and D. Field eds.New Dictionary of Ethics and Pastoral Theology IVP 1995
Vassiliades P., 'The Future of Theological Education in Europe' in Vassiliades (ed) Oikoumene and Theology Thessaloniki 1996
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