Ordinary Theology

Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology

Jeff Astley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780754605843
• eBook ISBN: 9781351913515
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

'Ordinary theology' is Jeff Astley's phrase for the theology and theologising of Christians who have received little or no theological education of a scholarly, academic or systematic kind. Astley argues that an in-depth study of ordinary theology, which should involve both empirical research and theological reflection, can help recover theology as a fundamental dimension of every Christian's vocation. Ordinary Theology analyses the problems and possibilities of research and reflection in this area. This book explores the philosophical, theological and educational dimensions of the concept of ordinary theology, its significance for the work of the theologian as well as for those engaged in the ministry of the church, and the criticisms that it faces. 'Ordinary theology' Astley writes, 'is the church's front line. Statistically speaking, it is the theology of God's church.'

Chapter 1
The Learning Context of Theology

This book is concerned with two different but closely related things. In the first two chapters it explores the significance of learning for religion, and argues for a recognition of the importance of the learning context of our theology. In the next three chapters it reflects on one of the main products of that learning for the great majority of Christians, a product that I call 'ordinary theology'.

Ordinary theology is my term for the theological beliefs and processes of believing that find expression in the God-talk of those believers who have received no scholarly theological education. Ordinary theology is routinely ignored by academic Christian theology. As John Hull put it at a symposium hosted by the North of England Institute for Christian Education in July 1996, 'If theology is what goes on in people's lives, we know amazingly little about Christian theology.' Precisely so. I believe that we ought to do more to remedy this ignorance. I therefore offer here an analysis and apologia for this concept, together with a justification for the study of ordinary theology, and especially for listening to it and looking for it in the words and lives of ordinary believers. I argue for the relevance of these themes for Christian theology, the Christian religion and Christian learning, and for living theologically in response to our learning of Christ.

My purpose is to offer a 'theology in context'. We should take the preposition 'in' seriously. It expresses 'position within' and is to be distinguished from 'into', which would suggest that the theology that we need to do here lies beyond and flourishes outside all contexts, but may condescend to move or orientate itself towards one of them. 'In' is a preposition of inclusion, not direction. It is used to express the sense that theology needs to be done from inside a particular framework of interests and concerns.

The Centrality of Practical Theology

The phrase 'the theology that we need to do here' suggests that there are different types of theology. The species of theology that I am attempting in this book often carries the rather obscure and slightly embarrassing label of 'practical theology'. Although this phrase is more familiar than it once was and what it refers to is not now considered quite so demeaning an activity, any person or activity described as 'practical' runs the risk of being allowed into polite company only if they can show themselves able to provide some useful service, and then for no longer than it takes to unblock the drains. Once the floorboards are back in place, they will be expected to return to wherever their vans are stationed until the next time the householder notices that something has gone wrong.

'Practical theology' is, indeed, about practice; it is concerned with practical matters, including 'practices' in the more technical sense of co-operative human activities governed by implicit rules. In Christianity such practices encompass a wide range of overtly and implicitly religious activities: pastoral care, counselling and spiritual direction; the forming and maintenance of community; the teaching and learning of religion (and therefore preaching, education, evangelism and other forms of communication); social and political action; prayer, worship and liturgy; responses to moral issues at an individual, interpersonal, communal and global level; and so on. Traditionally these ministries and behaviours have been thought of as applications of theology - the points at which 'pure theology', whatever that might be (presumably the discipline of systematic theology), is put to work deductively and applied to the life of the church and the world.

But most of those who confess and call themselves practical theologians today do not see the situation like that at all. For them, the movement at issue is not to be thought of as a slide from theory, principle or tradition down to practice. It involves, rather, a more complicated set of movements, often with the first manoeuvre being some sort of'inductive' or 'situational' shift from practice to theory, a move which must then be followed by a return to practice. On this account, the starting point and the finishing point are both located in the same place, and practical theology begins and ends with the practice of the Christian faith as its practitioners experience it (cf. Atkinson and Field, 1995: 42). While 'applied theology' might seem to imply that theology is not affected by interaction with practical issues, and has been 'given immunity from having to change in the light of experience', 'practical theology' suggests a more interactive and dialogical process of mutual change (Pattison and Woodward, 2000: 3). The self-critical reflection that is often taken to be an integral part of practice thus 'involves a circular movement from practice to critical reflection and back to corrected practice, or to radically transformed practice' (Kelsey. 1992: 123).

Although practical theology has been variously defined, all such definitions make some reference to the particular territory on which it focuses. As I have indicated, this territory is usually identified with Christian practice or (as it is often put) Christian praxis.¹ In more detail, the focus is on 'Christian life and practice within the Church and in relation to wider society' (Ballard and Pritchard, 1996: 1) or, more subtly, 'the mediation of the Christian faith in the praxis of modern society' (Heitink, 1999: 6).

But practical theology is about theology as well as practice. It is always theological, although the ways in which its theological dimension has been understood are many and varied. They include interpreting practical theology itself as a theological discipline, and treating it as a field which the discipline(s) of theology (along with other disciplines) attempt to understand (cf. Tracy, 1983; Williams, 1985; Ballard and Pritchard, 1996: ch. 5 and 171-7; Wood, 1996a: 312; Heitink, 1999: ch. 7). Different accounts have also been given of the ways in which the reflections of the practical theologian may guide Christian action and being (cf. Fowler, 1983: 154-5; Osmer, 1990b: 227; Browning, 1991: 36; Ballard, 1995; Heitink, 1999: chs 8, 9 and 11). However this is conceived, practical theology is usually thought of as having some practical use. According to Charles Wood, for example, practical theology is 'that dimension of theological study which pursues the question as to the fittingness of Christian witness [understood as practice] to its context' (Wood, 1996a: 312-13; cf. 1985: 47-9; 1996b: 356-7). This includes reflecting on how Christian practice and church structures help or hinder valid Christian witness. And that, presumably, is a useful thing to do.

Like other theologians, practical theologians do not much enjoy being sidelined. They hold that they have something to contribute to the rest of theology. Some apologists for practical theology go further, arguing that they can offer a way of understanding all theology, for Christian theology as such 'should be seen as practical through and through and at its very heart' (Browning, 1991: 7; cf. Osmer, 1990a: 148). One basis for this claim is that our secular and religious practices are themselves 'theory laden'. Our reflective practice, it is said, always has an underlying theological dimension that comprises the framework of religious meanings and values which (at least in our culture) is implied even by many of our secular practices. Our practices, and therefore our experiences, are thus undergirded by meaning, in so far as these things are 'meaningful' to us. It is these meanings that shape the questions, concerns and criteria that we bring to our more 'theoretical' discussions about the Bible and Christian doctrine, which have themselves arisen in very specific contexts of human and religious activity. All real theology, it may then be argued, arises in a dialogue between 'us' (our lives and experiences) and 'them' (the Christian tradition). This dialogue - or, to use more informal language, this conversation - is between the 'interpretations', the implicit or explicit questions and answers, of Christian Faith, on the one hand, and those of our human experience and life, on the other. In general terms, then, all Christian theology may be thought of as a discipline that attempts to correlate 'the meaning and truth of an interpretation of the Christian fact [its scriptures, doctrines, rituals, witnesses, symbols, etc.] and the meaning and truth of an interpretation of the contemporary situation'; with the subdisciplines of fundamental, systematic and practical theology only differing in the emphasis which each side of the correlation receives (Tracy, 1983).

When theology is construed in this way, it is contextual, as is every conversation. Theology is always set in some context, rooted in some life experience or issue. This context, to deliberately mix the metaphors, may be thought of in terms both of the setting of a dialogue and of a dance. It is the conversation that takes place during the embrace between the dancers of present, contextualized, experienced practice, and their partners from the dancing school of past tradition. The conversation they engage in, as they go backwards and forwards, circles around some concern or another, but always returns to the point from which the dance began. It is a real conversation, for both partners speak during their dance; and 'as with all authentic conversation, critical freedom and receptivity are equally important in allowing the subject matter to take over in the back and forth movement between text and interpreter' (Tracy, 1981: 255, cf. 101, 167, 452; cf. also Tracy, 1975: chs 3 and 4; Gadamer, 1982: 325-33).

Such images of movement and conversation often underlie accounts in practical theology of the correlation that is required between experience and tradition. This 'mutual relation' must not be thought of as wholly without controversy. The progress of the talk during this particular dance is not always smooth; questions are asked and explanations sought, both of tradition and of experience. Yet 'the goal is not to attack the tradition, but to befriend it;. . . to make it accessible' (Kinast, 2000: 68). On this interpretation, then, all theology is practical, and all theology is 'in context'.

Learning as the Key Term

I want now to argue that part of the context of Christian theology is its learning context. I believe that it is a large part of that context, but it is a part whose significance is frequently hidden or ignored. We need to recognize its importance, for doctrine is 'an aspect... of Christian pedagogy' (Lash, 1986: 258) and 'religion itself is a kind of learning' (Holmer, 1978: 145). Its concepts, arguments, attitudes and practices are all learned.

I deliberately use the word 'learning' here rather than 'education', because education is by definition a more narrow thing. This is true in three ways. First, education is usually defined as facilitated learning: that is to say, learning that is intended and engineered, what some have called 'deliberate learning'. But not all learning is promoted by teaching. Some learning is unstructured; it 'just happens'.² We may think of the 'hidden curriculum' of our life or our liturgy, which impacts on us and changes our values, dispositions or beliefs. It is a truism, at least on a wide definition, that 'most situations could be regarded as potential learning situations' (Lawson, 1974: 88).

Secondly, 'education' is a word that for many people implies self-conscious critical reflection and explicit cognitive understanding (cf. Astley, 1994b: 37-40). For them, 'education' is always education-with-critical-understanding, what others might call (revealingly) 'real education'. This usage restricts the word to cognitive learning processes by which people learn knowledge and beliefs. Learning, however, in the loose sense that I wish to adopt, is a much wider concept. It labels any enduring change brought about by experience.³ We learn (that is we change in) our values, dispositions, attitudes, feelings and skills, as well as in our beliefs and understanding. I therefore reject the claims of those who flatly assert that 'learning without understanding is not learning' (Barrow and Milburn, 1990: 179; cf. Astley, 1994b: 33-5).⁴

My final reason for focusing on learning rather than education is that education will be assumed by many to be an activity directed solely to children. A related restriction is to treat the word as synonymous with schooling, which designates the formal, institutional education of the 5-year-old, the 18-year-old, or those of us who are still stuck in some sort of school beyond our fiftieth year. A great deal of learning does take place in these institutions, of course, but much also takes place outside them. Adults as well as children learn in homes and factories and churches, in streets and on hills. And although the Christian church has its own educational institutions, more is often learned in situations of worship, fellowship, conversation and joint endeavour than in the context of formal classes. To locate Christian learning on this wider canvas, and to include adults within its scope, helps to underscore the claim that (even if we have ourselves moved away from all educational institutions) our learning is not just something that is in the past. And this is itself a significant insight: learning is something that takes place now; I learn whenever I change my beliefs and attitudes in response to experience. 'Lifelong learning' is not a new invention, then. It is as old as life, as well as being as long-lived as our human inventiveness.

The Means of Christian Learning

I want to say something now about the ways in which Christianity is learned and the significance of these ways for our thinking about its nature. I shall begin by shamelessly purloining a text from Søren Kierkegaard, It is to be found in a collection of material from the end of his life published in translation as Kierkegaard's Attack upon 'Christendom'. He writes there about 'the eternal', that about which Christianity is concerned, as being 'not a thing which can be had regardless of the way in which it is acquired' (Kierkegaard, 1968: 100).

Now Kierkegaard insists on this point because he is arguing that Christianity is a 'method' or a 'way': 'the eternal is not really a thing, but is the way in which it is acquired.' As he writes elsewhere, 'Christianly understood, the truth consists not in knowing the truth but in being the truth', because 'truth is, if it is at all, a being, a life'; and 'when the truth itself is the way, the way cannot be shortened or drop out, without the truth being corrupted or dropping out' (Kierkegaard, 1968: 100, 138; 1941b: 201-2). For Kierkegaard, therefore, 'In respect to God, the how is what. He who does not involve himself with God in the mode of absolute devotion does not become involved with God'; and 'eternally speaking, . . . the means and the end are one and the same thing' (Kierkegaard, 1967, Vol. 2, sec. 1405; 1941b: 202). Thus the 'what', the goal or product of religious endeavour, cannot be separated from the 'how', the way in which we reach it.

The point I want to make is at least analogous to Kierkegaard's claim, but I want to press this quotation to serve a rather broader thesis. I steal his text to illustrate my claim that the nature of our religions faith is partly, but significantly, determined by the way in which it came and comes (and, indeed, goes). My claim is that the product of learning is specific to the processes of learning, at least sometimes and to some extent.

We can readily think of secular analogies to Kierkegaard's principle. If your doctor, personal trainer or 'life counsellor' has advised a 4-mile walk each day, it is no use taking a 4-mile drive instead, excusing yourself on the grounds that this will take you to the same destination along the same route. It is the walking that matters; the walking is everything. But this is because the essential point of this journey is the exercise rather than the destination. I want to argue, however, that the learning may be 'everything' in other circumstances as well. Sometimes our learning can come in no other way; what I have learned here, in this way, is what it is because I have learned it here and in this way. This is a claim that cannot be made of all types of learning. I can learn many historical facts about China from reading a book, by talking to Chinese people, or by accessing an educational CD-Rom or Internet web page. In this example, there are many different ways to the same end, and the end is relatively undetermined by the means. But this is in marked contras...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The Learning Context of Theology
• 2 Learning Religion
• 3 Portraying Ordinary Theology
• 4 Studying Ordinary Theology
• 5 Debating Ordinary Theology
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Subject Index