Postfoundationalist Reflections in Practical Theology

A Framework for a Discipline in Flux

Macallan

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781630873370
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Postfoundationalist Reflections in Practical Theology seeks to explore the implications of a Postfoundationalist theology for the discipline of Practical Theology. While moving beyond the modernist and postmodernist debates, it charts a way forward for a theology that is bound by neither relativism nor certainty. It believes that Practical Theology is well suited to this task by its very nature and methodology.

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A Postfoundationalist Practical Theology

We started out by examining and comparing a foundationalist and postfoundationalist understanding of reality. Then we moved into a discussion around the development of practical theology and its current state. The tentative conclusion offered was that practical theology has, in many ways, moved beyond foundationalism for the reasons provided in the last section. I now hope to further illumine this by engaging in far greater detail with issues of context and the pastoral cycle under the heading a glocal praxis-based practical theology. A detailed discussion of a critical correlational hermeneutic will be advanced as an example of how practical theology has indeed moved beyond foundationalism, both in the method itself, but also in its approach to the sources with which the method seeks to engage. At each point though, I will seek to show how postfoundationalist perspectives can provide useful ways to deepen this postfoundationalist turn and provide better ways and reasons for doing practical theology the way it is done. Before doing that, the concept of a missional practical theology will be provided, which helps best to get to grips with these issues. It will also become apparent that the broadness of a missional practical theology, in many ways, becomes a way for a postfoundationalist approach to practical theology to be advanced.

A Missional Practical Theology

In this section, discussion of the missional nature of practical theology will argue for the importance of this discussion as being integral to any discourse on a postfoundationalist practical theology. Hastings has recently argued that much of practical theology, or certainly its North American dimension, has held onto the hope that some sort of synthesis between the Gospel and Northern American churches and culture might be possible.300 He believes that only now the question of the mission of congregations is being taken seriously by American practical theologians. Hastings goes on to say that:

The North American churches are already in a post-Constantinian situation, and a new generation of missional theologians, drawing on the work of Lesslie Newbigin, are wondering whether or not North America can be converted, most practical theologians have still not seriously addressed the hitherto unthinkable problematic of how to understand and guide Christian practice within their own post-Christian social, political, and cultural context.301

With the help of David Bosch, an attempt will be made to briefly highlight the problem of missions before trying to place mission in its historical context. Having established these foundations, we will move onto exploring the consequences of the Trinity for a missional practical theology that, in turn, will lead to a missional perspective regarding the nature of the church. In conclusion, the various points and perspectives discussed will be drawn together and argued that an incorrect understanding of mission can lead to a defunct view of practical theology, which could be burdened with foundationalist assumptions. The opposite being that a correct view of mission, critically adhered to and reflected upon, will lead to a healthy practical theology that is broad, holistic, and nonfoundationalist. This will provide the entry point into the section that follows on the local and global nature of practical theology and later to the discussion of postfoundationlism within a correlational hermeneutic.

At this point, the argument is that, at its very root, missional should imply local, contextual, practical and experiential—all things that help us to move beyond foundationalism—and affirm the contextual nature of knowledge and reject forms of applied theology. Again remembering Müller’s affirmation that practical theology must emphasize these local realities, as knowledge is contextual and fluid.302 Hazle has made a strong argument that the praxis based nature of practical theology has enormous implications for mission and helps us move beyond forms of applied theology:

Whether the response is personal and corporate, ecclesiastical or political, prophetic or pastoral, theology now seeks to set forth an answer to the question, “what would God have me/us do?” However, and more than that, theology’s answer seeks to fulfil, in a given time and context, the ethical demand of God’s revelation for that time and place. Theology with a practical paradigm is therefore inescapably missionlogical.303

It will require a re-examination of the very word “missional,” and perhaps a re-interpretation of it, to arrive at this conclusion—a position that would argue that God is already missionally involved in the concrete, particular, and experiential dimensions of our lives. God’s revelation and action, by its very nature, is local and particular. Newbigin defines this as the “scandal of particularity.”304 Here, the election of Israel in a local cultural context becomes a model (he would probably say more than a model) and endorsement of the gospel coming to life in each local cultural expression.

By claiming that mission, in essence, is local, it could easily be discussed under a subsection of the local dimension of practical theology. This is resisted for several reasons. The first, already mentioned, is a desire to place the missional question in its specific historical context. The fact that this is needed could be demonstrated by attending many evangelically conservative churches today and listening to a sermon. It will soon be discovered that, when many think of the word mission,...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword - Jurgens Hendriks
• Acknowledgements
• One: Introduction
• Two: Foundationalism Explored
• Three: Practical Theology
• Four: A Postfoundationalist Practical Theology
• Five: Conclusion
• Bibliography