SCM Studyguide: Theological Reflection

Judith Thompson

Description

Practical in emphasis, this textbook offers newcomers an introduction to understanding theological reflection and helps those training for ministry to explore which of the methods introduced best suits them and their particular situation.

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334048084
• Langue: English

Extrait

SCM STUDYGUIDE TO THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
Judith Thompson
with Stephen Pattison and Ross Thompson





Copyright information
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, SCM Press.
© Judith Thompson, Stephen Pattison and Ross Thompson 2008
The Authors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Authors of this Work
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978 0 334 04055 2
First published in 2008 by SCM Press
13–17 Long Lane,
London EC1A 9PN
www.scm-canterburypress.co.uk
SCM Press is a division of SCM-Canterbury Press Ltd
Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, Norfolk



Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: What is PTR?
1. What Theological Reflection is – and what it isn’t
2. PTR in Practice: Some Simple Paradigms
3. Ways and Means: A variety of PTR Approaches and Models
Part 2: The Elements of PTR and its Basic Resources
4. The Place of Scripture in PTR
5. God, Gaps and Glory – The Kairos Moment
6. PTR in the Context of Daily and Community Life – Chronos
7. PTR and Personality: Differences in Thinking, Feeling, Learning and Doing
Part 3: The Wider Perspective
8. PTR and Theology
9. PTR, Ethics, Institutions and the Wider World
10. PTR for Life – Not Just for Courses
Part 4: A Toolkit for PTR
Core Texts




Preface
This book began its life through a small research project entitled Theological Reflection for the Real World (Pattison et al ., 2003), and has been written in response to cries for help from groups of ministerial practitioners and generations of students. Having signed up to the crucial place of theological reflection at a hypothetical level in their study and practice they have found a frustrating lack of clarity about what it is in reality or how to go about it. 1
Study days arranged with my co-authors, but mainly Stephen Pattison, for practitioners in Worcester, Cardiff, Bristol and Birmingham, revealed a universal longing among participants to relate their lives in general and ministerial practice in particular more closely to fundamentals of faith and belief. They had no problems at all about this in theory but many experienced real difficulty in doing so in the ordinary and extraordinary events, decisions and actions of daily life and work.
Whether this book succeeds in demonstrating and exemplifying the skill and process of theological reflection (TR) sufficiently clearly and engagingly to meet this need, and whether it takes sufficient account of the multiplicity of ways in which people reflect, its readers will decide for themselves. Our hope is that at the very least it will provide a useful contribution in making the specific activity to which we have given the acronym PTR (Progressing Theological Reflection) (see Chapter 1.1) more accessible, more employable, more vital and more fun. But if it proves to be a useful tool for anyone who longs to enable faith and life to interact with vitality and integrity in the decisions and events of daily living and wrest from the struggle of doing so new fruits of godly insight, wisdom, zest for life, and practical commitment, then the effort of writing it will have been well rewarded.
Such clarity as I have reached and been able to convey about the process and methodology, as well as intriguing richness, robustness and truth-bearing beauty of the crucial activity of theological reflection owes much to others. It has been enabled by pondering, practising and striking sparks of wisdom, through struggle and humour with a number of people over several years. In this respect a particular debt of gratitude is due to both my co-authors. Though most of the writing of this book, apart from Chapters 8 and 9, has been mine, none of it would have been written at all, and it would certainly never have been finished, without the companionship, intellectual stimulus, encouragement, humour and tough criticality, respectively, of each of my co-authors: Stephen Pattison, formerly Head of the School of Religious and Theological Studies at Cardiff University and now Professor of Religion, Ethics and Practice in the Department of Theology at the University of Birmingham; and Ross Thompson, formerly Tutor at Cardiff as well as ministerial colleague over many years, now an author in Christian spirituality, and also my life-partner and husband.
Many other people have contributed, directly and indirectly, to the development of the ideas and examples in this book – including parishioners and church members in Bristol, 2 five generations of students at the School of Religious and Theological Studies at Cardiff University and at St Michael’s College, Cardiff, and colleagues at both institutions, especially Paul Ballard, John Holdsworth, Gareth Williams, John Weaver and Michael Wilson. I am similarly indebted to friends and colleagues in BIAPT (British and Irish Association of Practical Theology) and participants in the Theological Reflection Symposium held at St Michael’s College, Cardiff, in September 2004, especially to Elaine Graham, Frances Ward, Heather Walton, Andrew Todd, Zoe Bennett, Helen Cameron, John Foskett and Duncan Ballard. Duncan – formerly as a student and more recently as my parish priest, companion-in-struggle and TR partner, and in his enthusiasm for computer-mediated theological reflection – has contributed more than he may realize. Heather Walton and Andrew Todd deserve special gratitude for having read and commented on the whole book, as do two students in the early stages of accredited ministry, Christine Holzapfel and Ruth Atkinson, who worked through the entire book and most of the exercises with me. Comments and suggestions from them and from others mentioned above have been invaluable in sharpening, pruning and improving the text, but responsibility for any shortcomings remains my own. And thanks are due also to Tony Seldon for the pictures in the toolkit.
I am also deeply grateful to my parents and family and many friends and mentors whose love and lives have enriched my appreciation of God, the universe and everything, and thus contributed fundamentally to my passion in affirming the interrelatedness of life and faith.
Judith Thompson
St Barnabas’ Day 2008
Notes


1 Particularly the Churches of St Aidan with St George, East Bristol, and St Barnabas, Knowle West, Bristol.

2 In Theological Reflection: Sources (London: SCM Press, 2007), Graham, Walton and Ward note that closing the gap between academic theology and concrete human experience ‘asks the student to perform feats of intellectual and practical integration that no one on the faculty seems prepared to demonstrate’ (p. 5).



Introduction Getting started. Connecting faith and practice. Theological Reflection (henceforward TR) in Christianity and other faiths. Understanding TR – the basics. Taking care of the reflector. An overview of this book. Using this book.
1. Getting started
Theological reflection is, quintessentially, an experiential activity which can only be assimilated, appreciated and mastered by the doing of it. So, rather than begin by telling you what it is – if you don’t already know – and why its significance is almost universally accepted by theological educators and practitioners, we invite you to try it out for yourself. This should whet your appetite for more, if the process is new to you. If you are a seasoned theological reflector, it may revitalize and reaffirm your experience and practice.
You are encouraged to engage with the exercise below, and the other exercises in this book, so that the work to enrich your use of this skill is always rooted in practice.
A basic 5-Step exercise in theological reflection
Write brief notes, rather than paragraphs, for each step of this exercise: Focus on whatever has been the best thing that has happened to you or for you so far this week. Write a short phrase to identify it and make it specific. Fill out the memory of that event as richly as you can: include the sights and sounds around you at the time, the context of the event and its significance for yourself and others, and its relationship to other events in your own life, and in the wider world. You might find it helpful to draw pictures or write your notes as a flow diagram or make a table with headings for each aspect of your account (which could then be linked with your discoveries in Step 3). Find connections between elements of your reliving of the experience and texts, parables, prayers and events from the religious tradition you are most familiar with. Savour and enter into the narrative of what comes to mind in this way, using brainstorming, spidergrams or whatever form of representation enables you to explore the connections and feelings that arise for you. Ponder these things and offer it all in prayer in whatever way feels appropriate. Return to the event that you began with but look at it from the perspective of Step 3. Allow the ‘flavours’, nuances or clear insights from your explorations to surprise and intrigue you as you look afresh at the experience you had. Wonder and ponder on any resulting changes in your view of that even