Last week I told you that we could discuss practical theology so let’s go! Remember, practical theology is what unites knowledge with our lives. It’s a collision between what we say is true and what we live as truth. One of my textbooks defines it saying “practical theology is a continual process of waking up so that we can discern what God is doing in our context and determine how we can take steps to participate.”1 Practical theology involves learning to pay attention to God and to our context.
Practical theology has a loop that is repeated over and over and preferably done in community.
Step One: Name and describe your current praxis. Praxis here is your practice. Name what you’re currently doing. Describe it in detail.
Step Two: Analyze your practice and your context using cultural resources. You want to understand both influences on your practice and the consequences of those influences. You might use psychological and sociological resources here. You might look at how your cultural upbringing influences your understanding.
Step Three: Study and reflect on Scripture, theology, and Christian history concerning your praxis and analysis. How does the story of God speak to your practice? What bearing does theology have? How is this reflected (or not) throughout Christian history?2
Step Four: Recall and discuss stories from your church and your own lives. How have different experiences impacted your understanding of God and what He is doing?
Step Five: Discern and shape your new praxis through imagination, prayer, experiments, and commitments. To do something new, we often need new imagination.3 And to start something new, we need to start small. We find a small area to experiment.
Practical theology insists that life and practice is contextual. We take what we know and we take where we live and together the two meld into a way of living that aligns with God’s work in the world. There is not a blanket way of doing things, of being church, in growing to maturity, of being a witness to the world.
Practical theology gives voice to something I’ve noticed for a long time. People, even in the same place, don’t need the same thing. Our personalities are different. Our temptations are different. Our skills are different. Our backgrounds are different. Our contexts are different. Our capacities are different. Some people need to be told that they could do a little more; maybe they are giving in to sloth or indifference. Other people, in very similar circumstances, need to be told to sit down, that rest matters, that God is carrying the load and not them.
It’s a lot like going to a good doctor. A good doctor will listen to where you’re at, what’s happening in life. They’ll ask questions about your lifestyle. They’ll bring all of their medical knowledge to the table. They’ll question your family history and issues you’ve had in the past. Only then do they make a recommendation moving forward. I know we don’t always have access to great healthcare, but I think this is what we all want. We don’t want someone to walk in, say “you’re sneezing so go do X” without evaluating anything about our particular situations.
One of my main critiques of most marriage advice is that it is contextless.4 Marriage advice is shaped to sell to large crowds and therefore operates on assumptions and stereotypes and contextless circumstances. And marriage advice marketed to crowds ignores the particularities of each person and each marriage.
Sometimes people need to be told to stop acting like a jerk toward the spouse. Often one (or both) people need to go to counseling. Sometimes one person needs to step up their game and that will alleviate a lot of the tension. But you never actually know if you don’t get curious and investigate the context.
There are general principles for marriage—honor one another, give the other person their preferences, etc—but each marriage is done in a very specific context and therefore needs specific attention.
We can walk it through the loop. What are we doing in this marriage? How did we get here? (Was it the example of our parents, cultural ideals of marriage, etc.) What does Scripture and theology and Christian history say about marriage? What stories do we see in our own lives and the lives around us that reinforce or challenges our ideas? What’s a small starting experiment toward something new?
This same thing applies to parenting. I don’t parent any of my four boys exactly the same. They are different people with different inclinations. I don’t even relate to them the same because they are different people. I have to pay attention, ask questions, experiment, fail and try something else. There are general principles and then a lot of work to be done if I want the principles to be helpful.
The consequences probably have to be different to be effective. The way I spend time with them will need to change even as they age. My role in their lives will shift and transform based on many things: their age and ability, where our schedules line up, how much they need help. I must pay a lot of attention to figure it out.
I have to learn to do contextual work. Of course, this does not only apply in marriage and with children. This is just as relevant if you’re single or divorced, if you don’t have kids, if you’re in college, if all your children have grown up and left your home. This is a large part of saying “What would Jesus do if He were me?” And not just “What would Jesus do?” And it means that we learn Jesus’ life on a deeper level: why did He act the way He did? Why did he talk to some people one way and to others in a different way? Why did he invite some people in and tell others not to speak of what He had done? How did He have the strength and energy and capacity to live the way He did? What do His boundaries (and He had them) mean for us and the boundaries that we need?
We have to go deep in Jesus’ life and ask contextual questions of Him.5 Did he speak certain ways to people in power? How were His words clashing with Roman ideals? What counter-imaginative world did He set up? And then we have to ask hard contextual questions of our own lives. Why do we resist talking to other people about Jesus? This needs a different approach if the answer is “because I’ve been taught so many terrible methods of witnessing and I don’t want to do them” than if the answer is “because I think people can live whatever way they want and it will work out fine.” Be curious. Be curious. Be curious.
I have moved more and more to asking questions. Asking “why” and “where did I get that idea?” and “does that actually line up with the story of God?” and “what does it look like to spend more time in contemplative prayer?” It means that I experiment a lot. That the end result of practical theology. You find a small corner and you try an experiment. You don’t upend the whole thing. You don’t burn it down and start over. You find a new imagination for some part of your work or life and you try something new. It’s an experiment. It it goes well, continue reflection and study and then action. If it doesn’t, reflect and study some more and then try another experiment.
Practical theology allows us to relinquish the control we don’t have anyway.6 I’ve always wanted God to send me an email with a five year plan but God has never done that. I don’t expect He ever will because He doesn’t want me to have answers and plans. He wants me to listen and walk and rely. I find the way as I go. Practical theology just makes the way a lot clearer and reminds me that God is actually doing the work.
Leadership, God’s Agency, and Disruptions by Mark Lau Branson and Alan J. Roxburgh, 71.
This is where my understanding of women in church history impacted my understanding of God’s call on the lives of women.
Honestly, this whole idea of imagination probably needs some exploration as well.
Besides the mountain of gender stereotypes and hierarchical notions such advice usually contains, that is.
Curiosity and a commitment to learning will be required!
Most control is an illusion. We have agency—we will be responsibility for what we do—but we don’t have control.
This is so interesting, practical, and helpful. I really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing!