{"id":1955,"date":"2009-04-01T09:30:32","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T13:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/practicalmattersjournal.ecdsdev.org\/?p=1955"},"modified":"2016-03-31T20:14:03","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T00:14:03","slug":"life-abundant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pmcleanup.ecdsdev.org\/2009\/04\/01\/life-abundant\/","title":{"rendered":"For Life Abundant: Practical Theology, Theological Education, and Christian Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"
Download PDF:\u00a0RV Conklin-Miller, For Life Abundant<\/a><\/h5>\n
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Edited by Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra.
\nGrand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2008. 212 pages. $30.00.<\/h3>\n
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Against assumptions that a book about \u201cpractical theology\u201d could only be concerned with issues of internal methodology and training for the tasks of ministry,\u00a0For Life Abundant<\/em>\u00a0seeks a different path. Editors Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra focus instead on the \u201cthe wide range of readers whose work involves them in discerning and building up ways of life abundant\u201d (4). Extending a conversation already in progress (see\u00a0Practicing Our Faith\u00a0<\/em>1<\/u>\u00a0and\u00a0Practicing Theol\u00adogy<\/em>\u00a02<\/u>), the authors of this volume continue the search for a way of life shaped by the narratives and practices of the church and lived for the good of the world. In this text, the conversation turns to a more specific engagement with those who form others to seek such a life: academic practical theologians, faculties and administrative leaders in theological education, pastors, and members of congregations.<\/p>\n

While all of these groups seek life abundant, the authors of this volume are almost all academic practical theologians, and thus, the conversation inevitably tilts toward issues of methodology and pedagogy. Even so, the book\u2019s strengths lie in the multi-faceted considerations of the relationship between teaching and the formation of pastoral wisdom. Many of the essays concern what the authors variously describe as the \u201cinterpretive\u201d or \u201cadaptive\u201d work of ministry, or the formation of the \u201cphronesis<\/em>,\u201d \u201cimagination,\u201d or \u201cknow-how\u201d that pastors require to shape wise and faithful congregations. The essays address several key questions: How will such formation in pastoral\u00a0phronesis<\/em>\u00a0take place in the seminary classroom? Before that, what sort of formation is required for those who teach? And since formation for ministry cannot be limited to the three years of the seminary program, how will this work be shared with the church over time?<\/p>\n

The essays offer less a definitive set of answers and more a series of overlapping and, for the most part, complementary suggestions. The authors generally agree that in order to understand and describe this abundant life, and in order to shape pastors and communities that foster such a life, practical theology must become, in the words of Serene Jones, \u201ca multi-disciplinary, intra-disciplined discipline\u201d (209). The work of practical theology must be about the simultaneous transgressing of several borders, including those that divide the \u201cfour-fold\u201d curriculum within the seminary, as well as those between disciplines of study in the wider university and particularly those between the seminary and the church.<\/p>\n

Despite the clear case made for this \u201cinterdisciplinary\u201d boundary crossing, I would press for more reflection and conversation. We can surely all agree with Thomas Long that more than a \u201cthinned out\u201d vocabulary will be necessary in the context of the university for our interdisciplin\u00adary journeys to remain theological (259-60). But I wonder if there is something of a potential dissonance at work in this volume, just to the extent that there may be more to say about\u00a0how<\/em>\u00a0that is to be done. How will our reflections and conversations across boundaries and borders remain enduringly\u00a0theological<\/em>? John Witvliet raises this concern in his essay, \u201cTeaching Worship as a Christian Practice.\u201d Considering the teaching of worship, Witvliet remarks, \u201c[O]ddly, the type of connection most in need of exploration (even resuscitation) is the connection of worship to God. It is remarkable that so many books and courses about worship say so little about God\u201d(138). I wonder though whether this is truly\u00a0odd<\/em>, or rather a sign of a long tendency to employ theologi\u00adcally \u201cthinned out\u201d language in our intra- and interdisciplinary conversations, and consequently among pastors and churches.<\/p>\n

An epistemological question follows: how will we know and speak of what a \u201cway of life abundant\u201d is? At times, authors connect this \u201cway of life abundant\u201d to the language of disciple\u00adship, but not exclusively so. Why not? Can our knowledge and expression of such a way of life be separable from our knowledge of the way of life called discipleship, shaped and sustained in the church? Can we have a conversation about the practices that nurture a way of life abundant excluding Christological speech or consideration of the mystery of the Triune God?<\/p>\n

The desire among many authors to see practical theology work among different \u201cpublics\u201d or to serve a way of life abundant for the good of the world is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0misplaced however. Far from it. Avoiding any idealization of the church, we must take Ted Smith and David Daniels\u2019s advice in their co-authored essay that we historically ground our reflections on practice. We must retain the inevitable tension between \u201cthe judgment and the glory\u201d in the story of the church\u2019s practices and acknowledge that a way of life abundant has been such for some, but often not for all. Particularly in that light, we turn again to nurturing hope in both the eventual fulfillment of God\u2019s eschato\u00adlogical promises and the ongoing faithfulness of the church in the meantime. Indeed, the task of inhabiting that space between the \u201cnow\u201d and the \u201cnot yet\u201d calls for the continuing importance of theological reflection on both the practice\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0the performance of the church. How else will the church be wisely formed to discern among these renunciations and adhesions and linguistically prepared to speak into the \u201cmessy\u201d spaces between disciplines, between the seminary and the university, between the church and the world, with a voice that will be unmistakably\u00a0theological<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Serene Jones rightly argues that systematic theology must receive the concern for embodied wisdom brought by practical theologians, but also that \u201cthe specialized practical insights of those who teach in the practical field must themselves be measured by the strong\u00a0theological<\/em>\u00a0standards and norms that inspire our schools as a whole\u201d (211). In his chapter on the formative practice of pilgrimage, Mikoski argues for a \u201cChalcedonian\u201d vision of practical theology, holding to the \u201cdialectical interaction between revelation and context\u201d and seeking \u201cto foster followers of Jesus Christ who participate in the life of the church for the sake of the transformation of the world in the direction of the Reign of the Triune God.\u201d (350-1). This argument neither entirely answers the question of how to cross the boundaries between these realms, nor does it remove the palpable tensions that arise when we do cross them. But will it help to keep our conversations, descriptions, and prescriptions rooted in theology? Even more, will it form a clergy who can help the forgetful church find its voice and the words to speak?<\/p>\n

Strikingly, the last chapter in this book is not entitled \u201cConclusions\u201d or \u201cAfterword.\u201d Rather, it is pregnantly entitled \u201cIn Anticipation,\u201d implying that there is always more to say. For those who care about the work of ministry and the training it requires, more wrestling, more prayer, and more conversation are required. For those seeking after life abundant, this book is a key place to start.<\/p>\n

Jeff Conklin-Miller
\nDuke University<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download PDF:\u00a0RV Conklin-Miller, For Life Abundant Edited by Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2008. 212 pages. $30.00. Against assumptions that a book about \u201cpractical theology\u201d could only be concerned with issues of internal<\/p>\n

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