Volume 24, Issue 1

What are some ways that people from the Buddhist, Muslim and Christian faith traditions can reflect upon the coronavirus pandemic using a theological lens? How can Buddhist, Muslim and Christian practitioners respond in practical ways to the coronavirus pandemic, utilizing resources from their faith traditions? This contribution offers reflections on the worldwide suffering and challenges that the pandemic has caused from the perspectives of Buddhist, Muslim and Christian practitioners. Each writer offers practical resources and theological reflection from their vantage point as spiritual care providers and as people of faith.

This paper presents the gap in practical theological research in relation to the devastating effects of the environmental crisis. The paper argues that, because of its silence, the field of practical theology is complicit unwittingly in perpetuating the environmental crisis. The paper identifies three potential causes that predispose the field to fall silent before the enormity of the crisis: 1. The human-centricity of its methodology, telos and theological anthropology; 2. The anthropocentricism of its theology based on dominant Western formulations, and; 3. The power of eco-anxiety to trigger defense mechanisms that foreclose acknowledgement of the crisis. Importantly, the paper also identifies interdisciplinary resources and conversation partners with whom the field of practical theology may re-construct creation-centered pathways forward.

What kind of practices, emotions and self-understandings are linked to conversion? This contribution offers a set of analytical tools which help to understand processes of constructing, performing and maintaining conversionist identity. In doing so, it builds on both, source material related to 17 th and 18 th century New England and conversion research in the area of sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies. Holistic in its approach, it reconstructs conversionist piety as a social practice that builds up into pious cultures of body, emotion, and meaning-making. The analytical concepts developed on the way may prove to be a starting point for further empirical research on lived religion in Practical Theology and Religious Studies.

This essay seeks to make a contribution to Catholic practical theological methodology through a discussion of “anticipation” as developed in the theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg. Its main thesis is that an understanding of the proleptic and anticipatory character of revelation and tradition can help articulate the role of tradition in the normative task of a Catholic practical theology. The first section of the paper looks at the normative task of practical theology and how this is reflected in the Whiteheads’ Method of Ministry . Then it seeks to explain the notion of “anticipation” and its implications for a theology of tradition. Finally it draws out the implications of incorporating this concept into practical theological method.

This article describes which possible roles that (theological reflections on) the church can play in societal debates around disability and inclusion. A turn to inclusion is sketched out and a number of different ecclesiological responses are mapped out. We argue that an ecclesiology which is informed by church practices can contribute to reflection on the concept of inclusion, which, in turn, helps the church in its quest for inclusive practices. It also reflects on the implications of such a quest. Additionally, church practices and reflections on them may serve society at large in its quest for inclusion.

In the light of the eudaimonic principle of pleasure/enjoyment, the question is posed: What is meant by a spirituality of happiness? In terms of the eucharistic perspective of graceful living, and the view that human beings are actually playful artists (homo ludens), a practical theology of joy is proposed: fides quaerens beatitudinem – faith seeking joyful happiness. In the light of the Christian connection between a benevolence of grace and the biblical notion of the beatitudes, happiness is presented as a kind of makariology: the interplay between the benediction of a blessing and the fortitude of a peaceful mind. “Beatific enjoyment” (fruitio beatifica) is proposed as a practical theological conceptualisation of the “praxis of God”.

Practical Theology (PT) in the US emerged in the latter half of the 20 th century shaped by the epistemological turn toward a critical postmodernity and liberation theologies. This article traces the emergence of PT in the 20 th and first two decades of the 21 st century including attention to the emergence of several constitutive fields and the Association of Practical Theology. I will attend to several trajectories: epistemological and related liberative political influences, effects of privilege and marginalization for the integrity of the discipline and the knowledge it constructs, methodological innovations, and strategies for research. The article describes emerging trajectories.

Religious speeches aim at social efficacy. They are therefore an important resource for religious communities and groups. The article pursues a cultural concept of resources, which does not ask about the benefit of a resource, but about its values in and effects on societies. The crucial elements are the social dynamics, actions and relationships that are closely related to culturally shaped interests in and use of resources. This concept is brought into conversation with more recent research on Christian and Islamic preaching cultures. Anthropological research in particular has repeatedly pointed to the social value attributed to preaching. This interdisciplinary article shows the yield of the dialogue between anthropology and practical theology.