Volume 29, Issue 1

The Country Report explores how various academic institutions have been vital in advancing Practical Theology in the Philippines since the EDSA Revolution in 1986. It highlights two main concepts: Pakikibaka, which deals with solidarity in struggles through theological methods, education, and pastoral care. Pagsamba focuses on worship elements like liturgy, liturgical songs, and preaching. These concepts help structure the report and showcase the contributions of theological schools to the growth of Practical Theology in the country. Key themes include the shifts toward inculturation and contextualization and pressing practical issues such as immigration, the Filipino diaspora, environmental concerns, and engagement in political and public spaces.

The denominational model of religious education (RE) in German public schools faces pressure from demographic change, declining attendance, and concerns over dividing students by religion. Comprehensive schools, known for their diverse student bodies, have become key testing grounds for new RE models. This article highlights recent shifts in the German school landscape and the challenges RE teachers face in these settings. It suggests that the pedagogical approaches used in comprehensive schools may offer valuable insights for international exchange, as they align more closely with RE practices outside of Germany than previous models.

This article proposes that one task of eschatological practical theology is to provide a vision of hope in which hope is defined as providing meaning. It also proposes that the context in which hope is offered is one in which individuals and communities experience horrendous evils that require reparative work done by God and the wider community as part of the work of legacy. Drawing on the work of Marilyn McCord Adams and Pamela McCarroll, it concludes that eschatological practical theologians can participate in this work of legacy in order to co-construct the world that God intends.

Trauma has become a cultural touchstone and is an increasingly popular topic in theological research. While this is to be welcomed, there is little guidance for trauma researchers in theology, particularly for those seeking to interact directly with trauma survivors through qualitative research. This article offers a trauma-informed approach for theologians undertaking qualitative research. It introduces three theologically underpinned research themes: waiting, witnessing, and embodying. These methods emphasize the safety of research participant and researcher, and present a challenge to more traditional methods of research through the centring of bodily experience and an understanding of the fragmentary nature of traumatic experience.

This study explores, at the interface between practical theology and ethics, the character of pastors in relation to their professional practices. The Dutch focus groups included youth pastors, chaplains and congregational ministers in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. Spiritual connectedness and social connectedness were singled out as the “goods” of pastoral practices and played an important role in the ongoing formation of pastors’ character. The results of this study touch upon a debate in character theories. We conclude that pastors’ character is formed and transformed by their readiness to work according to specific pastoral virtues and attitudes that are called upon in their practices.

There is ample research available about church disaffiliation among millennials, but no study has addressed their parents’ experiences: how it affects them, and what they see as contributing factors. The central question of our qualitative study is how parents experience their children’s church disaffiliation. This exploratory study used focus groups to determine how parents experienced their children’s disaffiliation. Appraisal theory was used to interpret parents’ emotions. A wide variety of emotions were expressed, with disappointment and guilt prevailing. Overall, the study showed that most parents experienced their child’s church disaffiliation as a parental failure and that their faith was problematised by it.

Scrupulosity refers to when a perception of sin where none exists. This notion has existed in the church tradition for a long time and was specifically mentioned by Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), founder of the Society of Jesus, in his famous work The Spiritual Exercises . In modern times, psychologists regard scrupulosity as a religious manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder. This article presents, compares, and analyses qualitative and quantitative research findings concerning scrupulosity among Protestants and Catholics in Hong Kong. The results show that the main causes of scrupulosity are perfectionism and a negative image of God, and that one of the key methods of transformation is to engage with spiritual tradition.

This study places practical theology in conversation with the field of adult education to explore the phenomenon of religious doubt. The experiences of four Canadian adult Christians who have faced religious doubt are analyzed using transformative learning theory as a theoretical frame. Three main findings emerge, including the role of community (especially church-based) support in either facilitating or blocking positive transformation prompted by religious doubt. Different cognitive and affective coping strategies are also explored, as is the extent to which religious doubt may be considered a positive factor in faith development. The study concludes with four implications and areas of future study for the field of practical theology.

This study examines pain from the perspective of pastoral care and counseling. Specifically, it focuses on the pain caused by the Anthropocene. While the intersection between the Anthropocene and pastoral counseling may not seem apparent, they converge the realistic pain resulting from factors like Malthusian theories and the existential powerlessness faced during impending disasters. Interestingly, this pain is particularly evident among marginalized individuals. To understand Anthropocene pain from a pastoral counseling perspective, the study introduces two theoretical frameworks: the “eschatological self” and the practical theological understanding of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI). The idea of the eschatological self interprets Moltmann’s theology of hope within pastoral counseling, emphasizing the influence of the future and shifting away from traditional counseling theories that primarily focus on the past’s impact. Within the concept of the eschatological self, an individual’s pain is seen as an opportunity to connect with Jesus, who was crucified. The understanding of practical theology of NSSI highlights the relationship between self-injury and the Christian ritual of baptism. While both involve self-destructive processes, they differ in the convergence of causes and resolution processes. Building upon these theoretical frameworks, the study presents a new methodology that could be called Anthropocene Pastoral Care and Counseling (APCC). The first task is Anthropocene justice, where attention is directed towards pain and its causes, not solely within an individual’s personal history but within the context of the Anthropocene. The second task is expansion into the community, which, through the intersection with baptism, aims to alleviate self-blame by exposing and expanding individual pain as a shared communal experience. The third task is gaining an eschatological self, wherein individuals discover themselves within pain and undergo theological and psychological development through encounters with transcendent existence. The final task is praxis, where individuals, having experienced and practiced eschatological selfhood, become capable community members who embrace and include others who share similar vulnerabilities.