Clare Watkins - Böcker

Talking about God in Practice details the challenges and complexities of real theological conversations with practitioners, whilst providing an example of appropriate process, and a model of theological understanding by which to negotiate these complexities fruitfully.Drawing on, and adapting, action research methods, this process enables researchers with practitioners to access ‘implicit’ theologies, embedded within practices. The disclosure of the theology borne by practice enables a fresh and often exciting insight for all concerned, which leads to renewal of both practice and theology. The “Theological Action Research” process offers effective and mutually constructive ways of engaging practitioners and ‘academics’ in authentic research partnerships, contributing to the proper rootedness of theological scholarship, and to capacity building among practitioners for further, self-led research, reflection, and theologizing.

From 2006 to 2011 researchers at Heythrop College and the Oxford Centre for ecclesiology and Practical Theology (OxCEPT, Ripon College Cuddesdon) worked on a theological and action research project: "Action Research – Church and Society (ARCS). 2010 saw the publication of Talking About God in Practice: Theological Action research and Practical Theology (SCM), which presented in an accessible way the work of ARCS and its developing methodology. This turned out to be a landmark study in the praxis of Anglican and Catholic ecclesiology in the UK, showing how theology in these differing contexts interacted with the way in which clergy and congregations lived out their religious convictions. This book is a direct follow up to that significant work, authored by one of the original researchers, providing a systematic analysis of the impact of the "theological action research" methodology and its implications for a contemporary ecclesiology.The book presents an ecclesiology generated from church practice, drawing on scholarship in the field as well as the results of the theological action research undertaken. It achieves this by including real scenarios alongside the academic discourse. This combination allows the author to tease out the complex relationship between the theory and the reality of church.Addressing the need for a more developed theological and methodological account of the ARCS project, this is a book that will be of interest to scholars interested not only Western lived religion, but ecclesiology and theology more generally too.

Following a critical analysis of the pedagogical theology and practice of Christian learning, this book develops a radical alternative account of ‘faith learning’. Recognising the ways in which institutionally anxious churches are turning to processes of education and ‘discipling’, it takes the reader through a theological action research journey to offer a practical–theological response to the question of how Christian faith is learnt and handed on in ways that really make a difference. Through close engagement with the practicalities of one declining denomination (British Methodism), the authors offer a distinctive vision of Christian learning and enable fresh thinking and practice. There is a call for a move beyond educational ‘courses’ towards a more profound engagement with the complexities of real life as not only the place but the ‘matter’ of faith learning. Theologically, the book offers a vision which pursues questions of divine and human agency, the work of the Spirit in ‘learning’, the role of normative tradition, and the important place of Christian lay people and their daily lives in learning. Ultimately, it seeks to give substance to a fresh concept of ‘faith learning’, which is holistic, integrative, and inductively achieved, and finds its fulfilment in lives lived in faith, hope, and love.