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| Accessed from stoned-campbelldisciple.blogspot.com |
At this point in series of posts I am pre-empting something that you
will be doing in much greater detail later in your course, and that is looking at the nature of
practical theology. The reason we
are beginning to examine it now is that so much of it has relevance
to the church’s mission. You might
say that practical theology relates to the internal life of the church and, of
course, the effectiveness of the church's external life (which is its mission) will in
large part depend on the quality and health of its inner life. Practical theology is all about
that domain.
What is also vital is that practical theology is a theological
discipline which has a very close relationship to what we might say are
corresponding secular realms of knowledge. I will give a few examples and
hopefully the connections will become apparent. Pastoral care is one of the
prime responsibilities of the church and the field of psychology arguably offers models which can be usefully employed in pastoral ministry. We will briefly outline some of those in
a moment. Religious education – whether it be in the context of an RE lesson, school assembly or All Age worship –
must draw on pedagogy or, if you like,
an effective teaching strategy.
We are going to think of those in the comparatively narrow field of your
own ministries.
Similarly, homiletics or the study of preaching is greatly enhanced by
the study of rhetoric, as I hope you will find out a little later on. In addition, congregation building has a very natural bedfellow in
certain models of community work. We are going to look at each of
these subjects very ‘practically’ in this post and explore how secular knowledge can
aid and develop the internal life of the church.
Pastoral Care and Psychology
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| Accessed at c;arityway.com |
Not all Christians subscribe to
the notion that pastoral care of individuals can in any way be aided by secular
psychology. They point to Freud’s atheism and seeming obsession with sex,
Jung’s alleged flirtation with the occult and the solidly humanist
presuppositions behind so many of the well known approaches or models that have
influenced the churc (Rogerian Therapy, Transactional Analysis and Myers
Briggs being just some examples of models taken from secular psychology that
have been frowned upon). The time
given in the lecture series to this theme is too brief to explain in detail or assess
any of these psychological approaches sometimes employed by the church. What I
want to do instead is suggest a few guidelines for how we might understand the
relationship of psychology to pastoral care.
First, I think there are
at least three possible models by which we may define the relationship between
the two and I suggest it would be helpful to arrive at some kind of judgment
regarding these. I am drawing here
on the work of John D Carter and Bruce Narramore in their book, The
Integration of Psychology and Theology. The first model they identify is simply, in their
terminology, ‘the Against
Model’. In other words, the view
that Christianity and psychology are incompatible and cannot be
integrated.
‘Psychotherapy is the
counterfeit currency of the world and a substitute for the healing balm of
Gilead. And Christian psychotherapy is a house divided against itself. How long
shall we have one foot in the wilderness of the cure of minds and one in the
promised land of the cure of souls.’
(Martin and Deidre Bobgan, Psychobabble)
The Bobgans represent a whole school of thought which suggests that all
nonorganically related mental-emotional disorders have a spiritual,
Christ-centred solution rather than a psychological, (and as they would put it)
self-centred solution. You might add the name of Jay Adams and his theory of
‘nouthetic counselling’ to that grouping.
The second model has been termed the ‘Parallels’ model and this is one
which implicitly acknowledges the validity of both but doesn’t in any way try to
integrate them. It simply avails
of psychological insight where it is thought to be helpful. In a very pronounced form this outlook
simply accepts whatever is the current practice in terms of psychology and does
not really ask any questions.
The third model, the one championed by the authors is termed the
‘Integrates’ model and this is based on the idea of ‘the unity of truth’. In
other words, truth found through legitimate psychological investigation will
not contradict biblical truth and moreover they can be brought together in a legitimate harmony. There are particular reasons for why
people judge this approach as legitimate.
1. That there is a common bank of truth out there that both secular and
religious people have access to.
2. That some expressions of psychology enable individuals to reach a
higher degree of self-honesty and accountability which is itself a biblical
requirement for human beings. 3. The view that complex mental problems require
skilled therapeutic responses that have been honed with psychology.
Which of these positions is most convincing to you? Does Christianity need psychology?
Religious Education –
Pedagogy
It is difficult to talk about what religious education is and what are
appropriate strategies for teaching it. Not least because religious educators are struggling to do
that themselves. Michael Grimmit
from the School of Education in the University of Birmingham admitted that
‘there has been very little discussion between religious educators and
researchers about the theoretical basis upon which pedagogies can and should be
devised, developed and evaluated.’
Part of the reason might be that it is impossible to have a generic
approach to religion since religions are different and can not all be taught in
the same way. Indeed, a pick and mix approach to religious education where the
pupils are given a little bit of Christianity, a smattering of Islam, a drop of
Buddhism etc might be pedagogically disastrous because the resultant impact is
potential confusion and no real clarity about opposing religious tenets. This is the case because the
exposure to the different viewpoints is potentially too shallow and too
limited.
Of course, there are
reasons for why it happens that way. Dr Trevor Cooling talking about the
English system of education – which is at least partially driven by a secular
agenda and which might be the shape of things to come in the future Ireland –
said that this system was built upon the four ‘isms.’ ‘Fallibism’ – the notion that beliefs should be held with
the expectation that they may be wrong.
‘Relativism’ – the notion that all religions are equally valid
perceptions of reality. ‘Subjectivism’ – the view that my beliefs are merely
statements about me and what ‘works’ for me. ‘Individualism’ – the view that
everyone should choose their own religion for themselves. This outlook may become stronger here
as time develops and it is unquestionably defining religious education from
premises or starting points that are in opposition to traditional religious
premises.
Thankfully, as clergy you are not called to develop a full blown
religious education strategy but to think about personal strategies which you can use to communicate
effectively to children in an assembly or an All Age service. Here are a few very practical pointers. (1) Gather good teaching resources
(which genuinely cater for the age you are dealing with) and allow those
resources to stimulate and enthuse you. (2) Get the children to actively
participate in the activity. (3) In All Age worship remember that the
‘lectionary is made for the people and not the people for the lectionary.’ If
you schedule a regular All Age service do not feel you must use the lectionary
reading for the day if it is not amenable to All Age use. This is just my
personal view and I am not speaking for the church. (4) Avoid moralistic
addresses and major on ones which use imagination, humour and radically open up
the biblical text.
Homiletics – Rhetoric
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| Accessed at shop.vook.com |
Rhetoric is not about learning to speak loudly and coherently with a
number of pebbles in your mouth (as the great orator Cicero once did), nor is it about mastering the art of
giving grandiloquent (pompous and bombastic) speeches (Laurence Olivier’s
rendering of some of the speeches from Hamlet comes to mind) . Rhetoric was
actually, even in its inception, about the art of persuasion. The term itself
may have gone missing from modern discourse but the idea is still powerfully
present in the field of Communication Theory. And preaching, if it is about anything, is about
communication.
In our short interaction with Rhetoric this morning we’re going to
travel back in time to listen to the father of rhetoric, the philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, which was published more than three centuries before
Christ, observed effective (and ineffective) speakers in various settings and
wrote the earliest comprehensive volume of rhetorical theory. Here he defined
the art of rhetoric as ‘the ability to see the available means of persuasion.’
Persuasion, according
to Aristotle, takes place in the interplay between the speaker, the message and
the audience. More specifically, it is the interaction between the ethos of the speaker, the logos
of the message, and the pathos of
the audience. These terms are
unfamiliar but the model that Aristotle laid down has served as the prevailing
model of the communication process for twenty three centuries. Let us unpack these terms and try to
apply them to what you will be doing in your ministry.
Effective communication will depend much on the ethos of the speaker. Put simply, an audience will more
likely believe and take on board what someone is saying if they perceive that
person as being trustworthy and believable. In other words the credibility of
the message depends in large part on the credibility of the speaker. Ralph
Waldo Emerson described eloquence as ‘the art of speaking what you mean and
are.’ He added, ‘the reason why anybody refuses to ascent to
your opinion, or his aid to your benevolent design, is in you. He refuses to
accept you as the bringer of truth, because, though you think you have it, he
feels that you have it not. You have not given him the authentic sign.’
(By the way, if you wanted to sum up Emerson’s basic insight, it would
be the words, ‘Who you are shouts so loud
I cannot hear your words.’)
Emerson talks about not giving ‘the authentic sign’ that the audience
are looking for, what exactly is that sign? Well, Aristotle identified three
principles in the communicator’s ethos that made the message believable. Intelligence,
character and good will. Unless the
speaker is perceived as informed, knowledgeable and competent in the subject
matter he or she is addressing, with a capacity for valid reasoning and
balanced judgment (ie he or she is intelligent),
they will not be believed.
Likewise, to be trusted by a listening audience the communicator needs
to be perceived as having honesty, virtue and integrity. But even that by itself is not perfect
communication. There is an additional element at play which is pretty crucial.
The audience needs to sense that you are ‘for’ them. That you are on their side and that you’re more concerned
for the audience’s welfare than your own gain. Aristotle believed that the communicator’s ethos is so important that it is … almost the controlling factor
in persuasion.
I want to briefly mention two other issues related to ethos before we move on. The first is simply to define more
specifically what I mean by being ‘credible’ in the eyes of the listener. A skeptical listener will ask of
the preacher, ‘Does he or she really believe it?’ ‘Do they live by it?’ And, most scarily of all, ‘Does it
make a difference for them?’ If
our lives answer ‘yes’ to those three questions we will have a far greater
likelihood of truly communicating. The final issue relating to ethos is passion or dynamism.
Information and argumentation are unlikely to trigger action. Thomas De Quincy (the author of Diary of an English Opium Eater) likened an effective
speech to a ship; to move a ship you need both rudder (understanding) and sail
(passion). To move an audience you
need clarity but also conviction or dynamism. The story is told of one of the
sceptical Scottish philosophers (possibly John Stuart Mill or maybe Hume)
racing down the street one day in an awful hurry. A friend called out to him,
‘Where are you going in such a rush?’
‘To hear Whitefield preach,’ came back the answer. (Whitefield was a colleague
of Wesley’s and possibly an even greater preacher). ‘But you don’t believe in Whitefield’s message,’ the man said. ‘No, I don’t. But Whitefield does.’
Much of what I have said under ethos
also relates to the logos of the
communication. It must be rational, coherent as the speaker must be rational
and coherent. We might add to this definition the use of imagination and
creativity in communication. It’s also that which draws and captivates.
Finally pathos is the art of
affirming and engaging the emotions of the audience. Of course, it’s very possible
to be manipulative and to play on emotions. That’s certainly not what Aristotle had in mind. Good preaching, done from good motives
and with good will can appropriately engage emotions.
Before we leave Rhetoric let me quote Scottish rhetorician, George
Campbell, in his summary of what good communication is meant to do.
To please the imagination
To move the passions
(emotions)
To enlighten the
understanding
To influence the will
Given this brief cursory look at Rhetoric, it makes a lot of sense, does it not, that the risen Jesus told his disciples not to simply proclaim the
resurrection but to wait until they were endued with the Holy Spirit : the one
who would give credibility and dynamism to their words. So homiletics is about
you. It is about your character, your lifestyle, your passion for faith and your
creativity.
Congregation building –
models of community work
Our next partnering of disciplines is congregation building and models
of community work. Effective community
work in secular terms is very much centred on how well an organization relates
to a community. (By the way, here
we are beginning to cross the line between internal and external church life a
little). I take it as self-evident
that to build a congregation you must connect with the community out of which
you would hope to draw your new members.
Let us reflect briefly on
some of the buzz words used in official documents regarding community
engagement that have an incredible relevance to how the church engages with the
community within which it is set.
Here are some of the buzz words and you can probably make the
connections yourself.
Community consultation. Secular
agencies sometimes take surveys just to find out what particular community
needs are out there. Sometimes the impact of such things can be quite positive
because people are being given a sense that they are being listened to. If you
have a church which wishes to connect with the community then one of the best
means is a community survey. To give you an example, when we were preparing to
plant a church in Norfolk we took 200 questionnaires into the area and asked a
whole range of questions about community needs and what sort of church they would
like to see in the area. It was a marvelous point of contact and we not only
discovered things about the area but we also made our presence known.
Community involvement. Let me share a story from Belfast. Every year on St Patrick’s Day there is an
orgy of drunkenness in the so-called Holy Land area of south Belfast. The
streets after St Patrick’s Day are extensively littered with rubbish. On one of the
recent years students from Queen’s CU were part of a massive clear-up. Another local church, City Church, gave
little student packs to every student living in the area. Even more
pertinently, they gave shelter to one hundred Romanians who had been victims of
racist attacks. They recognized need and responded to it. I am only scratching
the surface here, but there are community needs everywhere that innovative and
creative churches can respond to.
Community
collaboration. In some
ways the best ministry is not just serving the community but joining with,
collaborating with the community in projects which are of service to that body
of people. What good and wholesome community initiatives are in place which
teams from churches can simply join and support? Even more radically, what
church projects for the community can one invite the members of the community
to play a part in? A parish in Carrickfergus did a community pantomime which
drew in many outsiders.
What examples can you share of positive engagement with the community?
Liturgy – Symbol Theory
The final area of practical theology we will look at today is liturgy,
the worship life of the church, and we will touch on it in relationship to
something known as ‘symbol theory’.
Togive you a sense of where we are going on this rather esoteric
and mysterious line of thought -
let me offer you an anchor.
Symbol theory, as it relates to liturgical worship, is about developing a richer
sacramentality which allows for the centrality of the tactile, the kinesthetic
(bodily movement) and the visual senses in worship. It encourages individuals to not see worship as an entirely
cognitive or mental activity to the exclusion of the body and the emotions.
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| Don Saliers accessed from presbyterianhymnal.org |
The implications of symbol theory for Protestant worship are embodied
in the work of a theologian called Don Saliers. He wants to see all the senses included in worship and
believes that these can mediate knowledge of God. In other words, God can use
our imaginations as we engage our senses in worship. For example, take the symbolic action of the anointing with
oil of someone who is sick. The oil symbolizes God’s healing grace … its
application symbolizes the care of the Christian community … and in the very
action the symbol somehow connects us to the reality. Go to a 24/7 prayer location and you may discover objects
and images that symbolize something about God and – in engaging with them – a
spiritual encounter is possible.
On an entirely different plane,
a liturgical action(movement) can also be powerful symbol of status
which says something about ‘power’ in the church. Let me give a radical
illustration from Marcia McPhee. She is one of many feminist theologians who see
great relevance for the application of symbol theory in worship. She says,
When one person stands while
all others kneel or sit, when only a few bless, touch, anoint, serve while all
others are passive recipients, our physical language is not emancipatory or
empowering or indicative of the radical equality of our baptism. Space must be
arranged so that level only accommodates visibility, not speak of hierarchy.
Garments must speak of office and role, not status and rank. Careful attention
must be paid to the way in which language and symbol does communicate
powerfully and what messages are sent in those expressions. It is not enough to
speak of a liturgy which sides with the oppressed (Power) but this must be
embodied in the liturgy itself.
So even horizontal symbolic actions can make powerful statements and
have a strong impact on the worship experience say some feminist
theologians. But how might we see
the relevance of symbol theory amongst our own right-brained emerging
generation? Even in the Protestant north people are beginning to appreciate worship that involves touch, sight,
feel – and that somehow these activities bring them into encounter with God.
That is why walking the labyrinthe,
prayer stations and the like are making such an impact.
I want to close by simply offering some material which I think would be
of great value in terms of these different pastoral disciplines. For All Age worship and All Age talks
I’d suggest a number of books which have a high percentage of truly relevant
talks.
Religious Education and
Pedagogy
Michael Botting – 50 Talks for
All Age services
Peter Graystone and Eileen Turner: A Church
for All Ages: A Practical Approach to All Age Worship (Paperback)
Chris
Chesterton – 77 Talks for 21st
Century Kids
Chris
Chesterton and Stephen Ward – 77 Talks
for Cyberspace Kids
Steve Maltz
– 77 Talks for Bored-Again Teenagers
For Pastoral Care and Psychology
Eugene
Kennedy – On Becoming a Counsellor: a
basic guide for non-professional counsellors
Gary R
Collins – Christian counselling: a
complete guide
Roger F
Hurding – Roots and Shoots: a guide to
counselling and psychotherapy
Homiletics and Rhetoric
Aristotle – The Art of Rhetoric
Haddon
Robinson, Bill Hybels, Stuart Briscoe – Mastering
Contemporary Preaching
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