The Summary of the Art of Theological Reflection by John Deere
When trying to make good use of writings that stand at a great distance from us–whether because they come from long ago or from beyond the boundaries of cultures, we need some guidelines, some sense of how nosotros might go near it. We pick up a patristic theologian, say John Chrysostom, and observe his manner of writing challenging, or his concepts also foreign to make immediate sense. It is far too easy to confuse "critical thinking" with dismissive criticism.
The showtime job is to become some context, fifty-fifty as minimally every bit finding out when and where he lived, the kinds of things he wrote, and what his influence has been.
The second is to keep reading long enough to movement across the first painful meet with an ancient rhetorical style or cumbersome a Victorian era translation. (I remember well a seminar in which I had students spend two or 3 weeks on each of several major patristic figures. The commencement calendar week: Loathing and rejection. Second calendar week: "Hmm, maybe this guy has something to say." 3rd calendar week: "I love this–Can't we spend only a few more weeks on information technology?" Then the same cycle with the next writer.)
But once nosotros can read such a writer easily or enjoyably, we yet need some manner to brand use of it–an approach that does not atomic number 82 u.s.a. to either turn down the ideas as foreign and dated, or to elevate the past beyond reason and think that our own context and experience must be incorrect.
For this a useful model is institute inThe Art of Theological Reflection past Patricia O'Connell Killen and John de Beer (New York: Crossroad, 1994). The process they described can sound rather also programmatic. It describes piece of work the authors did over many years in their particular international ministry preparation contexts. But fifty-fifty if ane does not want to take on what they describe every bit a process or program, they offer a needed perspective: some convictions to keep hold of, rather than steps to walk through.
The nugget of this is found in a venn diagram which my computer skills practise non allow me to reproduce. I'll describe it instead. One circumvolve is "experience" pregnant the full cocky of the person engaging in theological reflection. The second circle is labeled "tradition" pregnant the content of the Christian faith, and for our purposes it is the religion equally found in the writings of the greats of past eras. The place the two circles overlap is what they telephone call "theological reflection."
Stand in "tradition" without overlapping into experience and y'all go the dogmatism they call the "standpoint of certitude." Everything is evaluated in terms of the points of view nosotros held before nosotros started. Faith, or ministry building, or theology all get forced into the pre-existing mold like playdough pushed through a "fun factory." Tradition here can take in a great deal, only in evangelical bumper sticker linguistic communication that is "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." The gamble is that we are so certain that even God cannot shake u.s.a. into growth and change.
On the other hand, stand entirely in "experience" without the part that overlaps the tradition we evaluate all things by our ain little selves. No credence is given to voices exterior ourselves, whether they be the voices of Prophets and Apostles, or their lesser servants similar Chrysostom. Measuring ideas, including theological teachings, by whether they make sense to us personally is quite pop today, but information technology should not be confused with theological reflection.
The authors point out that these two problematic stances are so mutual today as to dominate the conversation. That means nosotros need something else–a way to discuss the Christian faith, its teachings, its teachers, its practices and priorities–that brings the existent us into conversation with the real faith and faithfulness of the larger church building. Authentic theological reflection "invites us to befriend our Christian heritage, our lived experience, our civilization, and our contemporary faith community as conversation partners on the journey of faith." (p. three)
The authors suggest we take a tertiary opinion, within the overlap of experience and tradition. They call information technology "exploration." It will require genuine cocky-cognition, to allow us to stand up somewhere equally we look at tradition. It will require there to be a tradition, with a respected voice, to question or assert our personal experience. But if we live in that place where tradition and experience are in active chat, we tin can profit enormously.
At that place is much more to the process, and much of what follows in the book is intended to help one be more acutely and accurately aware of the experience part of the venn diagram described above. If experience is to be a part of the conversation (not an authority to counterbalance alongside Scripture or to define truth, but a genuine part of the conversation) then we demand to spark or nurture awareness of several aspects of experience–the things that happen, the feelings within united states, the stories and metaphors we use to describe our experience, the actions nosotros accept. We come to know what our experience is, including where we stand up, the culture we stand within.
The chore here is to observe ways to take the other circle with equal seriousness. It takes some discernment in a Protestant context where the default position on "tradition" is to heighten up the Reformation slogan of "Scripture alone". Only fifty-fifty reforming theologians like John Calvin weighed voices of the tradition very heavily. Calvin was in constant dialogue with Chrysostom, lauding his exegesis and regretting points of his theology. Even more than often he was engaged with Augustine, lauding his theology and regretting his exegesis.
Perhaps it is too simplistic to say, but the task today starts by reading the tradition. Nosotros bring ourselves as honestly as we can, and nosotros invite the great figures of the past with equally much agreement every bit we can find. Then nosotros alive in the place of overlap, set up to seek wisdom for now and the futurity as servants of Christ.
Source: https://garynealhansen.com/on-the-art-of-theological-reflection/
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