Theology for crisis: practical theology and the practice of giving an account

ABSTRACT

Practical theology has historically identified the problems that confront individuals and communities as a principal site for theological reflection and research. While such attention to the contextual concerns that confront communities of faith has (re)centred the field, reducing practical theology to reflection on problems underestimates the complexity of the crisis/es individuals and communities face. Secondarily, a limited focus on problems understates the field’s interpretive consequence by reducing practical theology to pragmatic reflection on the social realities that surround faith. In contrast to existing focus on problems, ‘crisis’ provides a category that permits social description and theological reflection about the interplay between divine and human activity in the ordering of a common life. Representing an experience of being brought up short, crisis requires new interpretive horizons and invites individuals and communities to cultivate the practice of giving an account. First, I introduce the crisis in the field as the reduction of theological reflection to problems alone. Second, I defined ‘crisis’, noting how crisis differs from trauma, tragedy, and characteristic damage. Third, and finally, I draw upon Luke-Acts to illustrate how this reframing of practical theology around crisis requires the practice of giving an account of divine and human encounter.

KEYWORDS:

• Crisis
• practice‌
• theological method
• Luke-Acts
• theological interpretation of scripture
• practical theology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Tatum Miller provided research support for this article.

2 There have been considerable developments in MacIntyre’s thought since 1977; however, I draw extensively on this essay because it frames McIntyre’s broader intellectual project—including After Virtue (1981), Three Rival Versions (1990), Dependent Rational Animals (1999), and Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (2016)—as a response to the epistemological crisis of modernity.

3 Herdt’s (2018) insightful review of MacIntyre’s work draws attention to the underdeveloped theological character of his account. Accordingly, the account that follows employs MacIntyre to diagnosis crisis, but then follows by describing the practice of giving an account.

4 Barth is characterised as presenting a theology of crisis. As he describes in his work on Romans (1968, 502–526), the crisis of human freedom, as made known in Christ, confronts individuals, with their absolute weakness apart from God, inviting a reversal of perceived structures of power. Barth concludes: ‘Christ is the Krisis of our freedom and detachment’ (526). Nevertheless, if theology requires working with words (Hauerwas 2011), and prepositions are a central feature of language, the distinction between a theology of crisis and theology for crisis has theological and normative consequences. Practical theology provides an avenue to develop a theology for crisis.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Lilly Endowment [grant number 2021 1146].

Notes on contributors

Dustin D. Benac

Dustin D. Benac (PhD, Duke University) is the Director and Co-founder of the Program for the Future Church at Baylor University.