The human face of God: notes on a journey through practical theology

ABSTRACT

My contribution to the proceedings to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the formation of the British and Irish Association of Practical Theology focuses on an event that preceded BIAPT’s foundation by almost a decade: a conference entitled ‘The Human Face of God’, held at the University of Manchester in July 1986. I will argue that many of the seeds of 1994 were sown by that conference and were also evident in an article published three years earlier by its convenor, Professor Anthony Dyson (1936-98). It is possible to see how the issues addressed in Dyson’s article, reflected in the ambitions of the 1986 conference, served to shape the agenda for subsequent scholarship in practical theology and pastoral studies. This included issues such as the sources and norms of pastoral studies, the sociological, institutional and intellectual context in which it worked and issues of identity, including the challenge of feminism. The emphasis on ‘the human face of God’ as central to the concerns of this emerging discipline was foundational in shaping the disciplinary field and the community of learning we inhabit today.

KEYWORDS:

• Practical theology
• living human document
• personalism
• research methodology

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 By 1986 Dyson had launched a final-year undergraduate module in feminist theology, entitled ‘Women, Men and Christian Theology’ and was team-teaching it with Heather Walton and Myrtle Langley.

2 Seward Hiltner, for example, characterised the work of pastoral ministry as one of shepherding, communicating and organising (Hiltner 1958); but as activities or tasks to be carried out, and not the qualities or heroic acts of individual pastoral actors. Similarly, Alastair Campbell noted how shepherding functioned metaphorically, but only to evoke analogies with the qualities of God as embodying love, sacrifice, nurture and care for the vulnerable (Campbell 1981).

3 e.g. Pattison 2000; Stoddart 2014; Walton 2015.

4 See Walton 2015, Chapter 1: ‘Ancient Practice, New Purpose’.

5 Similar to Ideström and Kaufman’s subsequent delineation of practical theology as addressing issues of normativity, representation and reflexivity (2018, 30).

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Notes on contributors

Elaine Graham

Elaine Graham is Grosvenor Research Professor of Practical Theology at the University of Chester, a position she has held since 2009. In March 2014, she was installed as lay Canon Theologian at Chester Cathedral. She is the author of several major books, including Transforming Practice (1996), Representations of the Post-Human (2002) and Words Made Flesh (2009); with Heather Walton and Frances Ward, Theological Reflection: Methods (2nd Edition, 2019); with Zoe Bennett, Stephen Pattison and Heather Walton, Invitation to Research in Practical Theology (Routledge, 2018). Her most recent work considers public theology as a form of Christian apologetics: Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Public Theology in a Post-Secular Age (2013) and Apologetics without Apology: speaking of God in a world troubled by religion (Cascade, 2017).