Theological Reflection: Methods: 2nd Edition

Theological Reflection

Methods

Second Edition

Elaine Graham, Heather Walton and Frances Ward with Katja Stuerzenhofecker

© Elaine Graham, Heather Walton and Frances Ward 2019

Published in 2019 by SCM Press

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Unless otherwise stated, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission.

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Contents

About the Authors

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction

1. ‘Theology by Heart’: The Living Human Document

2. ‘Speaking in Parables’: Constructive Narrative Theology

3. ‘Telling God’s Story’: Canonical Narrative Theology

4. ‘Writing the Body of Christ’: Corporate Theological Reflection

5. ‘Speaking of God in Public’: Correlation

6. ‘Theology-in-Action’: Praxis

7. ‘Theology in the Vernacular’: Contextual Theologies

Bibliography

About the Authors

Elaine Graham is Grosvenor Research Professor of Practical Theology at the University of Chester. She is the author of Making the Difference: Gender, Personhood and Theology (1995), Transforming Practice (2nd edition, 2002), Words Made Flesh: Writings in Pastoral and Practical Theology (2009), 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 (2017). She has edited a number of volumes, including (with Margaret Halsey), Life-Cycles: Women and Pastoral Care (1993) and (with Christopher Baker), Theology for Changing Times: Essays in Honour of John Atherton (2018).

Heather Walton is Professor of Theology and Creative Practice in the School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow, and Director of its Professional Doctorate in Practical Theology. Her publications include A Tree God Planted: Black People in British Methodism (1985), Literature, Theology and Feminism (2007), Imagining Theology: Women, Writing and God (2007), Writing Methods in Theological Reflection (2014), Not Eden: Spiritual Life Writing for this World (2015) and, with Elaine Graham, Zoe Bennett and Stephen Pattison, Invitation to Research in Practical Theology (2018).

Frances Ward is a freelance theologian and Anglican priest, living in Workington, Cumbria. From 2010 to 2017 she was Dean of St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Suffolk, and from 2006 to 2010 a Residentiary Canon at Bradford Cathedral. She previously worked in theological education and parish ministry. Her publications include Lifelong Learning: Theological Education and Supervision (2005), Fear and Friendship: Anglicans Engaging with Islam (with Sarah Coakley, 2011); Why Rousseau was Wrong: Christianity and the Secular Soul (2013) and Full of Character: A Christian Approach to Education for the Digital Age (2019). Frances blogs at larkrisetoskipton.com.

Katja Stuerzenhofecker (Editorial Assistant) is Lecturer in Gender Studies in Religion at the University of Manchester.

Preface to the Second Edition

To be invited to prepare a second edition of a book is a privilege. It presents new opportunities as well as challenging responsibilities. We are aware that since it was first published, Theological Reflection: Methods has been widely adopted around the world and has become a staple text for many teachers and students, especially those in theological education. So the first challenge is to retain the qualities that have proved attractive and useful to those generations of readers and then to revise the book in ways that enable it to remain at the forefront of the discipline. Can we possibly do justice to developments in the theory and pedagogy of theological education and reflection over this period? How do we take account of the continued growth and diversification of practical theological scholarship? Are we able to correct any omissions and imbalances from last time in terms of genres or traditions of theological literature?

Well, we have had to remind ourselves that we are revising the first edition of a work and not writing an entirely new book. So readers of the first edition will find much that remains largely the same: seven methods of theological reflection, presented according to a common structure and proceeding from biblical and patristic literature, through Christian history to contemporary examples. Each of our seven types is built around the belief that theological reflection is essentially a practical task, in two key respects. First, it proceeds from, and returns to, the problematics of faithful discipleship. Second, theological reflection is itself a practice, mediated and embodied, as our methods reveal, through activities such as social action, writing, praying, caring, worshipping, preaching and living in community. This new edition, then, maintains at its core the claim that theological reflection arises from and informs the threefold task of nurturing Christian identity, forming the body of Christ and communicating the gospel to the wider world.

One small change we have decided to make, however, is a minor but significant amendment to one chapter title. Chapter 7 is now ‘Theology in the Vernacular: Contextual Theologies’. This change reflects our feeling that while the term ‘local theologies’ has very particular provenance in the work of Robert Schreiter (see pp. 233–6 below), it is more appropriate to refer to this method as ‘contextual’. This reflects a recognition that the characteristics that distinguish any particular cultural expression may well derive from a geographical place, but might equally be rooted in the idioms and world views of an oppressed or marginalized community, or, increasingly, reflect the way in which theological discourse is mediated through popular culture or virtual technologies. To think of these environments as ‘local’ is too restrictive when they have transformed our consciousness of theological reflection as having diverse and global proportions. Similarly, while in recent years some writers (Astley, 2002) have advanced the notion of ‘Ordinary Theology’ – meaning that expressed by those beyond limited academic or ecclesiastical settings, often utilizing terms drawn from everyday life – we have chosen to retain the terminology of ‘popular’ and ‘vernacular’ as our way of affirming the significance of non-elite forms of theological expression.

Some reviewers of the first edition questioned our choice of the language of ‘methods’ of theological reflection when it seemed, to them, that the terminology of ‘models’ was closer to the structure and content of the book, especially given our use of Weberian ‘ideal types’ and references to work such as Avery Dulles’ Models of the Church (1974; see Graham, Walton and Ward, 2005, p. 12). We stand by our decision to continue using ‘methods’, however, for a number of reasons. Although the seven methods are to a large degree idealized constructs, we do not advance them as abstract theoretical models or types with little or no moorings in historical or cultural context. Quite the opposite; we want to show the threads of continuity that run through different eras, but without suggesting that any particular instance has to conform to predetermined norms. As we said in our original Introduction (and reproduced again in this edition), our illustrative examples are to be treated more as ‘snapshots’ of evolving traditions – to be read as living genealogies of affinity and creative change. They are to be used heuristically, not prescriptively; and the important thing is to invite you, the reader, to locate yourself and your own theological roots somewhere within these clusters of family resemblances.

We celebrate the fact that since this book was first published the discipline of practical theology continues to grow. As we reread and discussed the book again together, we became aware of how much of our choice of literature in the first edition inevitably reflected the kind of work we ourselves were teaching and reading at the time. But, of course, we have all continued to read, research, teach and write. We have been exposed to new interests and influences, some of which will be evident as you read this revised edition.

For example, we are more aware of the global scope of scholarship in this field, and have ourselves played a part on this larger stage. Elaine and Heather have both served as Presidents of the International Academy of Practical Theology, from 2005 to 2007 and from 2015 to 2017 respectively. We have tried to reflect some of that changing canvas in the literature represented in the section of each chapter entitled ‘The method realized’ in which we discuss new, contemporary examples of each method.

Those familiar with the first edition will also see that we have dropped one of the closing sections of each chapter, entitled ‘Further questions’. This is in part to give more space to do justice to contemporary primary literature and to encourage you to read beyond the boundaries of this text into new and creative territory. We do not want this book to be the last theological work you ever read, and we certainly don’t want the burden of having the last word!

While we hope that readers will – and we know they do – use this book to aid them in their own projects of theological reflection on practice, this is not a manual or workbook, as if theological reflection could be done to order according to one (or several) standard procedures. Theological reflection is not a production line that, if the right ingredients – texts, images, ‘experiences’ – are added in the correct order, will guarantee the manufacture of the right theological answer or pastoral strategy. Rather, we are trying to show the structure and internal logic of different ways of doing theology in ways that honour a diversity of traditions and approaches, and above all issuing an invitation to you to join in.

Finally, we would like to thank all those of you who read the first edition and are coming back for more; all those of our colleagues and students, past and present, who have adopted this book for their own teaching and research; and to SCM Press for their continuing support. We are also grateful to our research assistant on this project, Dr Katja Stuerzenhofecker, who researched many suggestions for new material and helped with technical production.

Frances Ward

Heather Walton

Elaine Graham

Introduction

Method or mystique?

Students and teachers in adult theological education, ministerial formation and the twin disciplines of pastoral studies and practical theology have become familiar over the past two decades with the frequently used phrase ‘theological reflection’. A sizable literature has developed in this area of work, reflecting a growing body of research and teaching material (Bass, Cahalan, Miller-McLemore, Nieman and Scharen, 2016: Bennett, Graham, Pattison and Walton, 2018; Cameron et al., 2010; Cahalan and Mikoski, 2014; Patton, 1990; Swinton and Mowat, 2016; Thompson, Pattison and Thompson, 2008; Walton, 2014). Prevailing understandings and expectations have consolidated to the stage that practitioners in various contexts – seminaries, universities and local churches – now have a range of pedagogical techniques and resources to use as they reflect theologically.

So why another book on the subject? And why have we felt it necessary to issue a second edition? Our argument – and, correspondingly, our intention in writing and revising this volume – is that the reality frequently does not fit the rhetoric. Theological reflection is easier said than done. The expectation within many parts of the theological curriculum for students to ‘reflect theologically’ frequently suffers from lack of clarity and rigour. Those undertaking theological reflection are often focused on the immediate imperatives of ministry, and proceed with no clear idea of how traditional Christian sources such as Scripture are to be handled or how to integrate their reflection with other fields of scholarship such as biblical studies, systematic theology and the history of Christianity. Received understandings of theological reflection are largely under-theorized and narrow, and too often fail to connect adequately with biblical, historical and systematic scholarship. Our hope is that this book will address some of these deficiencies, and enable readers to engage in patterns of theological reflection that are richer in the sources from which they draw, more diverse in their knowledge base, more rigorous, creative and imaginative. Our desire is that those undertaking theological reflection today may gain confidence and insight from the realization that what they do is a perennial and indispensable part of the history of Christianity.

In this book, we argue that ‘theological reflection’ is not a novel or exceptional activity. Rather, it has constituted Christian thought and practice from its very beginnings. Theological discourse – literally ‘talk about God’ – developed out of specific circumstances to resolve particular demands experienced by the earliest Christian communities. The threefold task of facilitating Christian nurture, of describing the normative ethos and contours of the faithful community and of engaging in dialogue and apologetics to the wider world constitutes theology as a form of ‘practical wisdom’ within which faithful discipleship is shaped. Addressing the three practical questions of nurture, identity and mission, Christians have turned to the sources of their faith, such as Scripture, experience, church practice and cultural information, for guidance to discern what authentic life in Christ might be. Fundamentally, theological reflection arises from practical discipleship. It serves to articulate the nature of faithful identity; it offers foundations for moral reasoning; and it offers strategies for engaging with those who hold different world views.

From ‘applied theology’ to ‘theological reflection’

Over the past 40 years, the identity of practical theology has been subject to considerable revision. This period has seen a shift from a discipline that regarded itself as supplying practical training for the ordained ministry, often within a clinical or therapeutic context, to one that understands (practical) theology as critical reflection on faithful practice in a variety of settings. This is about a move, therefore, from ‘applied theology’ to a ‘theology of practice’ – or, as Pattison and Lynch have put it, ‘from hints and helps to hermeneutics’ (2005, p. 408). This puts the focus of attention within practical theology on the relationship between religious practices and ways of life and the traditions, doctrines and truth-claims that inform and inspire them.

Yet this recent realignment itself takes place at the end of a long history of differing conceptions of the relationship between the practice of Christian ministry and theological discourse. The practice of pastoral care and the exercise of ministry are activities both ancient and modern, linking the earliest gathered Christian communities to the present-day context. Yet they continue to be vigorously debated. Perhaps we can usefully divide the history of pastoral/practical theology into six broad historical periods:

The earliest development, during a period extending over the first two centuries of Christianity, of caring within Christian communities where members were inspired by a concern to build up one another in the faith.

A process of increasing institutionalization of apostolic ministries and the regulation of individual and community care by clergy under the aegis of church authority. This period saw the emergence of ‘moral theology’ in which the practice of pastoral care was linked to sacramental ministries, a tradition that endures in much Roman Catholic pastoral theology to this day.

The post-Enlightenment systematization of theological inquiry into the discipline of ‘applied’ theology, represented by the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher in establishing a particular area known as Praktische Theologie or ‘practical theology’ in the German academies of the eighteenth century.

The rise of professionalism and secularism at the beginning of the twentieth century, resulting in the further ‘professionalization’ of the clergy.

A turn to secular sources of therapeutic knowledge, especially modern psychologies and their corresponding clinical applications. This emphasis came to predominate in the training for ordained ministry in the West during the second half of the twentieth century.

The questioning of the ‘psychological’ and ‘clerical’ paradigms and new directions in the theory and practice of Christian caring. This entailed a transition from a therapeutic to a hermeneutic model of pastoral engagement in which the activity of theological reflection assumes centre stage. The focus shifted to ‘the way in which the faith of the church works out in practice in the world and raises questions about what it sees, addressing them back to theology’ (Tidball, 1995, p. 42).

Phase 6 reflects a number of developments in academic theology, the life of the churches and wider society, which have transformed the theological curriculum. Following the systematization of Christian theology in German universities (phase 3 above), academic theology was conventionally divided into sub-disciplines. Schleiermacher advanced a threefold structure of ‘philosophical’, ‘historical’ and ‘practical’ theologies. This gave rise to a hierarchy of knowledge in which a clear distinction was made between ‘systematic’ and ‘applied’ or pastoral theologies, with the latter as the ‘hints and helps’ of pastoralia in the service of the Church. In this way of thinking, pastoral care and Christian ministry were not regarded as generative of theological insight, but were merely applications of truth found within systematic theology.

This model of ‘applied theology’ gradually developed into an altogether more integrated and dialogical relationship between the practice of ministry and the resources of theological understanding. One factor was the reappraisal of the status and role of the laity in many of the major Christian traditions during the second half of the twentieth century. For Protestants and Roman Catholics alike, a recovery of the Lutheran maxim of the ‘priesthood of all believers’, and the reclamation of Christian vocation as the task of the whole Church, signalled a realignment of the nature of ministry. Baptism, not ordination, came to be seen as the most important sacrament of ministry. Ministry was no longer solely equated with the activities of the clergy, but rather became something exercised by the whole people of God, in church and world. Theological education responded by realigning itself away from what Edward Farley (1983, p. 127; see also Miller-McLemore, 2007) termed the ‘clerical paradigm’ – a curriculum dominated by the activities of ordained ministry – towards patterns of learning and teaching that aimed to foster the discipleship of the whole people of God, lay and ordained.

Theologies of liberation, similarly, introduced the Western discipline of practical theology to the notions of the ‘theology of experience’ and of ‘theologies from below’. Although the chief impact of liberation theologies is often thought to be the way they politicized the churches, there is also a sense in which they have served to ‘democratize’ theology as the ‘work of the people’, in an effort to return it to those on the ‘underside of history’ whose voices and perspectives were formerly neglected. The history of the basic ecclesial communities, informed by the pedagogy of Paulo Freire, provided an educational model to facilitate this process (see Chapter 6). As a result, a more integrated, inductive approach to theology has developed that refuses any separation between ‘theory’ (or systematic theology) and ‘practice’ (or pastoral studies). Greater critical attention is also directed towards the question of agents and authors of theological discourse, and the purpose of theology as a body of knowledge (Chopp, 1995; Bass et al., 2016). Such theologies of experience ask: who ‘does’ theology? What are the ends of theological reflection? What use is theology?

And finally, much of formal training for accredited ministry has shifted from educational models focusing on the practical functions of ministerial activity – sometimes known in the past as ‘pastoralia’ – towards pedagogical methods aimed at the formation of ‘reflective practitioners’. The influential work of writers like Donald Schön (1930–97) on professional identity has resonated with anxiety within the churches concerning appropriate roles for ordained leaders within the contemporary context. Schön identifies what he terms ‘the crisis of the professions’, by which he means an erosion of public trust in the authority of experts, a suspicion of abuse of professional power, and a questioning of technocratic expertise:

The crisis of confidence in the professions, and perhaps also the decline in professional self-image, seems to be rooted in a growing skepticism about professional effectiveness in the larger sense … But it also hinges centrally on the question of professional knowledge. Is professional knowledge adequate to fulfil the espoused purposes of the professions? (Schön, 1983, p. 13)

Schön also points to ‘the redundancy of technical rationality’. Instead of displaying theoretical knowledge, professionals must now demonstrate an ability to respond with flexibility to situations of change and flux. They need to be proactive learners and risk-takers. Practitioners must ‘move into the center of the learning situation, into the center of their own doubts’ (Schön, 1987, p. 83). Professional learning and knowledge-gathering need to become processes of ‘reflection-in-action’.

Schön argues for a distinctive epistemology of practice that will best facilitate professional practice and development. The reflective practitioner’s expertise is somewhat different from technical rationality and scientific precision. It is reflexive, problem-based, intuitive and synthetic. Knowledge and expertise are inductive and generated from the inside out, rather than deductively, or outside in. This requires the practitioner to ‘act in order to see what the action leads to’ (1983, p. 145). In this frame, expertise is articulated in relation to a particular field of practice and is therefore always contextual and contingent on that situation. Action and reflection are intertwined. Theory cannot be distilled from practice. Once more, then, we see a drift away from ‘applied’ models of understanding in favour of epistemologies that are contextual, implicit and problem-based.

Other educational thinking in the West has stimulated interest in the way adult learners use ‘experience’ as at the root of critical understanding leading to action. For example, David Kolb’s model of experiential learning emphasizes the importance of starting from experience and reflecting on practical contexts of engagement, rather than beginning with abstract principles. He characterizes education as a process with four stages: experience, reflection, conceptualization and experimentation. Kolb describes a cyclical movement in which a concrete situation or experience generates observation and reflection, which is then tested out in the context of revised practice (Kolb, 1984).

As a result of these various trends, Christian ministry may be understood less in terms of the application of specific expertise and more about facilitating the vocation of all Christians through processes of understanding, analysing and reflecting. The purpose of theological education, therefore, is to equip people with skills and strategies to enable them to reflect theologically. There is a renewed emphasis on experiential learning and on the agenda for learning coming from the learner – from the dilemmas and questions generated by the practice of ministry. Theology emerges as an inductive, practical and problem-centred pursuit, which addresses the challenges of everyday life in order to illuminate and empower. It also emerges as a way of reflection that draws on other disciplines in its analysis of experience in order to do justice to the complexity of any given situation.¹

Theological reflection outlined

All of these movements have had an impact on the theological curriculum. Theological discourse is now seen as process rather than product. Rather than the discipline of church management, or training in the therapeutic skills of pastoral care, the field of practical theology is now understood as centred upon ‘the life of the whole people of God in the variety of its witness and service, as it lives in and for the world. It asks questions concerning Christian understanding, insight and obedience in the concrete reality of our existence’ (Ballard and Pritchard, 1996, p. 27). In other words, theological reflection is an activity that enables people of faith to give an account of the values and traditions that underpin their choices and convictions and deepen their understanding. Theological reflection enables the connections between human dilemmas and divine horizons to be explored, drawing on a wide range of academic disciplines including social sciences, psychotherapeutic and medical disciplines and the arts.

At the heart of theological reflection, therefore, are questions about the relationship of theory to practice, and how to connect theological discourse about the nature of God to the exercise of faith. This is an endeavour shared by laity and clergy: Christian practice is not simply about the duties of congregational ministry but the entire life and witness of the Church. It is predominantly a critical, interrogative enquiry into the process of relating the resources of faith to the issues of life. The exercise of theological reflection is thus one ‘in which pastoral experience serves as a context for critical development of basic theological understanding’ (Burck and Hunter, 1990, p. 867).

The limitations of theological reflection

The growth of popularity of theological reflection is evident from its ubiquity within the theological curricula of seminaries and universities. Yet in other ways its widespread adoption has had little impact, if research is to be believed. The exercise of theological reflection seems to have provoked as much bafflement as illumination for at least three decades. As far back as the mid-1980s, Lewis Mudge and James Poling from the United States suggested that programmes that purported to enable Christians to engage in theological reflection were often ill resourced and poorly designed. In reality, they argued, few congregations were given the resources to think intelligently about their faith. Despite references to theology as ‘the work of the people of God’,

any pastor knows that if a typical congregation of Christian people is simply told to go and ‘do theology’, what will come out will be a mishmash of favorite scripture verses quoted out of context, superstitions, fragments of civil religion, vague memories of poorly taught Sunday-school lessons of long ago, and the like. Not an inspiring picture. (Mudge and Poling, 1987, p. xiv)

Mudge and Poling’s argument is prescient and important, and has been echoed by subsequent commentators (R. Walton, 2003; Pattison, Thompson and Green, 2003). A survey of ordinands in the UK about their experience of theological reflection on their courses recorded that many experience the process as ‘mystifying, alienating and non-specific rather than relevant or accessible’ (Pattison, Thompson and Green, 2003, p. 123). They continue:

While professional theological educators see TR as the jewel in their disciplinary crown, a good number of their students regard this activity as an irritating and inhibiting pebble in the ministerial shoe, to be discarded as quickly as possible once pre-ordination training is completed. (2003, p. 127)

Some innovations represent a degree of progress, such as the use of enquiry-based learning with ordinands (Smith, 2008; Heywood, 2009). This suggests that participants have a stronger sense of purpose and motivation when theological reflection is introduced as an inductive, problem-solving exercise rather than simply an abstract convolution. Overall, however, successful and effective learning and teaching for reflective discipleship founded on rigorous use of theological tradition and analysis of experience does not happen by accident but by design. In a memorable image, Stephen Pattison has observed that, when exhorted to ‘theologically reflect’, theological students are essentially being asked to manufacture bricks without straw (Exodus 5.16), in that the resources or guidelines provided are meagre and often misleading (Pattison, 2000). Once again, it is assumed that theological reflection comes naturally, with little preparation or grounding in appropriate sources, procedures and norms.

This is not intended to deny or undervalue those who have worked over the years to provide stimulating resources for those engaged in the endeavours of theological reflection. In fact, we hope that since its initial publication this book has provided a framework for theological educators wishing to overcome resistance and incomprehension in the classroom. Nevertheless, problems remain, and progress is still hindered by the following obstacles:

Theological reflection is often weak in its use of traditional Christian sources. Practical theology often has an uneasy relationship with the study of the Bible, as Roger Walton discovered (Walton, 2003). He conducted a survey on the use of the Bible in theological reflection among selected institutions and commented on the ‘paucity or complete absence of guidelines on how the Bible and Christian tradition are to be used in theological reflection’ (2003, p. 135).

The analysis of local contexts and socio-economic factors, which theological reflection frequently requires, is often more accomplished than engagement with church history, doctrine and the Bible. This is because patterns of theological reflection in theological colleges, courses and seminaries are rarely integrated within the curriculum with the study of systematic, historical and biblical disciplines. Pastoral studies is left to deal with practical ministry and contextual analysis, with the imperative to reflect theologically (and often somewhat descriptively) in the context of a field-based placement in a congregation or local neighbourhood while the serious, critical academic theological curriculum continues uninterrupted back at college.

The activity of theological reflection, as well as being seen as something that happens ‘in practice’ and on the more ‘experiential’ frontier of ministerial formation, is also often viewed as a contemporary novelty: a new-fangled concession to fashionable theories of student-centred learning, but essentially unrelated to the processes of theological formulation in the classic Christian tradition.

This book asks what might need to happen for this state of affairs to change. What if, for example, theologians and educators started to teach their biblical criticism, their historical and systematic theology contextually? What if all theology were approached as if it were practical theology? What if we could reclaim the project of ‘theological reflection’ as something that has been fundamental to the evolution of Christian thought and tradition from the very beginning? It might mean, for example, that theological enquiry would be seen as something generated by problematics, dilemmas, contexts, practical tasks. The process of theological formulation would become one of making creative use of available thought forms and concepts – contemporary and inherited. ‘Talk about God’ would be recognized as a human activity intending to bring practical perspectives faithfully into critical and creative interplay with divine horizons. Theology would be conceived as a kind of ‘practical wisdom’ (or phronēsis), which means having the wisdom to live well, reflecting on practice and learning from it. The practice of theology would be a disciplined reflection, providing indicative models of understanding how talk about God emerges from human experience and questions. Attention to the world around, to the contexts of life and worship and pastoral care would be an integral part of theological reflection, involving careful use of disciplines such as ethnography, the wisdom of insight gained from wider reading, and awareness of the practices of prayer and contemplation.

Recontextualizing the history of Christian doctrine

So far, we have argued that practical theology should have the status of a primary theological discipline because of its roots in concrete human dilemmas and the way it requires practical responses from people of faith. Interestingly, voices from systematic and historical theology now also make a similar case. For Ellen Charry, for example, the history of Christian doctrine has found its origins in practical purposes from its very beginnings. For her, Christian doctrine emerges from an ethics of character formation designed to shape lives that were centred on understanding and knowing God:

The theologians who shaped the tradition believed that God was working with us to teach us something, to get our attention through the Christian story, including those elements of the story that make the least sense to us. They were interested in forming us as excellent persons. Christian doctrines aim to be good for us by forming or reforming our character; they aim to be salutary. They seek to form excellent persons with God as the model, and this in a quite literal sense, not as metaphors pointing to universal truths of human experience that lie beyond events themselves. In other words, I came to see that the great theologians of the past were also moralists in the best sense of the term. They were striving not only to articulate