{"id":284,"date":"2009-03-22T12:03:52","date_gmt":"2009-03-22T12:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/what-is-practical-theology-par-2.html"},"modified":"2009-03-22T12:03:52","modified_gmt":"2009-03-22T12:03:52","slug":"what-is-practical-theology-par-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/what-is-practical-theology-par-2.html","title":{"rendered":"What Is Practical Theology? Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

Practical Theology is a self-consciously hermeneutical <\/span>enterprise. Now, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I think that all of life<\/span>
\nis, essentially, a hermeneutical endeavor. Each of us is an
\ninterpreter, of our surroundings, our traditions, our conversations,
\nthe media we engage, etc. In the words of one philosopher,
\n“Interpretation goes all the way down and all the way back up.”<\/p>\n

PT engages hermeneutical theory constantly, especially in an effort
\nto mediate between the empirical-descriptive moment (as described
\nbelow), and the normative theological moment (to be described in the
\nnext post). Thus, with a hermeneutical understanding, practical
\ntheologians will work with an interdisciplinary “dialogue partner,”
\nlike a particular school of thought in psychology, sociology, social
\ntheory, political science, etc.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For example, for my dissertation, I am performing an in-depth field
\nstudy on eight “emerging church” congregations. Using a method of
\nphenomenological research, I’m using focus groups, one-on-one
\ninterviews, participant-observation in the worship setting, and a
\ncongregation-wide census survey to uncover the core practices in each
\ncongregation.<\/p>\n

However, all of this data will do me no good without an adequate
\ninterpretation – it’ll be nothing but a group of numbers and hours of
\ntranscriptions without my analysis. And the way I will analyze the data
\nis to put it in the context of recent work in the sociology of American
\nreligion. Using tools like the National Congregations Survey (1998) and
\nanalysis by sociologists like Chris Smith and Robert Wuthnow, I hope to
\nshow how these congregations are similar to and different than other
\ncongregations on the American landscape. In other words: Where do these
\nemerging congregations fit in the ecology of American congregations?<\/p>\n

So that’s the essence of the interpretive moment of PT, and it also
\nshows again how important it is for the practical theologian to have a
\nsophisticated theory of interdisciplinarity.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Practical Theology is a self-consciously hermeneutical enterprise. Now, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I think that all of life is, essentially, a hermeneutical endeavor. Each of us is an interpreter, of our surroundings, our traditions, our conversations, the media we engage, etc. In the words of one philosopher, “Interpretation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Is Practical Theology? Part Three - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/what-is-practical-theology-par-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Is Practical Theology? Part Three - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Practical Theology is a self-consciously hermeneutical enterprise. Now, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I think that all of life is, essentially, a hermeneutical endeavor. 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