WHEN you tell someone, normally on first introduction, that you simply are a practical theologian, there’s a a fifty-fifty probability that they’ll ask: “Isn’t that a contradiction?” The joke relies on an assumption shared by many individuals — of all faiths and none — that theology is an airy and other-worldly subject.
It is true that theology is a discipline of mysteries, but, while theologians will be philosophers and storytellers, also they are investigators. Theologians of every kind attempt to ask questions on God, creation, society, Church, self, and so forth, and to speak truthful answers in ways which might be useful and interesting for a way people think, live, and worship.
Whether or not we’re practical theologians, people of religion make practical and empirical claims on a regular basis, after we discuss what the world or the Church is like — or the way it must be. Consequently, our claims and questions are already certain up with empirical data in regards to the world which sciences of every kind investigate. What sort of practice helps people to wish, and the way effective are they? What might historical discoveries tell us in regards to the meaning of scripture today? How should Christians reply to AI? Ultimately, what might such answers tell us about God?
A GOOD investigator must be able to use the suitable tools for the job. This is the position that’s advocated as “science-engaged theology”. Of course, theology in dialogue with science has a protracted and winding history, and hostile encounters are likely to loom large in the general public imagination — like that of Galileo Galilei, when he was placed on trial by the Inquisition in Rome within the seventeenth century for supporting heliocentrism: the concept the solar system revolves across the sun.
Yet the history was at all times more nuanced than that. Over recent many years, increasingly more scholars have been nourishing positive public attention to the connection between religion and science: thinkers akin to Ian Barbour or Johannes van de Ven, for instance, or projects akin to “Christianity and Science in Conversation”.
The endeavour to call, explain, and advocate what specifically “science-engaged theology” involves has emerged much more recently. Two of the important thing drivers of that work are John Perry and Joanna Leidenhag, in conversation with a spread of other theologians, including Sarah Lane Ritchie and Andrew Davison.
As Perry and Leidenhag observe of their book Science-Engaged Theology, “Christians have kind of at all times seen the science of the day as a source for theology.” It is the increasing polarising of science and religion in modern times which turned that into something surprising, as if “science” versus “religion” stood for rationality versus magic. Perry and Leidenhag draw on Peter Harrison’s Gifford Lectures, delivered in 2010 and 2011 and by which he argued that this drained binary was anachronistic, and misrepresented each science and religion with terms that were too broad and poorly defined.
Perry and Leidenhag’s project has not been to define “science” or “religion” more sharply, but, reasonably, to take care of the entanglement of scientific and theological questions which was already evident. Science will not be being added to the 4 Wesleyan sources of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience; reasonably, they suggest that theologians should listen to the sort of claims and questions which we already form, and develop the habit of searching for out — and attending to — scientific studies, wherever they could shed light. Tackling what sciences can tell us in regards to the world is integral to our theology. In some ways, the technique of theological questioning will not be dissimilar to scientific method.
HERE, on the University of Birmingham, we now have taken this suggestion seriously by specializing in the resources of psychology more generally, and the psychology of faith more specifically. Over the past three years, we now have launched into a project to construct and support a worldwide network of students, of all profession stages, training them to take up psychological tools for theological questions. We called this programme the “Psychology Cross-Training for Theologians” project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Our goals were to develop researcher capability in, and the broader field of, “psychology-engaged theology” specifically.
Led by Dr Carissa Sharp, Associate Professor in Psychology of Religion on the University, this project began with the intuition that theology and psychology occupied similar ground of their person-centred concern for the self, society, and the way people understood and acted on their religious beliefs. We named two themes that would prove fruitful meeting points. The first was how people thought of and imagined divine realities; the second was the part played by religion in human flourishing in social relationships. What might such ideas, imaginings, and reflections on experience tell us about ourselves, communities, and God?
WE TOOK these inquiries to a world call for theologians to affix us as Programme Fellows, to participate in an 18-month training programme. Thirty theologians gathered, arriving from six continents. Each Fellow who joined the programme trained within the frameworks and methods of psychology, in addition to foundational research on their research theme, through a mixture of residential and online learning. Working with a psychologist as a mentor, they designed 12-month, small-grant research projects to realize practical experience in psychology-engaged theology research.
Our work became increasingly more exciting within the wildly different directions that the Fellows took: from the issue of evil to mystical experiences; from racism in churches to hope in diaspora communities; from reading the Bible in the sunshine of climate change to the ways by which perceptions of God’s character related to people’s personal aspirations; and from visual arts to martial arts, each as faith-inflected activities.
SUPPORTING these projects has been profoundly moving. Many of the Fellows have worked with groups that need particular support in spiritual and psychological ways: individuals with mental and developmental disability; individuals with various health concerns or needs; and folks who’ve experienced spiritual abuse. The contexts are as varied as Chile, Kenya, and Hong Kong.
Projects have produced progressive output, including amazing art exhibitions, podcasts, recent writing, and insights. Fellows have spoken in regards to the way by which the programme has modified their careers and research; and about their experience of cross-disciplinary hospitality and friendships formed between members of our global network. The result has been a supportive community of psychology-engaged theologians who’ve now “left the nest” and are independently pursuing recent research trajectories on this field.
LEAVING the perfect for last, we now hope to open up these ways of pondering and learning to a broader audience, by making a few of the original training materials public. An online course is now available — structured in order that it may well be dipped into, at a person’s own pace — freed from charge to any and all who could be all in favour of learning more in regards to the psychology of faith and psychology-engaged theology. We have also recorded a podcast series designed to offer evidence-based insights to spiritual practitioners akin to priests, pastors, chaplains, spiritual directors, and community leaders.
Our hope is that these resources will help to alert researchers and practitioners to the opportunities to strengthen their work through psychology-engaged theology, and likewise to support teachers in theological colleges and college classrooms, and community members and leaders. Today, when concerns of psychology are so often entangled with theological ideas and practices, listening to these insights into our communities of religion is an urgent and exciting prospect. You, too, will be a part of psychology-engaged theology.
Dr Amy Daughton is Associate Professor in Practical Theology on the University of Birmingham.
crosstrainingpsychologyandtheology.com/for-researchers
crosstrainingpsychologyandtheology.com/for-practitioners
