Graham Stacey » MTh Applied Theology

My last essay for part one MTh: An emerging theology of mission

Graham Stacey — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:08:10 +0000

During the summers of 2002-05 I was leading a team that established a summer event youth cafe in Hazlemere, High Wycombe: called Fresh Cafe.Some of the agenda for that first cafe was to have no evangelistic content, despite there being about 40% non-church-attending attendance. God had some slightly different agenda and out of going with what God was doing a theology of mission emerged that was quite different than what we had experienced and yet strangely familiar to our theological convictions.But before we get on to what emerged I need to explore where we were at the beginning, which brings me to my first question.Jason Clark bloged [back in September] about Salvation and Spiritual Formation in which he distinguished two approaches: Creation-Fall-Redmeption and Creation-Incarnation-Recreation.The first goes like thisCreation: God made the world; it was ‘perfect’ (perfection being a greek idea of static purity)Fall: humans fell, from this state of perfection.Redemption: and need salvation or redemption to a higher order of being (back to perfection).So my question is, if you know or use this framework, what are your influences? Where are your sources and how do you use them?I would be very grateful if you have a moment to comment.

I am known therefore I am

Graham Stacey — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:20:16 +0000

We know very little about most people with whom we interact in life, and the few things we do know about them we also find in others. Hence, they remain for us not much more than comparable bearers of those properties. It is therefore difficult for us to treat them consistently as irreplaceable persons. They are for us no more than partners in a tacit agreement of rights and obligations in which they become for us mere replaceable means for serving our own ends. Page 33

Archbishop Romero

Graham Stacey — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 15:35:12 +0000

As a MTh group we were encouraged to watch the video Romero, which is the story of the conscientisation of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador.
Basically â€“ we canâ€™t appreciate how easy we have it!

Elaine Graham – brilliant

Graham Stacey — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 19:55:00 +0000

Went to hear Elaine Graham (prof of Social and Pastoral Theology at the University of Manchester) at Regents park Tuesday night talking about her recent book co written with Heather Walton and Francis Ward.

She was brilliant and was very fair in her presentation about where her thoughts were and where the limitations and the lacking in her thoughts were. Apart from that she described (almost) exactly what I (am many others i’m sure) have and are doing at the cutting edge of leadership in church life.

Essentially – what is theology if it is not doing it! What is pure theology? does it exists? Surely theology is talk about GOD at the point where it really matters – in real lives.

In suggesting we reclaim ancient and traditional focus of formation of character and community identity ‘pastoral / practical / applied theology’ is put back in the driving seat of theologcal education.

I will try and put post a link to my notes later

What is ‘Applied Theology’?

Graham Stacey — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 14:48:00 +0000

A choice question since this is the title of the MTh I am currently reading for!!

But not so obvious as it seems at first…

Surely there is no such thing as ‘pure’ theology – is there! Can we really talk about GOD outside of our interpretive cultural framework of time, language, space, hope? I don’t think so. But if that is the case then is all theology ‘applied’ in the sense that it is what we say today.

My first systematic theology lecturer had a phrase – ‘all theological statements are interim statements’. What I say today might be different tomorrow, but on what criteria are they allowed to change. Just because I feel good today and bad / depressed tomorrow does that mean I can change my theology? Just because we are current in boom but when tomorrow comes we find ourselves in crash, does that mean we can change our theology?

What is the process of discerning our theology?