The doctrines of practical theology and the practice of doctrine: Re-imagining the relationship between practical theology and systematic theology 1

Abstract

Systematic theology is often the negative foil against which practical theology defines itself as a discipline. Practical theologians worry that systematic theology is committed to a detached objectivism and finality, and that it denies or resists the influence of context on Christian thought. It is argued here that amongst its best exponents, systematic theology has its own well-developed reasons against completion and finality, and that it shares a suspicion of contextually unaware rationality. Re-imagining the relationship between these two disciplines in a way that takes these observations into account requires the rejection of the common theory/practice account of the relationship. What is proposed here instead is an account of the relationship that understands both disciplines as ecclesial practices that each have their own – sometimes overlapping – responsibilities in the church’s collective ‘performance of the scriptures’ and in the development of the church’s ‘social imaginary’.