Description
SUBTITLE: Doing Practical and Missional Theology in an African context
FORMAT: Book
PAGES: 252
SUMMARY: The Stellenbosch Theological Reflection (STR) series offers well-grounded and creative theological research aimed at both the academy and the ecumenical church in South Africa and beyond.
The focus of Moving methodologies falls on Practical Theology and Missiology – and their methodologies. These methodologies have been on the move within African settings, particularly during the past few decades. This book represents an effort to map some of these movements.
It signifies a collaborative form of doing theology or, to express it in an African (isiXhosa) saying: intaka yakha ngoboya benye. This literally means: The bird builds its nest by using other birds’ feathers. In this book, the intention was to build this nest together so that our offspring can grow wings – by way of speaking.
In the process, it has become clear that Practical Theology and Missiology indeed need a variety of methodologies in order to interact meaningfully with our multi-levelled (South) African context. In Practical Theology and Missiology one finds, and needs, a spacious “circle-house” with many methodological rooms for movement.
The doors and even walls between the many methodological rooms should, however, remain open and porous, allowing reciprocal, enriching, hermeneutical osmoses to take place – being open for epistemological transformation and ontological Africanisation. This is what this book is all about.
CONTENT
- Race and research: Re-examining the space and place of race in South African practical theological research
- Theologia practica significans: Reflections of an African Profile
- Reflecting on the empirical aspect of Practical Theology
- Youth-led research: From object to subject in the research process
- Writing the self in(to) Practical Theological research
- Remembering a South African missiological methodology through the heritage of Hannes Adonis
- Revisioning congregational life: Reflections on researching congregations in South Africa
- Storytelling as an indigenous research methodology: Re-framing pastoral care from “psychological care” to “intergenerational care”
- Dialogical Intergenerational Pastoral Process: A transdisciplinary research approach
- Theology and church: Exploring the lifegiving relation between theological research, design, training and ministry
- Researching rituals and liturgy in Africa: Conducting research as liminal trinipraxis
- Integration of African values and spirituality in ministerial and missional leadership formation in Africa: An ethnographic approach
AUTHOR: Johan Cilliers is an Emeritus Professor from Stellenbosch University. He is a former Head of the Department of Practical Theology and Missiology, a former Chairperson of the Society for Practical Theology in South Africa, and a former President of the International Societas Homiletica. He has acted as visiting lecturer to the Universities of Umea (Sweden), Basel (Switzerland), the Free University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Leipzig, Würzburg, Humboldt (Berlin) and Hamburg (Germany).
Co-authors: Nadine Bowers Du Toit, Anita Cloete, Dawid Mouton, Reggie Nel, Ian Nell, Nobuntu Penxa-Matholeni, Christo Thesnaar, Nioma Venter, Pieter van der Walt, Cas Wepener, Marcel Barnard and Peter White.