Making Sense of Life through the Lens of the Gospel

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Introduction

The focus of this dissertation is ‘Practical’ theology, or as it is sometimes referred to ‘Pastoral theology.’ One beginning definition of Practical Theology is “any serious attempt to bring reflection upon and understanding of the Christian faith into dialogue with action motivated by that faith.” (Patton 1968: 1) Patton indicates that theology or ‘understanding of the Christian faith’ is placed in dialogue with ‘action.’ This is not a haphazard action, however, but rather a specific action that is motivated by this ‘Christian faith.’ What Patton indicates is the making of connections back and forth, dialogically.

Statement of the Problem

As a working pastor for the past twenty-seven years, I have had a variety of occasions to counsel a wide range of people. Much of the counsel has centered on their feelings of being unloved by parents, neighbors, others –but also has focused on God’s disposition towards them. In the Scottish context in which Mcleod Campbell pastored the issue would have been described as “a lack of assurance of salvation”.

Methodology

Even though Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued for the priority of the “Who?” question over the “What?” or “How?” questions—particularly concerning Christology, in Pastoral Theology eventually the “What?” question needs to be addressed. The issue of method must be solved. How are we to proceed? In his lectures, Bonhoeffer argued for the centrality of Christology compared with other disciplines. He noted that, “It is the unknown and hidden center of the University of learning.”

Towards an Incarnational-Trinitarian Pastoral Theology

Over the course of the author’s ministry beginning in the summer of 1989 on internship and extending up to today, the issues with which John McLeod Campbell struggled in the light of his parishioners needs still resonate. Many have struggled with anxiety and shame. Quite a few have wrestled with a lack of the assurance of God’s love.

CHAPTER ONE Proposal for a Practical or Pastoral Theological Study
1.0 Introduction
1.0.1 Vignette
1.1 Statement of Problem
1.2 Aim of Study
1.3 Methodology
1.3.1 Illustration
1.3.2 Illustration (Brunner)
1.4 Towards an Incarnational-Trinitarian Pastoral Theology
1.5 Summary
CHAPTER TWO Methodological Considerations
What Makes Theology Pastoral or Practical?
What Makes Practical Theology Theological?
2.0 Against Tools of the Trade for the Parson
2.1 Reaching for a Meta-view
2.2 Making Sense of Life through the Lens of the Gospel
2.3 Gisbert Voetius and the Beginning of Pastoral Theology
2.4 Living to God as Foundational
2.5 What of Jesus Christ?
2.6 The Importance of the Shepherding Perspective
2.7 Pastoral Theology’s Generative Problematic
2.8 The Unfortunate Eclipse of the Trinity
2.9 The Issue of Sapientia vs. Scientia
2.10 How God’s Nature and Character Changed
2.11 Schleiermacher and the Trinity
2.12 Theory and Praxis Examined
2.13 Preaching as Pastoral Theology Applied
2.14 Implementation, Practice, or Application?
2.15 Praxis, Christo-praxis, Participation, and Theory
2.16 Praxis as Response to the Gospel—Grace and Gratitude
2.17 Don Browning and A Fundamental Practical Theology
2.17.1 Explication of Browning’s Early Work
2.17.2 Figure A: Some Major Options in a Theory of Obligation
2.17.3 Figure B: The Triangle of Practical Moral Thinking
2.17.4 Figure C: The Four Steps of Practical Action Related To The Five Levels of Practical Reason
2.17.5 Explication of a Fundamental Practical Theology
2.17.6 Illustration: Practical Reason’s Overall Dynamic
2.17.7 Illustration: The Hermeneutical Circle
2.18 A Critique of Browning
2.19 The Indicative and the Imperative
2.20 A Foundation for Pastoral Theology: ̔μοόσιος τͅ Πατρί
2.21 Perichoretic (περιχώρησις) Communion, but Distinction
2.22 Mythology (μυθολογία) Today
2.23 The Stratification of Reality and McLeod Campbell’s Theological Epistemology
CHAPTER THREE: The Persons to Whom we Pastor and Emotions of Self Assessment: Lacking the Assurance of God’s Love
3.1 Orienting Pastoral Theology and the Challenge of
a ‘Lack of Assurance”
3.2 The Importance of Eὐσέβεια and Mετάνοια in Practical and
Pastoral Theology
3.3 Can Anger Have a Gospel?
3.4 Emotions of Self-Assessment
3.5 Jacob Firet and the “Agogic Movement” towards Wholeness,Humanness
3.6 The Lack of Assurance of God’s Love
3.7 Sheep and Goats
Illustration of Theodore Beza’s “The Sum of Christianity”
Illustration of Theodore Beza’s “A Brief Declaration”
3.8 McLeod Campbell’s Therapeutic Pastoral Theology
CHAPTER FOUR: The Nature and the Cause of the Emotion: Anxiety
4.0 Towards a Greater Understanding
4.1 A Provisional Definition
4.2 Nietzsche and the Perspectival Nature of Knowledge
4.3 Personal Experience as a First Perspective
4.4 Lack of Assurance and its Modern Offspring: Anxiety
4.5 A Beginning Theological Perspective: Von Balthasar
4.6 The Universality of Anxiety
4.7 A Particular Cultural Phenomenon? – American Anxiety
4.8 One Foundation of the Modern Theological Concept of Anxiety: Soren Kierkegaard
4.9 A Modern Existential Concept of Anxiety
4.10 The Father of the Psychological Understanding of Anxiety: Sigmund Freud
4.11 Harry Stack Sullivan and Anxiety
4.12 A Pastoral Theological View: Helmut Thielicke
4.13 Parrhesia and Anxiety
CHAPTER FIVE Shame and the Reality of our “Belovedness in Christ”
5.0 Shame and What it Does to Us
5.1 The Variety of Perspectives—Beginning with the Personal
5.2 The Cultural Context
5.3 Biblical the Theological Views
5.4 Affect
5.5 Experiences of Shame
5.6 Leon Wurmser and the Mask of Shame
5.7 Transitions to a Gospel of Grace
5.8 The Relevance of John McLeod Campbell for Responding to Shame
CHAPTER SIX A Therapeutic Atonement and John McLeod Campbell
6.0 What Language Shall we Use
6.1 “Atonement”
6.2 Atonement as a Theological Doctrine
6.3 Atonement amidst Pastoral Problems
6.4 Daniel Day Williams and the Atonement
6.5 Paul Pruyser and the Atonement
6.6 Don Browning and the Atonement
6.7 Brad Binau and the Atonement
6.8 John McLeod Campbell and a Therapeutic Atonement
6.8.1 McLeod Campbell Portrait: Etching
6.8.2 Sally: A Vignette
6.8.3 Biblical Background to JMC’s Atonement
CHAPTER SEVEN Conclusion
7.0 Findings, Interpretations, Conclusions
7.1 A Trinitarian Incarnational Praxis of Prospective Participation
7.2 A Trinitarian Incarnational Praxis of Presence
7.3 A Trinitarian Incarnational Praxis of Prayer
BIBLIOGRAPHY