Book Review: Opening the Field of Practical Theology: An Introduction

Abstract

Opening the Field of Practical Theology: An Introduction. Edited by Kathleen A. Cahalan and Gordon S. Mikoski. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014. xi + 332 pp. $34.00 (paper).Practical as a field of study has seen a vast array of perspectives, approaches, and methodologies arise from a variety of cultural contexts, theological orientations, and communal experiences and practices. Recognizing this explosion of practical theological scholarship, and the need to catalog this litany of perspectives, Kathleen A. Cahalan and Gordon S. Mikosld, both practical theologians par excellence, have co-edited Opening the Field of Practical Theology, which seeks to affirm the plurality and multiplicity of approaches to the field, especially for students entering the field for the first time (p. 7). Because practical is ripe with theoretical fruit, the book only provides a snapshot of the character and richness of contemporary practical theology (p. 7).To help categorize the book, the editors provide a helpful alternative table of contents, organizing the book by method (hermeneutical, liberationist, transformational, applied, and empirical), by the individual authors' ecclesial traditions (Roman Catholic or Protestant), and by ethnic and gender identity (among which are African American, Asian American, White, U.S. Latino/a, and Feminist and Womanist practical theologies) (pp. 8-10). Each chapter follows essentially the same format. The authors situate their particular approach in historical context and provide its key features and representative figures, then move to explicate its norms and sources of authority, its views on the theory-practice relationship, its approaches to cultural contexts, and its interdisciplinary conversation partners, and finally, to provide areas of current and future research. These helpful markers allow readers to better understand the historical and contextual richness of these various approaches to practical theology.Each chapter is thoroughly engaging, informative, and critically interacts with top theorists. Dale P. Andrews is perhaps one of the foremost experts in African American practical theology, while Joyce Ann Mercer continues to be a primary authority on feminist and womanist practical theology. Among the many approaches described in this book, I was personally surprised to see the inclusion of evangelical and White approaches to practical theology. Andrew Root does a masterful job in exploring evangelical practical theology, demonstrating that evangelicals have not had sufficient interaction with practical in its broadest form (the exception being the theorists affiliated with Fuller Seminary, such as Ray Anderson, Mark Lau Branson, and Chap Clark). …