‘Disciplined wonder’: on the evangelical possibility of reflecting theologically on very good things, as well as the bad and the ugly

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is adapted from a paper given at the inaugural meeting of the Tyndale Fellowship’s Practical Theology group in 2023. The theme of the meeting was ‘Evangelical Practical Theology?’ 1 The essay identifies practical theology’s adeptness at attending to ‘the bad’, and comments on the contribution this feature of the discipline can make to evangelical thought and practice. But it then goes on to ask what resources there are for conceiving and accompanying theological reflection on ‘the good’, and makes some tentative proposals for what such an exercise of ‘disciplined wonder’ might involve.