Seeking Wisdom in Practical Theology

Abstract

This article addresses the diverse ways in which Practical Theology has sought to understand contemporary culture and the way we live now. Through comparing Empirical Theology and Feminist Practical Theology an analysis is offered of differing epistemological frameworks and research strategies. However, these approaches have far more in common than may have been realised. Both are linked to the understanding of phronesis set out in the work of Don Browning. While this remains a valuable approach it occludes the strange, the mysterious and the wonderful as we encounter them in the lifeworld. In the work of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau an alternative approach can be discerned that celebrates the particularity encountered in a poetics of everyday life. It is an approach that has the potential to generate vivid and lively new work in Practical Theology.