James Woodward

Ordinary Christians are constantly being invited to forget their language. Clergy are also tempted to dilute  the force of the language we represent in an attempt to be relevant. Yet paradoxically the pluralist character of our society offers us, once again, the space to embody and articulate distinctive  Christian discourse without feeling the necessity to reduce this to a more limited secular speak. Indeed secular speak is itself less secure as a language game than many of its protagonists would …

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   Theology is positioned by God who is Trinity, and to speak or think about God,  is not merely human talk, ‘because it in­volves the reception of the mind of God and the participation in the life of God’.  To do theology is to be taken up into the realm of worship and glory. It is this patristic theology of participation, worship and glory that forms the basis for our understanding of practical theology.

Theology is the Greek word for thinking about God.  According to H. R. Mackintosh, ‘’theology is simply a persistent and systematic effort to clarify the convictions by which Christians live.’’ Theology is thereby also the clarification of convictions by which Christians engage in ministry. Therefore, God is the principal subject matter of pastoral theology, though from a pastoral perspective or more generally, a theology concerned with action. If God were not the subject of pastoral theology, it would not be…

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Serious theological work today is or ought to be rather like working in a quarry, and quite specifically the kind of quarry which one finds in India, where men and women, and quite young children too, in the heat of the day hack away at the rock-face with simple implements, exposing themselves to danger, and committing to the task all their reserves of energy, intelligence, determination and strength. I am not thinking of the modern fully mechanized quarry, where everything…

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The cliff-face in our theological quarry is the Bible and the rich resources and insights into truth which are to be found in the Christian tradition, and the other world faiths and ideologies that have interacted with the Christian tradition If we are faithful in our quarry work in the heat and sweat of the day, we produce: Rough blocks of stone, which others may fashion and shape and use for building strong and lasting edifices – homes and hospitals,…

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Let us imagine entering a museum and contemplating one of the exhibits. The exhibit could be said to offer us a type of revelation, for it stands before us and communicates a message. However, the message of a piece of art is not simple, singular or able to be mastered. This is evidenced in the fact that different people will take away different meanings from the same artefact, demonstrat­ing that the message is concealed, elusive and fluid. When we ask…

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  The Bible itself is a dynamic text full of poetry, prose, history, law and myth all clashing together in a cacophony of voices. We are presented with a warrior God and a peacemaker, a God of territorial allegiance and a God who transcends all territorial divides, an unchanging God and a God who can be redirected, a God of peace and a God of war, a God who is always watching the world and a God who fails to…

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If theology comes to be understood as the place where God speaks, then we must seek, not to speak of God, but rather to be that place where God speaks. Through our words and actions we seek to be the site of revelation through which people encounter the life- giving Word of God. For some, this change in the understanding of theology seems to undermine the legitimacy of various Christian traditions, and ultimately that of Christianity itself. However, this is…

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The Church’s structures and intellectual formula­tions may become obsolete but ‘the life of actual loving and caring, guided by tested knowledge, cannot get out of date’. Such an observation invites assent. But the illegitimate conclusion may sometimes be drawn that there does not have to be a link between the practice of pastoral ministry and the theological understanding that undergirds it. Unless, however, the theology that informs the practice of ministry is recognizably congruent with the theoretical world which illuminates…

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  One day Socrates made a young slave the centrepiece of a dialogue. Contrasting the innocent and ignorant boy with the sophisticated citizens, Socrates argued that ‘a man who does not know, has in himself true opinions on a subject without having knowledge’ (Plato Meno 85c). Theologians are in a similar position, and none more so than the practising minister. He has constantly to admit to people that he does not know; but at the same time he claims to…

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But many sensitive pastors today feel at sea. The familiar horizons seem to become more distant as assumptions about the Church and the contexts in which it works are challenged and adjusted.  At the same time the sands begin to shift under our feet. Turmoil in theology is not confined to universities and colleges. If it were, most Churches and Christians would probably, as always, be largely unperturbed. The dilemma is: more acute: in many ways we know more about…

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The tasks of theological reflection The induction and nurture of members What does it mean to be a Christian? Who am I as a Christian believer? Building and sustaining the community of  faith. What does it mean to be the ‘body of Christ’ in this place and time? How are we to live faithfully and authentically? Communicating the faith to a wider culture. How is God to be apprehended and proclaimed? What does it mean to preach ‘Good News’? In…

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Actual human speech about God, thus, is not abstract logical talk about an ‘ultimate limit’ but rather talk about life and the world, about our deepest problems, about catastrophe and triumph, about human misery and human glory. It is about what is really important in life, how we are to live, how to comport ourselves, which styles of life are genuinely human and which dehumanizing. But it is and can be talk about these matters only because it claims to…

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