Responding to Nell’s Quo Vadis Practical Theology Question

Abstract

The threat of human destructiveness today raises the question whether the reinterpretation of the faith should be left to academic theologians only. Practical theology is a reciprocal process of reflecting on, and new doing-being functions for, the Trinity’s Praxis in and through transformed praxes of Faith Communities towards the liberation of the world’s praxis. Paradigms and methodologies of academic theology are being challenged from the perspective of the Trinity’s Praxis and the realities and practices of the Christian faith and today’s world. Theology has been dissected analytically into interdisciplinary theological sciences which led to a dissection of God, the Bible, the faith community, and society. Theological training has moved from a confessional position to a scientific one. Transformation in practical theology is required in creating hermeneutical communities with a preferred bipolar tension between theory and praxis, action and reflection, power and powerless, human dignity and human oppression.