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Browsing Publications by Subject "C - Practical Theology"
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- Publication" All the People Gathered Together: Doxological Approach to Faith Formation/Christian Education"(2019-12) Sargeant, WendiIn the light of declining Church attendance in the West, and at the same time a growing interest in matters of spirituality, many Christians ask why? What has happened? These are integral questions. In true Practical Theology style, the solution is to do some theological reflection. Of course, once you start reflecting upon these questions, even more seem to arise! As we go deeper, our next line of enquiry might be: How do we get more people interested in following Jesus? How does following Jesus affect how we treat others? After two thousand years, the Christian church still struggles with these (among many other) questions: What does it (really) mean to be a Christian? How is someone formed in Christian faith?
- PublicationAnaditj(Denise Champion, 2021) Champion, Denise; Dewerse, RosemaryOne of the reasons I want to write this book is because I don’t sit easily with Western theology. It is so different to my Adnyamathanha understanding of Anaditj, the way things are. There’s a much older story that has stood the test of time in this land of the universal Christ and the birth of the universal church that is not being acknowledged. As Aboriginal peoples we hold knowledge, understanding, and wisdom that not only our own, but all peoples, need to learn from – language for God, wisdom for God’s people, and challenge for the way ahead. For the church to be complete, our voices must be heard.”
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- PublicationAn architecture of defiance: Great churches as vehicles of hope(2022) Edwards, TomChurch buildings often serve multiple purposes including corporate worship, social service provision, education, and even leisure. The notion which ties these disparate purposes together is a desire to become a community hub. In this way churches mimic other social institutions such as schools, community centres, and some clubs. In addition, contemporary church architecture also engages elements of biophilic design. In this regard churches tend to mimic hospitals and other wellbeing spaces. What then is distinctive about church architecture? While Christianity may promote love as its highest virtue (e.g., Mat 22:36-40; 1 Cor 13:13) it is actually the virtue of hope which predominates in the architecture of effective worship spaces. Using an evolutionary lens and an awareness of psycho-biological principles the author will explore how church architects from multiple traditions have historically used a variety of elements including building materials, perspective, colour, ornamentation, and the decorative arts to enhance worshipers’ experience of hope. Ultimately, it will be asserted that designing spaces of hope is not about creating opportunities for community, or enhancing wellbeing, but about promoting an architecture of defiance.
- Publication“The Assembly Beyond ‘the Brink of Chaos’: Signs of Hope among Those Re-gathered in Christ’s Name(2022-09-01) Cones, BryanOnline liturgical celebrations occasioned by the COVID0-19 pandemic introduced new patterns of common prayer, notably eucharist. This article explores the effects of the "context collapse" of the digital environment on Christian prayer, signaling both signs of hope and limitations.
- PublicationBlack Rain: A Kaupapa Māori (A Māori approach) to addressing family violence and intergenerational trauma(2023) Pouesi, Fay; Dewerse, Rosemary
- PublicationBook Review: Performing the Sacred: Christian Representation and the Arts(2023) Couchman, AdamBook Review: Performing the Sacred: Christian Representation and the Arts Edited by Carla M. Bino and Corinna Ricasoli Brill, 2023, 240 pages
- PublicationCartographies of Queer Christian Practice(Church Publishing, 2023-11-01) Fennema, Sharon; Cones, Bryan; Cones, BryanThis introductory essay sketches the progressive development of queer theology and its interaction with Christian worship.
- PublicationCartographies of Queer Christian Practice(Church Publishing, 2023-11-01) Fennema, Sharon; Cones, Bryan; Cones, BryanThis introductory essay sketches the progressive development of queer theology and its interaction with Christian worship.
- PublicationChapter 8: Comedic Portrayals of Jesus in Film(Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2023) Sargeant, Jonathan; Jenks, GregWhilst previous studies of depictions of Jesus of Nazareth tend towards serious interpretations, omitting comedic portayals, it is these that are more varied, providing rich texts for analysis. This chapter catalogues comedic depictions of Jesus in film and television, drawing conclusions about the contexts which determine their formative qualities.
- PublicationChrist as Princess of Pop(Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) Pryor, Rebekah; Handasyde, Kerrie; Winter, SeanIn Australian music history, Kylie Minogue remains the undisputed Princess of Pop. This and her disco invocation to dance remain organising principles, at least for me. Decades on from first resonating like a soundtrack to my formative teenage years, Kylie’s singing voice still hums of joy, embodied and ecstatic. With Roland Barthes’s singing voice as ‘material of the body’ and Virginia Burrus and Karmen MacKendrick’s ‘life in desire’ as support acts, this chapter proposes that the humanity Kylie conjures can be for us a pointer to the incarnational life of Christ and, as such, a reminder to look beyond absolutes in order to seek and see the Christ, who liberates beyond existing normative categories and structures of order and power. Kylie’s many growth spurts and creative transformations are found to distinguish her as a sequinned, excessive body, being and becoming herself beyond limits, including of time, an apophatic body in and of the image of God. In her consistently ecstatic way, Kylie is thus more than just ‘the gay shorthand for joy’—she is a christic image for the ages who signals something of the liberative Christ Lisa Isherwood describes: ‘the Christ who is beneath our feet, before our eyes, in our hearts, and throbbing between us’.
- PublicationChrist as Saviour of the West(Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) Thompson, Geoff; Handasyde, Kerrie; Winter, SeanIn his 2021 book, Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in our World, Australian journalist, Greg Sheridan, includes a chapter, ‘Smuggling Christ into popular culture’. It is a proposal for Christians to insert Christ figures into the culture because ‘Western culture deserves to have Jesus at its centre’. This Christian apologetic interest in the role of Christ figures in Western culture overlaps with but is strikingly different from that of Australian atheist, scholar and public intellectual, John Carroll. In various works over the last two decades, Carroll has argued that Jesus is the ‘pivot to Western dreaming’. Jesus’ story, says Carroll, is ‘the story of Western stories’ and its loss to Western consciousness has led to the fragmentation of the West. Both his diagnosis of the West’s cultural condition and his interpretation of Jesus are highly contestable. This paper nevertheless argues that Carroll’s Christ figure is more worthy of scholarly commentary and Christian engagement than Sheridan’s. It also argues that the Christian attempt to ‘smuggle’ Christ figures into the culture for apologetic purposes fails to capture the richness – not least for Christians themselves – of discovering and engaging the non-Christian Christ figures, such as Carroll’s, which might, using Carroll’s term, ‘cryptically intersect’ with contemporary Australian cultural and religious discourse.
- PublicationChristian Education and the Emerging Church: Postmodern Faith Formation(Pickwick Publications, 2015-07-24) Sargeant, WendiPostmodern Christian faith formation, exploring some of the Emerging Church's answers to the question, "What is Church?" The findings examine the place of worship and liturgy as being crucially formative aspects.
- PublicationContemporary Feminist Theologies: Power, Authority, Love(Routledge, 2021) Handasyde, Kerrie; McKinney, Cath; Pryor, RebekahThis book explores the issues of power, authority and love with current concerns in the Christian theological exploration of feminism and feminist theology. It addresses its key themes in three parts: (1) power deals with feminist critiques, (2) authority unpacks feminist methodologies, and (3) love explores feminist ethics. Covering issues such as embodiment, intersectionality, liberation theologies, historiography, queer approaches to hermeneutics, philosophy and more, it provides a multi-layered and nuanced appreciation of this important area of theological thought and practice. This volume will be vital reading for scholars of feminist theology, queer theology, process theology, practical theology, religion and gender.
- PublicationConversations about Divine Mystery: Essays in Honor of Gail Ramshaw(Fortress Press, 2023-08) Burns, Stephen; Kim-Cragg, HyeRan; Burns, Stephen
- Publication“Corporate Worship for People with Dementia: Rituals and Sensory Stimulation.”(Routledge, 2023-09-12) Wrigley‐Carr, Robyn; Elizabeth MacKinlay & Ann Harrington
- Publication“Created and Sustained by the Triune God”: a pivotal faith confession of the (UCA) Preamble(2025-02-01) Gilbert, SeanParagraph 1 of the Preamble to the Uniting Church’s Constitution is a bold and paradigm-shaking confession of faith. Not only does it subvert colonial assumptions about entitled supremacies of knowledge, place, and power, it radically reframes a theology of God in accord with what is arguably heartland of the Christian tradition: the confession of God as Trinity. The implication is that God in undivided relational fullness has always been present to the First Peoples of this land in contradistinction to a western dualistic hermeneutic that might countenance partial revelations of the Creator and Spirit but not the missionary imported Redeemer. The ongoing retrieval of trinitarian orthodoxy remains a vital component of valuing and practicing the theological keystones of the Preamble. Rather than imposing a religiously conceptual import, Trinity, by virtue of its effusive and essential ground of relationality, symbolises the wellbeing of all expressions of life, undergirded by unifying giftings of grace, truth and justice.
- PublicationCultural Exchanges: Reflections on a Pilgrimage(2024-01-01) Cones, BryanThis article reflects on a US-based scholars reflections on doctoral work pursued in Australia, with attention to the way the field of liturgical studies is dominated by US-based scholars. The article explores Australia/Pasifika-specific insights.
- PublicationCuración y Sanación: Elementos Vitales de la Asistencia Sanitaria Católica(En Route Books and Media, 2024-10-21) Torres, Eric ManuelEn este estudio, se explorará la importancia de la curación y la sanación, con énfasis en cómo ambas son vitales para la atención sanitaria católica. Este ensayo tiene como objetivo mostrar que sólo abarcando ambos componentes los profesionales de la salud pueden realmente cuidar a la persona en su totalidad. Además, los profesionales cristianos de la salud deben seguir el ejemplo de Cristo para servir en su misión de cuidar holísticamente a los enfermos. Como el relato de San Lucas de la Hemorroísa (Lc 8:42-48) no sólo proporciona una viñeta que distingue entre curar y sanar, sino también un excelente ejemplo de cómo Cristo atendió a ambos elementos, este ensayo interpretará esta historia con el fin de obtener una visión de la indispensabilidad de ambos para la atención sanitaria católica de toda la persona. Además, se utilizarán ejemplos extraídos de los cuidados paliativos, un área de la atención sanitaria en la que se puede distinguir claramente la curación y la sanación, para ilustrar estos elementos en términos prácticos.
- PublicationCuring and Healing: Vital Elements of Catholic Health Care(En Route Books and Media, 2024-06-09) Torres, Eric ManuelIn this research, the significance of curing and healing will be explored with an emphasis on how both are vital to Catholic health care. This essay aims to show that only by embracing both components can health care professionals truly care for the whole person. Moreover, Christian health care professionals ought to follow Christ’s example in order to serve in His mission of caring holistically for those that are ill. As Luke’s account of the Haemorrhoissa (Lk 8:42-48) not only provides a vignette distinguishing between curing and healing, but also an excellent example of how Christ attended to both elements, this essay will interpret this story in order to gain insight into the indispensability of both to whole person Catholic health care. Further, examples extracted from palliative care, an area of health care where curing and healing can be clearly distinguished, will be used to illustrate these elements in practical terms.