The Challenge of Practical Theology: Selected Essays

This collection of key writings by Stephen Pattison examines the implicit and explicit beliefs and value systems that guide practice in both religious and non-religious organizations. Pattison draws on experience from his work in many different settings ? including community service volunteering, working as a psychiatric hospital chaplain, NHS management and lecturing on pastoral studies ? to promote a personal, practical, political and popular approach to theology, which stresses the importance of responsibility and contemporaneity. Broadly themed sections address issues of ethics and value in practice, organization and management, Christian thought and practice, theology and the Christian tradition, and pastoral and practical theology studies. The author takes a critical stance towards traditional religious thought and practice, and argues the need for reform to make theology more generally accessible and relevant. This volume will be inspirational reading for, among others, care workers, clergy, managers, nurses, counselors and doctors, as well as students and those involved in the academic study of theology.