Transformative Teaching and Learning in Practical Theology: Creative Approaches, Global Conversations, and Contextual Practices
In a pivotal moment in the movie, Arrival, the main character Louise Bank, a brilliant linguistic, sees in her mind's eye her future-self reading her book on a new alien language--a language she is just beginning to understand in the present. The language has rewritten her perception of time and given her the ability to access all the moments of her life. She has learned to read the alien language and be "read" by it; she has integrated her scholarly investigations with a new awareness of the incredible depth of life, time, and space. Reading has transformed her.
Paul Griffiths in the book Religious Reading discusses the difference between religious reading and consumptive reading. Reading for consumption looks for information or entertainment.
In our age of smartphones and internet, we are more often formed to consume texts (broadly defined) rather than read them.
Religious reading marks a certain kind of relationship between the reader and the things read—a certain attitude, a way of thinking, and a way of living that is influenced by the text. Religious reading often leads to transformation. (Griffiths, 41)
What is read is approached as something with an unfathomable depth of meaning and also an authority to inspire action or transformation. (Griffiths, 41) It is a treasure house—it “precedes, exceeds, and in the end supersedes” us as readers. (Griffiths, 41) The entire meaning will never be fully discovered.
The Hebrew and Christian scriptures have long been considered a text for such religious reading. Huge portions of the texts were memorized in the Christian desert monastic tradition—not only because of a lack of physical texts, but also so that the text would live in the human heart for continual reflection. This desire to digest texts birthed lectio divina, or divine reading. By the 5th century, Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Order of St. Benedict, included three hours of lectio divina in his rule for monks. This rigorous and repetitive religious reading reflectively engaged texts at multiple levels of meaning. Benedict also broadened the texts for admissible for lectio divina to the church fathers and John Cassian.
Guigo II, a 12th century Carthusian monk, systematized the process of lectio divina in his book, The Ladder of Monks. Guigo outlines the four movements of lectio divina as a meal: Reading is the act of eating. Meditation engages human reason and chews on the material like a cow chewing its cud. Prayer digests it, and contemplation rests satiated. This is a profoundly eucharistic way of reflecting—much different from merely consuming the material. The text is spiritually digested and becomes part of the person. Reading transforms the person, not only from the outside, but from the inside.
Such religious reading doesn’t require a written object—it can be audial, visual, situational, place-based, physiological, behavioral, practice-based, and more. Rather than objectifying the focus of this kind of reading, lectio divina offers a winsome appreciative approach to practical theological investigation. Drawing upon my own personal practice of lectio divina for the majority of my adult life, my scholarly research in developing a contemplative practical theological pedagogy, and a decade of Master of Divinity classroom teaching, I have refined a method for reading ministry contexts and practices which draws upon and expands the monastic practice of lectio divina. The pedagogy’s four modes of inquiry offers a flexible framework for rigorous pastoral reflection on any context or practice. As part of this presentation, I will walk participants through an abbreviated reflection on a religious practice or context, using four modes of inquiry: read the context, reflect, dialogue, and receptive rest.
Pastoral and ministerial leaders encounter new contexts and practices regularly in their pastoral responsibilities. While classical methods of theological reflection can be helpful, the rigorous monastic practice of lectio divina offers a centuries-tested method for "reading" a context or practice appreciatively and prayerfully. Participants will be invited to "read" a context or practice and reflect on it for transformative insights using a four-mode method expanding on the traditional lectio divina moments: read, meditate, pray, and contemplate. Approaching contexts and practices in this way avoids objectifying contexts and practices, missing their unfathomable riches. It invites the "reader" to experience an integration between immersive self-implication and scholarly investigation, invoking a stance of humility before all that we don't know, yet seek.