1 - Moses, Aaron, and Practical Theology

Moses, Aaron, and Practical Theology
By Thomas G. Long

Moses-
Aaron, O what have you done?
Aaron-
Nothing different,
just my task as it ever has been:
When your idea gave forth no word,
my word gave forth no image for them,
I worked marvels for eyes and ears to witness.
Moses-
Commanded by whom?
Aaron-
As always,
I heeded the voice from within. ¹

THE words "practical theology" rest comfortably together in the pages of many seminary catalogues, as if they were the most natural and amiable of partners. Good theology springs automatically into action; good practice is the choreography of sound theology. Perceptive ministers know better. They know that the space between "practical" and "theology" is not always bridged by a kiss, but is often filled with uncertainty, or even friction. They know that it is fully possible to be clear in one's mind about a doctrine like "grace" and yet not to be sure exactly how that knowledge ought to influence, say, the approach to the care of an alcoholic. They are aware of the increasing divorce rate and changing patterns of family life in the culture, but they are uncertain about what impact, if any, these new factors should have on the theology of marriage. Do the theological rules change when people begin to play the game differently? They recognize that the packaged stewardship program described in the slick brochure which arrived in the morning mail reflects "bad" theology-pressure-filled fund-raising gimmicks and competitive tactics. And yet they also know that it would probably "work" famously, producing more resources than ever before for the church's mission. They are trained to

¹ From Arnold Schoenberg's opera "Moses and Aaron," as translated in Karl H. Worner, Schoenberg's 'Moses and Aaron' (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), pp. 183-4

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be "theological"; they are required to be "practical." They are keenly aware of the difficulty in being both at the same time.

It is not surprising that ministers are increasingly shouting not only "help," but also "foul." It has become commonplace in the recent literature of ministry not only to bemoan the gap between theology and practice but also to point the finger of blame toward theological education in general and the seminary in particular. It is the seminary, after all, which has roped off the practical areas of theological education, created a separate and often less-prestigious "department" of practical theology, and placed upon the shoulders of the student the responsibility of integrating the disparate parts of the curriculum. Typical of this sort of criticism is the Alban Institute's report on the perils of moving from seminary to parish, Crossing the Boundary, which complains that many of the adjustment problems faced by new parish ministers are due to the fact that …

… the seminary played down the practical skills needed for the ministry and placed great value on intellectual acumen. In the parish setting, the value of practical skills required for interpersonal and group relationships, organizational matters, counseling, administration, stewardship, evangelism, Christian education, etc. was clear. In seminary, however, these skills were denigrated. Training for them was often referred to derogatorily as "how to" courses. Taking practical courses was compared to learning how to use a flannelgraph, or organizing a stewardship campaign-hardly on a level with learning how to do theology or biblical exegesis. ²

While it is certainly easy to muster sympathy for that kind of complaint, the implied solution it offers (namely, beefing up the "skills-oriented" dimension of seminary training, thereby bringing theological education closer to the "realities" of the actual practice of ministry) is simplistic and finally destructive. One does not overcome the struggle between theology and practice simply by strengthening one of the sparring partners. The problem is deeper than that; the answer more complex.

There is a new breed of practical theologians who are warning that the split between theology and practice cannot be bridged by merely tinkering with the seminary curriculum or by hiring a professor of ministry whose unenviable job it is to "model" how the frayed threads of theological education get knitted together. Theological education, they say, faces a much larger task. It must overcome the unfortunate heritage, now two centuries old, of the "theological encyclopedia" approach, which resulted in the familiar division of theological learning into discrete and specialized "fields" like Bible, theology, and practical theology. One of the villains of this piece is Schleiermacher, whose major sins in regard to the study of theology, it is said, were two: (1) As one of the framers of the "theological encyclopedia" he isolated "practical" theology from "philosophical" and "historical" theology, assigning

² Roy M. Oswald, Crossing the Boundary Between Seminary and Parish (Washington: The Alban Institute, 1980), p. 12.

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to practical theology the one-way task of merely applying the results of the other two divisions. Practical theology thus became Technik: a consumer, but not a producer. (2) Also, by describing practical theology as a set of rules for the exercise of ministry, Schleiermacher thereby located practical theology in the functionings of the clergy, rather than in the total life of the larger church, and set the stage for the later "professionalization" of the ministry.

Schleiermacher may indeed be guilty on both counts, but there is another side to the story. John Burkhart, in a recent essay on Schleiermacher's Brief Outline of the Study of Theology, finds there what Burkhart calls "an implicit vision" for practical theology. This vision, though not fully developed by Schleiermacher and standing in some tension with other aspects of his thought, nonetheless offers the possibility of "a salutary revisioning" of the character of practical theology.³

What is it about "this" Schleiermacher which can possibly rehabilitate the "other" Schleiermacher? Or, more important, what wisdom is there in "this" Schleiermacher which can help bring theology and practice together. To begin with, claims Burkhart, the "implicit vision" recognizes that all of the "parts" of theology-philosophical, historical, and practical-are mutually interrelated and, thus, aspects of a single reality. All theory implies practice; all practice is theory-laden. Moreover, Schleiermacher was aware that every actual circumstance and "case" of ministry was different. Therefore, even though he could speak of practical theology as mere "application," he acknowledged that even this required hermeneutical knowledge, or what he called "rules of art." Schleiermacher "hints," to use Burkhart's term, that practical theology is itself "a theological activity of understanding…. Action and thought, in reciprocal relation, are both generative of meaning and truth." Burkhart writes:

Hence, Schleiermacher can be understood to have laid the basis for a genuinely theological practical theology; for, once practical theology is allowed tasks of understanding, actions as well as thoughts become properly matters for authentically theological concern. Consequently, within such a perspective, theology can begin to understand and interpret not only classic documents but classic behaviors as well. It can, as theology, attend as appropriately to liturgies and polities as it has to creeds and systems of thought; and, in a truly incarnational methodology, nothing can finally separate theory from practice or practice from theory. ⁴

So far, so good. We have now not a one-way street, with already-accomplished theology shuttling along toward its practical destination, but a busy intersection with traffic moving in several directions. But what about the minister, the one who is called to stand in the exciting but dangerous spot in the middle of the intersection? There are, to be sure, "rules of the road" which should be followed, methods of relating

³ John E. Burkhart, "Schleiermacher's Vision for Theology," Practical Theology, edited by Don Browning (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), p. 54.
⁴ Ibid., p. 55.

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theology and practice which seek to enrich both while preserving the integrity of each. We do not, of course, fully understand how that is to be done. Indeed, in this sense, practical theology is an eschatological reality. But we do "know in part," and it is the task of the whole church, and practical theologians in particular, to seek and to articulate those methods.

Beyond this, however, Schleiermacher's "implicit vision" has a word to speak. As Burkhart puts it, for Schleiermacher "methods, rules, and techniques are finally not enough…. This indispensable heart of ministry is to be found, not in philosophical insight, in historical knowledge, or in practical skill, but in those gifted persons whose faith and learning unite and grow into passionate wisdom…." ⁵ In other words, before ministry is a way of doing, it is a way of seeing, knowing, and believing. Ministry is a task, but it grows out of a gift of vision. Ministry which is given the gift of perceiving the presence of God at the heart of life will seek ways and means to express, in word and act, what it sees. There are "methods" in ministry which are better than others, and there are ways of "doing" theology which possess greater integrity than others, but there is always a gap between "theology" and "practice": a gap which can only be closed through the exercise of faithful imagination. Ministry which operates apart from that vision finally dissolves into technique.

When Schleiermacher spoke of "gifted persons," he was thinking of ministers and, in that sense, he perhaps can be faulted for assuming the "clerical paradigm," namely that practical theology is the activity of the clergy alone. Even so, if the whole church is to be about "theological practice," it must have leadership which can guide it: ministers who do not, on the one hand, cut the theological heart out of every issue, reducing it to manageable size; or, on the other hand, understand their task to be one of whipping the church into line according to doctrinal positions developed elsewhere.

The necessity for a unity of vision and practice in ministerial leadership and the peril of separating practice from vision can be seen in the biblical record. In the Exodus account, for example, there is the somewhat curious pairing of Moses and his brother Aaron as leaders of the people of Israel. Moses is to receive the word from God; Aaron is to speak the word to the people. Moses touches the vision, Aaron the circumstances, and all goes well until the brothers are separated. "Vision" is on the mountaintop. "Practice" is in the valley with the people. In Arnold Schoenberg's operatic "exegesis" of the story, the people cry to Aaron:

Point God out! We want to kneel down.
We want to bring beasts forth to him,
and gold, wheat, barley, and wine!
All will go to your God almighty,
if we're his people,

⁵ Ibid., p. 48.

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if he is our God now and
if he guards us well!
But then where is he?
Point him out! ⁶

Finally Aaron yields and does what ministerial practice always does when it is cut off from its vision of the active presence of God; he fashions a god for them from the materials at hand. Since there is no Mystery, there is only mechanical method. Pastoral care becomes the realization of human potential. Preaching becomes "possibility thinking." Administration becomes institutional maintenance. The sacraments become audio-visual aids, and worship has only a "near horizon." The Christian life becomes the sad and weary business of rolling out the golden calf forged out of our best intentions and pleading with it to make us whole. Schoenberg has Aaron cry to the people:

O Israel,
I return your gods to you,
and also give you to them,
just as you have demanded.
You shall provide the stuff;
I shall give it a form…. ⁷

By contrast, Annie Dillard writes of another kind of minister, a minister who maintains the vision of Moses while carrying on the Aaronic task of leading worship in a small, rural church:

The minister is a Congregationalist, and wears a white shirt. The man knows God. Once in the middle of the long pastoral prayer of intercession for the whole world-for the gift of wisdom to its leaders, for hope and mercy to the grieving and pained, succor to the oppressed, and God's grace to all-in the middle of this he stopped, and burst out, "Lord, we bring you these same petitions every week." After a shocked pause, he continued reading the prayer. Because of this, I like him very much. ⁸

As awkward as that moment may have been, it was also revealing. The outburst exposed a sense of presence, an awareness that the liturgy was not being practiced merely as a matter of proper liturgical technique, but in the atmosphere of a world alive with a sense of the presence of the Holy.

It is in that atmosphere, and only there, that "practical theology" is deserving of its name.

Thomas G. Long

⁶ Worner, p. 137.
⁷ Ibid., p. 163.
⁸ Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 57-58.

A Word from the Editor

HIS April 1985 issue of THEOLOGY TODAY is the second in our new series under guest editorial supervision. Turning from aspects of cultural anthropology as related to theology (Jan. 1985, Mark K. Taylor, Editor), this present issue explores several areas of contemporary thinking regarding liturgics, homiletics, and ministry in the life and witness of the Christian church.

The Editor for this April issue, Thomas G. Long, is Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship at Princeton Theological Seminary and a member of the newly reorganized Editorial Council of THEOLOGY TODAY. A graduate of Erskine College and Theological Seminary in Due West, South Carolina, he received his doctorate from Princeton Seminary, writing his dissertation on the relation of narrative to biblical preaching.

Dr. Long has served pastorates in Georgia and New Jersey, and, before coming to Princeton, he was Professor of Preaching and Worship at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur. A member of the Academy of Homiletics, he has also had editorial associations with the Journal for Preachers and Homiletic.

Hugh T. Kerr