Disclosing Church: An Ecclesiology Learned from Conversations in Practice (Explorations in Practical, Pastoral and Empirical Theology)

In 2010 Heythrop College, in collaboration with the Oxford Centre for Ecclesiology and Practical Theology (OxCEPT), produced the Action Research - Church and Society (ARCS) project. This turned out to be a landmark study in the praxis of Anglican and Catholic ecclesiology in the UK, showing how theology in these differing contexts interacted with the way in which clergy and congregations lived out their religious convictions. This book is a direct follow up to that significant report, compiled by one of the original authors, providing a systematic analysis of the impact of the "theological action research" methodology. The book starts within contemporary ecclesiological debate, as articulated especially by Nicholas Healy. It goes on to put forward an ecclesiology generated from church practice, drawing on scholarship in the field as well as the results of the theological action research undertaken. It achieves this by including real scenarios alongside the academic discourse. This combination allows the author to tease out the complex relationship between the theory and the reality of church. Addressing the need for a more developed theological and methodological account of the ARCS project, this is a book that will be of interest to scholars interested not only Western lived religion, but ecclesiology and theology more generally too.