PRACTICAL THEOLOGY AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Practical Theology and Qualitative Research

Practical Theology and Qualitative research

Summary

In Practical Theology and Qualitative Research, John Swinton and Harriet Mowat supply a greeting assistance to the ongoing conversation about the relationship between functional theology and qualitative research, a locality in which interest is increasing more rapidly than resources. Their prime aim is to offer a constructive proposal for the integration of functional theology and qualitative research, and they manage so in two parts. They start with a section that situates their work theoretically in relationship to the broader fields of functional theology and qualitative research before proposing a constructive proposal based in a pattern of revised mutual critical correlation. In the next section, they turn to a series of case studies demonstrating the proposed method. While Swinton and Mowat articulate the contention of the publication well, their inherent assumptions restrict the scope and strength of their proposal. Despite its limitations, though, the publication holds promise as a resource for the study of functional theology and qualitative research.

The authors insert a tough tension in their aim early on, and that tension remains apparent all through the rest of the book. On the one hand, from an avowedly Theo centric perspective, they seek to answer the question of how functional theologians can “faithfully” use qualitative research. On the other hand, Swinton and Mowat also describe their work as proposing a critical base for the integration of functional theology and qualitative research “in a way which retains the integrity of both disciplines” (viii). Faced with the dispute of accomplishing both of these tasks, the authors err on the side of the previous at the expense of the last cited by insisting that theology has ordered main concern over qualitative research and that qualitative research must be “converted” for use in functional theology.

 

Critical Analysis

A short passage from this publication, right in the heart of the constructive proposal, demonstrates this tension with specific clarity. Here Swinton and Mowat reaffirm the ordered main concern of theology and the truth of revelation; at the same time they insist that theology itself is interpretive, altering, and finished by dropped, contextually compelled human beings. The stage seems set for a form in which functional theology and qualitative research are incorporated such that the “integrity” of each is really preserved; in which qualitative research might be used to get at the framework, interpretive environment of ...