Impractical Theology

I’ve been looking around at options for further study, haven’t made any decisions yet, slightly hampered by certain institutions who don’t appear to want my money enough to reply to my emails.
So far I have discovered that no-where in the UK is financially accessible (apart from possibly the place that doesn’t respond to their emails; would I want to be dealing with a non-communicative institution even if it were financially feasible?) So I have turned my sights abroad. USA out of the questions. Australia not inspired by the options. South Africa maybe a possibility. Of course with distance learning it doesn’t actually matter where it is, apart from maybe a cultural flavour to the course. So where a UK college offers a module called “theology of the poor” (yuk!) a course in a South African context might take a more integrated approach (one might hope at least).

The other thing I have discovered is that “my” area (theology and disability) is categorised as “Practical Theology”. “Practical Theology” strikes me as being something of a tautology; Theology is a practical subject. Think about it for a minute; what would the alternatives look like? Academic Theology? Theoretical theology? Miles removed from the real world theology? Not to be lived theology? Or maybe just Impractical Theology? Who dreams this stuff up?

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