Practical theology in Arab evangelical perspective: considering a particular practice of theological reflection

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I describe and analyse the nature of the practice of theological reflection (TR) from a small-scale qualitative case study among Arabic-speaking evangelical theology students from Muslim-majority, Arab socio-religious contexts studying at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. As a central meaning-making process for practical theology, practices of TR can offer a window into how cultural orientations and socio-religious values shape practical theology within particular contexts. To broaden our understanding, then, of how people in Majority world contexts construct practical theology requires giving attention to key emphases in particular, local expressions of tying theological thought to practice. Using reflexive thematic analysis on data from semi-structured interviews, I generated the notion of the practice of TR engendering ‘divinely ordered connectivity’. Three additional themes constituted this notion: (1) seeing and doing with God, (2) finding the unity of all things in God, and (3) building respectful community, which together lead to ‘regulating society’ towards a divinely authorised order. The particularities of this Arab evangelical practice of TR contribute to the limited scholarship on the nature of theological discourse among Arab evangelicals’, and to understanding how socio-religious and cultural orientations shape ideas about what practical theology is in the first place.