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ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY Where words meet The Word: An exploration of a theopoetic paradigm for ministry of word. SALLY BUCK A thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Anglia Ruskin University for the degree of Professional Doctorate in Practical Theology This research programme was carried out in collaboration with the Cambridge Theological Federation Submitted: 2nd June 2017 58,993 words Acknowledgments With thanks to: Those who were co-researchers in the co-operative research stage of this thesis. Ian McIntosh for supervision that has grown and changed but never ceased to encourage and stretch me Zoe Bennett - programme lead and friend to so many of us as we chart our way through some interesting waters. Lincoln School of Theology staff - especially Sally Myers - for support and challenge. St Luke’s College Foundation for their Personal Award 2013-2015. Lincoln Diocese for the place in which to situate the research and for financial support. Teena Twelves for proof reading the final final draft. Colleagues on the DProf programme in the Cambridge Federation who have helped me to accept critique, to defend an argument, to struggle with conceptual frameworks and to keep going to the end. My long-suffering husband Nick who has encouraged, supported, proof-read - and is looking forward to getting his wife back. !i ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT FACULTY OF ARTS, LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCES PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATE An exploration of the possibility of a theopoetic paradigm for ministry of word and its influence on formation for Reader ministry. SALLY BUCK: June 2017 Reader ministry in the Church of England and in Wales accounts for a significant percentage of licensed ministry being offered particularly in parishes and chaplaincies. However, when working with Reader candidates and licensed ministers with responsibility for formational education, it became apparent that very little has been written about this ministry from a theological or vocational perspective. It has been the intention of this research to overcome this gap in knowledge and understanding in a way that adds to the small corpus of work about Reader ministry in general, explores a theology of ministry of word in particular and improves my own practice and thus the quality of formational education offered to the Readers among whom I work. An inductive research project was designed incorporating a co-operative research group and a conversational form of interviews to investigate the possibility of a theopoetic paradigm for ministry of word which might then inform the practice of Reader education. The research group’s phases of reflection and action resulted in the emergence of a number of key topics. Interviews were transcribed and presented in the form of found poems. Topics and poems were then examined, themes grouped and related to further literature. The resulting theopoetic paradigm emerged from this interpretation of the data. The conclusion is that it is possible to communicate theological and vocational understanding of Reader ministry of word in terms of a theopoetic paradigm which is trinitarian in nature; creative, embodied and transformative and expressed through the lens of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ concepts of inscape, instress and selving. This paradigm contributes to theological and practical understanding of lay ministry of word and to research methods in pastoral theology and poetics. Key words: Reader ministry, ministry of word, theopoetics, inscape, instress, selving. !ii Contents Acknowledgments i Abstract ii The thesis sections and chapters are named with reference to the process of creating a poem. Acknowledging the inspiration, finding the words, giving those words structure, performing the created work and seeking and responding to critique are all part of the creative act of writing a poem. The theme of this research is poetic, from its inspiration through its design, into its conclusions and recommendations. Its contents, their naming and shaping, grew out of, and now frame, that whole process. SECTION 1 - PREPARING THE WAY 1 In the beginning - introduction to the thesis 3 Inspiration - the material on which the work is based 8 Contexts 8 Professional Context 8 Previous Professional and Personal Context 10 Ecclesial and Theological Context 13 Why the professional doctorate? 15 Reflexive response 16 Existing literature 18 Reader ministry 18 Gerard Manley Hopkins 21 Theopoetics 24 Scheme - the patterns and rhythms which will hold the words and meaning 26 Identifying the gap 26 The gap in understanding of Reader ministry 27 The gap between pastoral theology and theopoetics 28 Conceptual framework 30 Developing the research question 31 Research design 32 The scope of this research 33 Methodology 33 Method 35 Ethical considerations 39 Reflexivity 42 SECTION 2 - FINDING THE WORDS 43 Collecting the data 45 Meaning Making 48 Expectations 52 Grouping the initial findings 53 !iii Reflexive response and critique 53 Poetic analysis and pastoral theology 57 Stanzas - units with recurring form but differing content 59 Inscape reframing the term 62 research findings 64 further literature 67 reflexive response 74 critique 75 Instress reframing the term 76 research findings 77 further literature 86 reflexive response 92 critique 94 Selving reframing the term 95 research findings 95 further literature 99 reflexive response 104 critique 105 SECTION 3 - THE PERFORMANCE 107 Introducing the section 109 Effect - that which the work has caused to happen Contribution to knowledge 110 Contribution to theological understanding 110 Contribution to practice 121 Affect - the personal difference that the work has made A reflexive response 129 SECTION 4 - THE REVIEW 137 Introducing the section 137 Critical evaluation 137 Possible further research 141 !iv Overall conclusions 141 Reference List 143 Appendix 1 Paper 1 154 Appendix 2 Paper 2 177 Appendix 3 Paper 3 195 Appendix 4 Approval letter from diocesan bishop 219 Appendix 5 Participant information sheet 220 Appendix 6 Theopoetics notes for probable participants 222 Appendix 7 Letter accompanying stage 1 research application 224 Appendix 8 Research Group research proposal 225 Appendix 9 Ethics application form 227 Appendix 10 Image: Emmaus by Emmanuel Garibay 238 COPYRIGHT Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with i) Anglia Ruskin University for one year and thereafter with ii) Sally Annette Buck This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is bound by copyright. !v Section 1 Preparing the Way Structure and style In the beginning… Scheme Context of and research scholarship !1 “To defend a view which seeks to do justice to both the constrained and the creative in our speaking about and apprehending of the world is, I believe, an imperative in a culture where one or the other seems in constant danger of being forgotten, in shapeless ideas of liberty and autonomy or in mechanical notions of what counts as ‘real’ or ‘hard’ knowledge. And the job of theology is surely to join in the struggle against the dehumanizing prospects of both these distortions.” (Williams, 2014:197) !2 In the beginning - introduction to the thesis A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. (W.H. Auden) The genesis of this thesis seemed at the time to be a very simple question. Being responsible for the formation of people preparing for a licensed lay ministry in the Church of England I wanted to know what others had written about the subject. The fact that the answer to my question was ‘very little’ has resulted in a five year search for an understanding of the theology, ontology and practice of Reader ministry. The work has become very personal. This thesis is an academic account of a piece of research into an aspect of my own professional context. It has also become, as the research project has progressed, writing about a topic with which I have fallen passionately in love; the ministry of word as embodied in Readers’ vocation, identity and skills as wordsmiths. The research subject is an exploration of the possibility of a theopoetic paradigm for ministry of word and its influence on formation for Reader ministry. What follows communicates a number of levels of learning. Through the generous sharing of their stories, Readers in my diocese have helped me to understand more deeply the vocation to, and practice of, lay ministry of word. Much of the learning took place as a result of work carried out in Stage One of the Professional Doctorate and written about in detail in Papers 1 and 2 (Appendices 1 and 2, pages 157 and 177). This early consideration of the topic led me to recognise the importance of the work of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins in my own spiritual and vocational formation. As a result of this realisation his poetry was a natural first port of call in my more general exploration of a possible theopoetic paradigm. Therefore, those who have researched the life and work of Gerard Manley Hopkins and collected his correspondence and poems (Pick, 1942; Gardner, 1953; House, 1959; Ballinger, 2000; Cooper, 2005) have enlightened my search for rootedness in my own identity as a Reader as I designed the research method and interpreted the findings. In the work of Hopper (1962), May (1995), Wilder (2001) and Callid (2014), I have learned of an aspect of theopoetics that coalesces in my working definition of theopoetics as that which crafts and re-crafts understanding of the divine from existing language, fully engages with everyday experiences and which subverts attempts to confine theology to thought processes. Investigating the possibility of a theopoetic paradigm for ministry of word that relates to Readers’ understanding of their vocation and is !3 not simply a personal expression of my own vocational understanding has led to learning about appropriate research methods for the collection and analysis of qualitative data. Designing and experiencing a project based on co-operative inquiry informed by the work of Heron (1996), Kvale (1996) and Heron and Reason (2001) has taught me many research skills and deepened my understanding of the researcher/research subject relationship and dynamics.