Article Review Interruptive Connections

ecclesiology 10 (2014) 251-258 ECCLESIOLOGY

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Article Review

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Interruptive Connections The Promise of Communicative Theology

Dennis M. Doyle Religious Studies, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH 45469-1530, USA [email protected]

Matthias Sharer and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, The Practice of Communi cative Theology: An Introduction to a New Theological Culture, trans. Cristian Mocanu et. al.; intro. Bradford Hinze (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2008) vii + 194 pp. [Revised from German original, Kommunikative Theologie: Eine Grundlage, vol. 1 of the book series, Kommunikative Theologie: Eine Theologie im Prozess (Ostfildern, Germany: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 2002, updated 2003, newly updated 2012) as vol. 15 with new subtitle: Grundlagen-Erfahrungen-Klärungen].

Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Bradford E. Hinze, and Matthias Sharer (eds), Communicative Theology: Reflections on the Culture of Our Practice of Theology. Vol. 1/1 of Kommunikative Theology: Interdisziplinär (Berlin and Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2007) 148 pp. [This first volume is in both English and German; subse- quent volumes are in German.]

This review essay places its main focus on the 2008 English introduction, but also includes discussion of the 2012 updated and expanded German edition as well as the 2007 volume from the interdisciplinary series that has side by side German and English pages. Communicative Theology (hereinafter ct) is some- thing other and more than a traditional ‘theology’. Hilberath and Scharer (hereinafter ‘the authors’) frequently remind the reader that ct cannot be fully expressed in a written text. As the title indicates, it is a practice. As the subtitle

252 Doyle indicates, it intends to contribute in a significant way towards building a culture. I think of three further descriptors: ct is a school of thought; a movement; an enterprise. In the long run, the practice of ct is intended to penetrate and permeate ecclesial culture as well as the culture at large. The seminal practices of ct, however, are centered mainly in week-long group interaction events similar to retreats. Some events are longer and entail international travel. Group sessions are led by trained facilitators. There is a course of study in ct offered at the University of Innsbruck, with other centers at the University of Tübingen, Fordham University, and Boston College. These centers are connected, respec- tively, with Matthias Scharer, Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Bradford Hinze, and Mary Ann Hinsdale. Academic theologians and pastoral ministers in many countries are associated with the movement. ct has influenced the develop- ment of programmes and approaches in various educational and pastoral set- tings. It has produced two impressive series of academic texts, with one of these series being expressly interdisciplinary. ct has been deeply inspired by a type of group dynamics, Theme-Centered Interaction (tci), which was developed by German-Jewish psychotherapist and educator Ruth Cohn (1912–2010). Cohn’s approach is noteworthy for its attempt to overcome various false dichotomies between the subjective and the objective, content and application, teacher and learner, freedom and interde- pendency, the self and others, the individual and the group, the immediate community and the larger society. It builds upon a relational anthropology and encourages an ethical vision. It incorporates various paradoxical measures such as slowing down to get more done; letting go in order to make progress; and focusing on disturbances and conflicts in order to build stronger groups. Cohn left Germany in 1932 in order to study in Zurich. In 1941 she emigrated to the United States. Her tci self-consciously fashions social building blocks that guard against the types of atrocities associated with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Its methods are diametrically opposed to the Fascist type of top-down group formation that creates a fanatically excitable “we” that dis- courages individuality and critical questioning. In tci the individual and the group are simultaneously valued within a framework that places a priority on human dignity and freedom of expression achieved within an ethical and socially conscious framework. One does not have to have lived through Nazi Germany to understand the types of group dynamics that tci is designed to counteract. Anyone who has experienced the social distortions in family, church, work and various groups that are accompanied by intimidating communication practices that discourage honest and open expression can appreciate the alternative forms of

ecclesiology 10 (2014) 251-258