RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Practical Theology
volve preparation for the practical work of the ministry. All must be squared with the Bible, or, where the Bible did not contain specific data, with the commandments of love for God and one's neighbor. In addition, he urged the preparation of a work on church government, including the data of the New Testament, relevant portions of church history, excerpts from the councils, papal decrees, Church Fathers, and works on dogmatics, liturgies, and the like. Both Reformed and Lutheran theologians were influenced by Hyperius, but they limited themselves to parts of practical theology, declining to erect the massive structure he desired. Protestant tenets required that the clergyman be above all things primarily a preacher, while medieval writers had deemed him rather a liturgist. Practical theology, though not under that name and not in all its parts, gained its place in the methodology of theological study mainly as a system of homiletics.
All theology being, either immediately or mediately, practical, the name practical theology must be deemed a restriction of the designation of
the whole to a part. The wide exten-
4. Protes- sibility of the word " practical " led
tant Devel- to its application to Christian ethics
opment. and to church activities, for which the
study of theology both in general and in its parts, as homiletics or ethics, formed the preparation. It is remarkable that in all early discussions of practical theology, as by Alsted, Gisbert Voetius, and J. Forster, catechetics is lacking, though the second-named divides the theme into moral (or casuistic), ascetic, politico-ecclesiastical, and homiletic theology. There was, indeed, a catechetic theology, but this was construed as the knowledge of the chief tenets of Christianity which the theologian must have for himself, not as a theory of church instruction. It was not until the rise of Pietism that catechetics became an integral part of practical theology. It was in the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century that the several parts of practical theology were recognized as an organic whole, which was designated " practical theology." J. E. C. Schmid, in his Theologische Encyklopadie (1810), and G. J. Planck (q.v.) in his Grundriss (1813), adopted this terminology, both speaking of it as the one customarily used. It is thus impossible to regard Schleiermacher as the founder of practical theology, even in the sense that it owed to him its scientific existence. At the same time, he essentially furthered it by his Kurze Darstellung (1811, 1830) and by his lectures, and gave it systematic development. While positing the mutual interdependence of scientific and practical theology, the latter is regarded as the crown of theological study, since it presupposes all the other branches and prepares for their realization. Schleiermacher's construction of the subdivisions of practical theology was conditioned by his theory of the Church, which he held to be the community of Christian life for the independent exercise of Christianity. Since this presupposes organization, church administration rests on a distinct formulation of the original antithesis between leaders and led. This administration is in the hands of the leaders,
or theologians, and Christian theology is the content of knowledge and regulation without which the harmonious administration of the Church is impossible. The community may connote either individual congregation or denomination, and from the religious fife of the former Schleiermacher constructed homiletics, liturgies, catechetics, missions, and pastoral care. From this point of view, practical theology includes the traditional subdivisions with the addition of missions. The administration of the denomination as a whole Schleiermacher sought in ecclesiastical authority and in the free power of the spirit, both having ultimately the same end, but the former enacting or restraining, while the latter inspires and admonishes, so that the excellence of religious condition is directly proportionate to the living interaction of these two factors. The interest of the nexus between the individual congregation and the denomination is subserved by church legislation, which affects liturgy and usage, the membership of individuals in the Church, and discipline and the building of churches. It thus preserves both free development and unity, besides guarding the relations of Church and State, and to it is also assigned, especially to the theological teacher and author, the task of pointing out the norm which he must follow if his activity is to benefit the entire body of his communion. In all this Schleiermacher's importance lies in the fact that he gave these elements systematic discussion on the basis of church government. The historical treatment, on the other hand, was less emphasized, and both this side and the systematic aspect received elaboration and development from Schleiermacher's successors, the most important being Karl Immanuel Nitzsch (q.v.).
II. Theoretical Discussion: The derivation of practical theology from the essence of the Church and the concept of the Church itself as the subject and object of that theology have been maintained,
with various modifications, from the 1. Basal time of Schleiermacher. Mention may Concepts, be made of such theologians as P K.
Marheineke, A. Schweizer, Nitzsch, and F. A. E. Ehrenfeuchter (qq.v.). Ehrenfeuchter however, seems to exclude missions from practical theology. But this difficulty is solved when it is remembered that in its missionary activity the Church follows the impulse to recover what really appertains to it. The problem recurs more cogently in the case of home missions, and in so far as such missions depart from their original character and are devoted to charitable and humanitarian ends, they come under the category of ethics rather than of practical theology. The means for accomplishing that church activity with which practical theology is concerned are generally agreed to be prayer, preaching, and the sacraments, the congregation being the agent in the first, and God in the two latter. Since the object of this activity is the congregation itself, practical theology must distinguish between the congregation as united with the risen Christ in faith and as living in this world. A distinction is accordingly drawn between the congregation as existent (in possession of the means of communion and of the spirit necessary to such com-
Practical Theology Prsedestinatus