The Theory of Application
Church and Academy [6]
In a previous post, I claimed that theory is the best practice. I’m going to keep gnawing on that bone. Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario.
A scholar writes an historical, theological article that illuminates the role of suffering as a dimension of participation in God’s mission. Upon submitting this article to leading academic missiological journals, a theme emerges from their editorial feedback: an application is missing.
One might naturally wonder what it would mean to prescribe practices of suffering in the first place. It’s a curious notion, to say the least. But there is a deeper question to ponder. Why would publishers of scholarly theological work demand an application?
In this hypothetical scenario, missiology (by which I mean the academic field of study) is the particular discourse making the demand. The problem is not unique to missiology, but it’s endemic therein for historical reasons that warrant comment. As the modern theological academy emerged (early 1800s), missiology was a newborn discipline. The “Great Century” of missions had only just begun, and scholarly reflection on mission would not be formalized by the establishment of academic chairs of missiology until well into the nineteenth century. Already in 1810, however, Friedrich Schleiermacher had included “the theory of missions” in his famous schema for organizing the theological academy into three categories: philosophical, historical, and practical. The theory of missions was subsumed in practical theology, and there it has remained—a peculiar stepchild of practical theology.
I should say that missiology and practical theology have come into their own in the late modern academy, and they are hardly synonymous in a technical sense (the explanation of which would bore most readers). But it is also true that most academics—including most missiologists, I’ll hazard—still think of missiology as a “practical” discipline in the categorical sense inherited from Schleiermacher. I could go on with formal definitions, citing dozens of books and articles debating the place of missiology in the academy, but there is no need. Despite the irony that the church-academy rift afflicts missiological scholarship,1 my hypothetical scenario represents the current state of affairs: missiology remains hell-bent on “application.”
Now back to the question: Why would publishers of scholarly theological work demand an application? My brief historical aside suggests one kind of answer. If the scholarly theological work in question is missiological, then it is bound to be “practical” rather than—what?—merely theoretical? Impractical? Okay, so an intellectual genealogy is a work here. A conceptual inheritance constrains the discourse. But there is another kind of answer to consider. I’m left wondering what exactly application means in this discourse. Or more to the point, how do missiologists so constrained imagine one makes applications? What is the theory of application that underlies the demand?
On the one hand, I’m being a bit cheeky. Theory is inevitable, and I don’t think the demand for application represents clear thinking about that fact. On the other hand, I’m being completely serious. The relationship between “mere theory” (or “mere theology”!) and “application” is the critical issue that an adequate theory of application stands to resolve.
From a hermeneutical standpoint, the problem is well-established. Much of modern biblical interpretation was (and much of contemporary evangelical interpretation remains) dominated by a model that moves from meant (historical meaning) to means (contemporary application). There are numerous accounts of how this works, which are beside the point here. The essential analogy is in the movement from theory to application. Determining historical, theological, abstract meaning is essential, but it must be converted into concrete, specific, contemporary applications. Without this conversion, readers (or sermon listeners) are left adrift, evidently unable to determine “how it applies to my life.”
Given the analogy, it’s important to note that evangelical theology at the academic level still values biblical and theological reflection for its own sake. There is a place for simply pondering, writing about, or reading about, say, Christology or Paul’s notion of justice, or the cultural milieux of the Protestant Reformation. No applications are required for publication! Why missiology—ecumenical missiology, no less—fails to share this value (in my hypothetical scenario, for example) is puzzling. But it seems to me that missiology insists on operating in the mode of what I’ll call, with no particular publication in mind, the life-application commentary (IYKYK). The scholarship underlying the textual exposition is well and good, but the whole point of the exercise is to provide . . . life applications. Either tell me what to do with it, or don’t bother. In other words, be practical.
Since I think this analogy provides a good explanation of what is going on in my hypothetical scenario, my final appeal is to a better hermeneutics. And by better, I mean nonreductive. Interpretation aims at understanding, and understanding is not limited to application. Rather than getting into the weeds of the major alternatives—this is, after all, just an analogy—I’ll simply note that there are major alternatives that validate the powerful, transformative production of understanding without specific, practical applications. In fact, they validate the agency and insight of readers who bring their understanding to bear on their own contexts without an author patronizingly dictating beforehand what their “applications” should be.
We need a better theory of application, not only in my hypothetical scenario, or in missiology more broadly, or in the segment of evangelicalism stuck in the meant/means dichotomy. We need a better theory of application across the entire field of the church-academy rift. I’ll leave you with a quote from James Moffatt’s A Critical And Exegetical Commentary On The Epistle To The Hebrews (1924), which captures my perspective perfectly:
“Nothing is more practical in religion than an idea, a relevant idea powerfully urged.”
See “The Lay of the Land in Twenty-First-Century Missiology,” https://www.theologyontheway.com/p/the-lay-of-the-land-in-twenty-first; Hae-Won Kim, “Missiological Research: Making Impact or Missing the Mark?,” Missiology: An International Review 50, no. 2 (2022): 113–24. Concern among missiologists that most mission practitioners remain disconnected from scholarly discourse may be a primary driver for the insistence on “application.” Relevance is an important concern. Limiting relevance to a particular theory of application looks to me like misguided overcompensation.