ABSTRACT
This chapter is an edited version of my keynote speech to a conference celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Moorlands College. The chapter starts by engaging with two passages from Luke and raises the questions both of how we learn and how we interpret scripture. I use an account of the history of Moorlands College to describe the development of practical theology as a vehicle for theological education. Then I offer a practical prophetic reading of the current context in which the College operates, linking the practical, pastoral, and political. At the heart of the chapter is a provocation to the audience to think about how they relate the Christian tradition to their deepest concerns. From this follows a proposal about how theological education could be different and the challenges this would offer to the church and the university. I then suggest what a mature accompaniment of the church by practical theology might look like before revisiting the two passages from scripture.
