ABSTRACT
This chapter locates the book’s argument, and the approaches of theological action research, within contemporary debates in ecclesiology and practical theology. The perennial tensions of Spirit and institution, ideal and real, invisible and visible, which are central to ecclesiology from earliest times, are recognised as having received a distinctive treatment in late modern ecclesiology through an ‘empirical turn’. At the same time, this turn to the empirical has presented the ecclesiologist with new challenges: in particular, how the particularity and detail of empirical learning about church can contribute authentically to theologically traditioned accounts of church. A critical account of this empirical turn in ecclesiology, with a particular focus on Nick Healy’s work, together with some questioning of the correlational assumptions of much practical theology, is given. The book’s theological action research approach to ecclesiology is presented as a response to the challenges identified before setting out the rationale for the book’s structure.
