ABSTRACT

This chapter has two purposes: first, to give a summary account of what is meant by ‘theological action research’ and secondly, to engage more specifically with developments since the completion of the ARCS project in the area of action research and theology. In particular, certain critical comments and issues are addressed. The highly participative nature of the theological action research practices of ARCS are highlighted against those who characterise them more as ‘consultancy’, and time is taken to explore resonances of what might be understood as spirituality between action research and the practical theological position taken by the ARCS team. In conversation with the work of John Swinton and Harriet Mowat, greater depth of discussion is brought to bear on the particular characteristics of theological action research as set out in Talking About God in Practice. In particular, the significance of the qualifier ‘theological’ in ‘theological action research’ is explored. What emerges is an account of theological action research as thoroughly theological and, especially, pneumatological, in its participative attention to practices as bearers of theology and to the presence of divine agency in human living.