Scharer, Matthias And Hilberath, Bernd Jochen, The Practice Of Communicative Theology: Introduction To A New Theological Culture, Ny: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2008.

Selected Ideas (organized by Frances Forde Plude)

The theological work of Scharer and Hilberath represents pedagogy, group process and adult faith formation, influenced by Theme-Centered Interaction (TCI), developed by Ruth C. Cohn. The authors have developed a series of five-day seminars for persons working in ecclesial communities and in schools. They have also organized two large meetings at the University of Innsbruck and in Stuttgart. The U.S. theologian Bradford Hinze has been present at the European conferences and has written the Introduction to this book. 

Hinze notes in his Introduction there have been four influential approaches to modes of communication in North American theology (p. 3ff):

  • dialogical personalism in the life of faith

  • the hermeneutic of discourse in the church, academy, and society

  • communication in the construction of local theologies, and

  • the ‘new Areopagus’ established by modern communication technologies

Hinze states: 

(These authors) are experimenting with, and reflecting on, group processes that promote personal and collective discernment and decision making in the church. Their main achievement is that they have developed a theologically integrated approach to group communicative practices… that speaks out of the word and the spirit of the Second Vatican Council… (and) embodies some of the most important insights into the practices of Base Christian Communities and Small Christian Communities… (p. 9) 

Vocabulary and Models of Communicative Theology and Theme Centered Interaction

(Ruth Cohn’s Model)           (Scharer/Hilberath Communicative Theology)

I                                               = Individuals with their life and faith history

We                                          = People in groups, communities, with their inter-communication

It (content)                              = The faith tradition

Globe (environment)              = The global reality of society and church

[The model is pictured with the first three in a triangle, enclosed in a circle (Globe).]

Some Basic Principles of Communicative Theology

  • The practice of faith is a point of departure; this is a communicative process.

  • Communication between God and human beings reveals truth in relationship. (p. 20)

  • The search for ‘truth in relationship’ characterizes theological inquiry as a communicative theology event. (p. 20)

  • In the relationship between theologians doing scholarly work and pastoral ministers working in parishes the former is ‘theology done in official quarters and imparted from the top down’… this may be correct, but it will not alter practice. (p. 22)

  • Communicative Theology sees ‘conflict-rich confrontation at the border’ (from Habermas’s theory of communicative action); the ‘globe’ in which Communicative Theology takes place (God, the world) involves ‘confrontation and difference’ (p. 38)

  • Communicative Theology remains open to issues of prayer, liturgy, and mystical experiences.

  • The fundamentalist refuses to go to the roots of communicative processes. (p. 44)

  • Churches and theology cannot escape the globalization of communication nor the trend toward more effective communication.

  • With Vatican II “the accent shifted from strictly unilateral communicative action on God’s part to differentiated and mutual action involving the human respondent, making the communicative event clearly recognizable as the defining feature.” (p. 72)

  • Today, “it is difficult to experience a church structured on hierarchical communication as being a credible witness to the participatory self-revelation of God.” (p. 77)

Selective Areas For Further Research/Development Noted By Scharer/Hilberath (p. 169ff)

  • Tools needed for analysis of the theology implicit in communication processes

  • Identifying communicative theologies in diocesan synods, pastoral conferences, etc.

  • How can the TCI ‘communicative’ and the ‘systematic’ be reconciled with each other?

  • How can input be structured so as not to distort the communication process?

[Other areas are also listed by the authors.]