This is it. The granddaddy of modern Practical Theology. This is the book that almost everyone cites and quotes. This work (re)defined the field of Practical Theology, and has an influence that extends to theology in general.

Fundamental practical theology is the most inclusive understanding of theology, and the disciplines of descriptive, historical, systematic, and strategic practical theology would be submovements within this larger framework. (47)

For Browning, that the old theory-to-practice paradigm doesn’t sufficiently describe the way we do theology. Our beliefs are already embedded in our practices before we extract and theorize them. Following David Tracy, Browning’s revised correlational approach explains how the interpreted theory and praxis of the Christian faith interact with the theory and praxis of the contemporary situation.

Browning’s Fundamental Practical Theology unfolds through four submovements:

1. Descriptive Theology. “It’s task is . . . To describe the contemporary theory-laden practices that give rise to the practical questions that generate all theological reflection” (47).
2. Historical Theology. This movement asks, “What do the normative texts that are already part of our effective history really imply for our praxis when they are confronted as honestly as possible” (49).
3. Systematic Theology. This movement is “the fusion of horizons between the vision implicit in contemporary practices and the vision implied in the practices of the normative Christian texts” (51).
4. Strategic Practical Theology. This is what is commonly understood as pastoral theology: “the church disciplines of religious education, pastoral care, preaching, liturgy, social ministries, and so forth” (8).

This book is dense—as the author admits on a number of occasions! Thankfully, he mitigates the philosophical and theoretical weight with case studies of three different American churches. These case studies put enflesh his theory and demonstrate the power of his Fundamental Practical Theology.

This is a book for specialists. A background in twentieth-century philosophy and hermeneutics (not to mention theology) will certainly aid in understanding. That said, for the persistent reader, this book is as important today as it was three decades ago.

Browning, Don S. A Fundamental Practical Theology: Descriptive and Strategic Proposals. Fortress Press, 1991.