International Academy of Practical Theology. Conference Series

Introduction

2025-03-10T13:06:09+01:00

The 2023 conference of the International Academy of Practical Theology (IAPT), held in Seoul, Korea, offered a profound platform to engage in critical reflection on the dynamic and interconnected challenges of our time. In the culturally and historically rich context of East Asia, the theme of the conference—Practical Wisdom on the Living Web of the Anthropocene—invited participants to grapple with the entangled relationships among technology, political and economic dynamics, and environmental crises. This introductory essay serves as a gateway to the collected works presented at the conference, framing the critical questions, insights, and aspirations that emerged during this remarkable gathering.

A Theological Anthropology of the Undead

2025-04-01T21:16:01+02:00

To conceptualize a non-anthropocentric theological perspective that can help humans navigate through the age of the Anthropocene, I construct a theological anthropology of the undead by exploring the decomposition happening on the body of zombies. To do this, I will first argue that there are real-life zombies whom the neoliberal political-economic process has expulsed. Arguing that hikikomori are such zombie, I examine the life of hikikomori by looking into the space they occupy offline and online through a non-intrusive, observation-based cyberethnography. These spaces reveal ingenuine mechanisms that avert people’s gazes. The dynamics of such aversion exposes a powerful process that decomposes the political system of democracy and the economic system of neoliberalism. From this analysis, I construct a theological anthropology of the undead by revising the Christian concept of resurrection from the perspective of decomposition.

Spiritual Resources and Religious Leadership in Times of the Anthropocene

2025-04-01T21:22:57+02:00

Faith communities are found all over the world as spaces where people find a spiritual home and where spiritual formation takes place. For this contribution the research question was: What can the leadership in faith communities contribute toward spiritual resources for their members in the time of the Anthropocene? Faith communities are spaces where three resources—a shared narrative about climate, shared values, and shared symbols and practices—interact and where each of these can also make a unique contribution in raising awareness of ownership and space in the time of the Anthropocene. If the Anthropocene is considered as the period in which human activities have the dominant influence on the climate and the environment, these three resources offer important contributions for a greater awareness of humans’ influence on the climate and the environment. The congregational leader as spiritual guide in the modes of storyteller, moral compass, and symbolic worker can play a significant role in the process of mobilizing people of faith in becoming involved in their environment and climate mobilization.

Is Eco-Anxiety Racial Anxiety?

2025-04-01T21:24:55+02:00

This essay aims to invite practical theologians to consider racial injustice seriously as they continue deepening practical theological scholarship on climate change and environmental crises. By looking at the specific issue of eco-anxiety, I examine how scholars and practitioners must consider how climate change and eco-anxiety are not uniformly experienced in the United States. While communities of color suffer eco-anxiety disproportionately more, their voices and experiences have been largely absent in the larger conversation. Subsequently, I look at Fannie Lou Hamer’s practical theological work of ecological justice in order to suggest how practical theologians need to empower individuals and communities to harness their experience of eco-anxiety for practicing climate and racial justice.

Understanding Practical Wisdom in the Anthropocene Age in Terms of Islamic Religious Education from a Koran-Centered Interpretive Perspective

2025-04-01T22:29:09+02:00

Wisdom, understood as practical, refers to existence, knowledge, and value by putting the human being at the center. While Islam defines human existence in terms of value, it also underlines their responsibilities toward the Creator, themselves, and the universe. However, it is also necessary to focus on the process, realizing that the human being is a being that continues to be. This paper examines Islamic theology's Koranic understanding of the human being and its reflection in life regarding the characteristics of the Anthropocene era. Moreover, the possibility of understanding “wisdom” as a Koranic concept as a practical theological basis for religious education activities is discussed, focusing on the Qur'an and the literature. The potential of Islamic theology's understanding of the human and the reflection of wisdom in life in terms of making sense of the Anthropocene age and turning its disadvantages into advantages is also evaluated from an interpretive perspective.

Ecological Injustice in the Anthropocene

2025-04-01T21:56:45+02:00

This paper explores the intersection of ecological injustice and socioeconomic disparity in light of the tragic flooding of Seoul’s banjiha (basement housing) in 2022. As the Anthropocene era advances, the impact of climate change, including the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, is disproportionately affecting marginalized populations. This is particularly evident in Seoul, where banjihas—homes that are half-underground—have become critical sites of ecological injustice. The 2022 floods, which inundated banjiha homes during record-breaking rainfall, resulted in fatalities and severe damage, highlighting the vulnerability of disadvantaged residents who often live with disabilities or in extreme poverty. This paper analyzes how the structural and socioeconomic conditions of banjiha housing exacerbate the impact of climate-induced flooding. It argues that the 2022 tragedy was not merely a natural disaster, but a revelation of deep-rooted social inequalities. Through the lens of practical theology, informed by Pamela Couture’s social ecology of care, this study proposes a comprehensive response to address such ecological and social injustices. By examining the roles of individuals, families, community institutions, culture, economic conditions, and governmental policies, the paper advocates a multi-dimensional approach to mitigating the effects of climate change on vulnerable populations and to promoting equitable and sustainable living conditions. The aim of this approach is to bridge the gap between theological reflection and practical action. It does so by offering strategies for practical theologians and the churches to engage with as they support affected communities in the face of ongoing ecological challenges.

Fractures in the Living Human Web

2025-04-01T22:00:11+02:00

This paper introduces the challenge of unwanted loneliness to the theory of pastoral care. It does so by first exploring the phenomenon of loneliness in close dialogue with the social sciences, particularly the psychology of loneliness, and then discussing the role that religiosity and pastoral care can play in addressing the complex challenge of contemporary loneliness. Social loneliness is portrayed as a painful gap in social relationships, defined as a discrepancy between existing and desired relationships as subjectively perceived by the individual. Its intense and chronic form has significant negative effects on well-being and health. Loneliness results from individual circumstances of biography, social cognition and behavior, as well as from structural exclusion through socio-cultural marginalization. In many cases, individual circumstances and structural factors interact to produce persistent loneliness. In responding to the complex challenge of loneliness, pastoral care must take into account this dual nature of loneliness as well as the resources and risks associated with religion. A multi-level approach to pastoral care—which integrates interventions at the micro level of individual care, the meso level of community and culture, and the macro level of public discourse and policy—in response to loneliness is proposed. In addition to a synthesis of the interdisciplinary loneliness research literature, the argumentation is based on original statistical analyses of diachronic loneliness trajectories in the Swiss population. Using representative data from the Swiss Household Panel, the empirical part of the paper identifies a typology of loneliness trajectories in individual biographies as well as risks and resources in coping with loneliness situations.

Christian Climate Activism

2025-04-01T22:01:51+02:00

Facing the human-made climate crisis of the Anthropocene, a new generation of activism emerged with resonance in Christian communities. The paper reflects from a German background the divide of mere individual and mere collective solutions and addresses the in-between of various levels of action and engagement in the Global North. Three local climate movements are described with regard to their Christian entanglement like Last Generation supporter Jesuit Jörg Alt or Christian grassroot activism against coalmining. The last part of the paper is about discovering the theological wisdom of urgency of being in-between. On the one hand, there are many opportunities for theological involvement with ecological and social transformation. On the other hand, there is an open discussion about how it should be done: by fostering at least green capitalism, or by more radical changes of Being-in-the-world toward interconnectedness with non-human agency and critique of Christian anthropocentrism and sovereignty. Even Practical Theology should be “staying with the trouble” (Donna Haraway).

Nomadic Ecclesia Praxes as an Eschatological Movement in, with, from the Margins of Oppression

2025-04-01T22:05:18+02:00

This paper seeks to advance the notion of nomadic ecclesia praxes as an inherent eschatological movement as enacted by Jesus Christ. The underlying premise is to depart from the conventional theology of the church as an institutional system. Western theological traditions are re-examined in the light of an African context to envision an eschatological model for nomadic praxes. The aim is to draw on indigenous cultural praxes to redress cultural conformity of the church. Proverbs and artefacts of the First Nation People of South Africa serve as a critical theological source. Their nomadic living realities, their natural spirituality, and their continuous movement resonate with Christian eschatology, a subversive revolutionary praxis. The objective is to illuminate and advance the eschatologically “not-yet” nomadic praxis of Justice and Freedom.

Mutual Care Based on Earth-Centric Empathy in the Living Ecological Web

2025-04-01T22:07:00+02:00

When efforts to address the environmental crisis are solely motivated by human-centric fears of threats to human life, there is a risk of overlooking damage to the Earth that does not threaten humans yet contributes to environmental degradation. This paper aims to shift the perspective from human-centric to Earth-centric, attempting to listen to the voice of the Earth based on a mutual relationship, and to seek practical theological wisdom arising from empathy toward the Earth. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of two case studies, the possibility of listening to and empathizing with the Earth is explored. Practicing such interspecies and Earth-centric empathy enables the reformulation of humanity's roles in addressing the climate crisis, creating a path for mutual care within the living ecological web. This process leads to a theological imagination of the eschatological Kingdom of God and ultimately constructs an Earth-centric practical theology.

Revitalizing Ecological Vocation

2025-04-01T22:09:22+02:00

This article examines the role of the Protestant church in addressing the environmental crisis in South Korea. The predominant evangelical church—with its focus on the prosperity gospel and neoliberal values such as capitalism, individualization, and privatization—often hinders the development of practices that promote social change, including ecological justice. This article argues for a theological reevaluation of human vocation as represented in Genesis 1 and 2, advocating for a revitalization of human vocation as stewards who integrate ecological faith and recognize humans as part of nature. By examining the Beautiful Presbyterian Church as a model, the paper suggests three ecological practices for all churches: sustainability, mutual living, and earth justice.

Preface

2025-05-13T08:41:54+02:00