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Christian beliefs are deeply implicated in “real” life. Practical theologians attempt to interpret time and situation and to search for the meaning of life in the light of Christian beliefs. Theology is interpretive, and such interpretive activity is practical in nature. For the purpose of providing meaningful interpretation on “the living human texts” situated in complex contexts and meeting their fundamental needs of existence, importance of conversation with other academic domains is more and more elevated in practical theology. While engaging in rational communication with other academic fields, practical theologians need to attentively articulate the models and methods of cross disciplinary dialogue. In this article, we will review four types of traditional approaches to the relationship between theology and science, and then three models of cross-disciplinary dialogue: correlational, transformational, and transversal.

This study aims to discover factors detrimental to the sense of pastoral calling and suggest measures to overcome this problem. Pastors have been selected to called to Him by God and are given special gifts necessary for this work. If a calling is related to a mutual relationship with God, a gift is something that is given to individuals. This can be differentiated between an intrinsic calling and an extrinsic calling. A calling has a profound influence on the life of a pastor. The factors detrimental to a pastor’s sense of calling is first, a tendency for a pastor to be dominated by thoughts of success and advancement so that he becomes engrossed with building up his own career. Next is overlooking the spiritual guidance of his congregation to treat them as consumers and introducing marketing method to the ministry. And, when a pastor strays from the presence of God, his sense of calling becomes weakened. The condition for recovering his sense of calling is for God to force the pastor to experience a desperate situation similar to that of encountering a storm or being put in a prison. This is because only when one is put under duress of a desperate situation will he debase himself and seek God in earnest. A pastor needs to be earnest in his prayers. It is the means for him to recover his sense of calling. Only when a pastor view his ministry field from the perspective of his calling and serve his ministrial subjects with devotion will he get closer to his calling. The change in the pastoral paradigm is also an important factor in the recovery of the ministrial sense of calling. This is because a pastor’s role is defined in accordance to the paradigm.

The study deals with the sacrificial theme of the eucharist in a Protestant perspective, which is represented by the 1972 UM eucharistic prayer. While sacrificial spirituality is somewhat universal among all sectors of the Christianity, the view to regard the eucharist as a sacrifice is rare or abhorrent to most Protestants. For these, sacrificial languages in the Eucharist means to return to the late medieval abuse. Sacrificial euchology, however, survived especially in the Anglican eucharistic tradition without apparent articulation. The sacrificial euchology of the BCP was ingenious enough to save the theme, avoiding committing the medieval error. Cranmer’s genius was inherited by the Wesleys. The Wesleys’ encharistic hymns express the eucharistic sacrifice in terms of both objective side (grace) and subjective side (human experience and response). This rich heritage was not paid adequate attention to even by those in the traditions. The 1972 UM eucharistic prayer made a turning point for the Protestant sacrificial euchology. While sacrificial language itself is not new, the prayer may be the first Protestant eucharistic prayer to express the eucharistic sacrifice, both self-consciously and fully. It articulates the universal spirituality principles of the Anglo-Methodist tradition in terms of universal forms and expressions of ecumenical traditions, harmonizing Hippolytus’ phrases and the Antiochene tripartite pattern and opening up more profound and holistic meanings of the eucharist, which is possible when the sacrificial theme is not excluded.

The Eucharist Sacrament verifies the Words of God, guarantees the good will and grace of God, and strengthens our faith. The reason God added the Eucharist Sacrament in his gospel was to make us remember Him through his Words, and incarnate within us to bring his presence, confidence, and proof of the salvation he promised. Guido de bres, who realized the significance of the Eucharist Sacrament, indicated the meaning, proper attitude, and methods in The Belgic Confession Article 29 “The true church and The false church”, Article 33 “The Sacrament”, Article 35 “The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.” The media development in the 21st century has generated cyber churches and the number of Christians not attending the church has been increasing. Under this circumstances, the significance and meaning of the Sacrament were analyzed. Therefore, churches should have more sacraments and comply the following principles. Firstly, perform the Eucharist Sacrament intactly; secondly, restore the effervescence of salvation; third, have fear and respect for God; fourth, reflect oneself before the Eucharist Sacrament; and fifth, practice the life of warm loving heart for God and neighbors. I hope the meaning of the Eucharist Sacrament, which recorded and presented in the spiritual thoughts of Guido de bres, will be reflected in the innovation of the spirit of the modern churches 500 years after the Reformation to recover its principles.

No one is born as a Christian. One needs a mark to become part of a Christian community. The mark happens by sacraments that declare “what God is doing to bring us to faith.” Christian Baptism is a means to experience and understand the ways “God acts to initiate us into the community of the faithful.” There are variety of stages and sign-acts in Baptism. And they inevitably involve the love of God and the way of expressing it theologically. Many Christian denominations in Korea have their own theology of Christian baptism. Korean Christians seem outwardly to follow their Protestant position in theology. But we sometimes encounter the fact that they used to confuse the nature of Christian baptism. In fact, it is not easy for Korean Protestants to refuse this criticism. Many baptized christians seems not to feel and realize how important their baptism is in their journey as believers. In addition, even though many Christian leaders insist they follows the baptismal theology of the Protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, they practically seem to receive Zwingli’s theological concept. Zwingli made some strong points in favor of infant baptism by considering it to be a New Testament ‘covenant sign,’ but, precisely speaking, he merely regarded baptism as a dedicatory sign. In fact, the meaning of baptism is very lightly understood and treated today. In this situation, the theological understanding of infant baptism seems not to be dealt seriously and meaningfully. Furthermore, infant baptism is still a troubling issue today. In this article, it is explored what an infant baptism is and what Korean Methodist Church teaches in terms of infant baptism through analyzing its liturgical documents.

Worship and Preaching are integrated into one. The reason is, first, that both are integrated into one form with a message. Second, worship and preaching have a form of communicating. For this reason the two are integrated. The ritual element of worship is the human response to God's revelation toward man and has a real message in its spiritual communication. The preaching is a channel through which God's revelation. It is communicated to man hearing as well as various thing, the reality of the communicative form of the path of spiritual connection between God and man through various media. In this respect, worship and preaching are modes of communication with messages, and the process of establishing such worship and preaching can be very diverse in the variety of description that make up it. So worship and preaching contain spiritual messages, and both agree on attributes that achieve spiritual communication. Therefore, worship accepts preaching as a whole. The wider acceptance of worship makes it possible to understand preaching in worship. The 'Law of worship' can be the 'Law of preaching,' and the 'Law of preaching' can be the 'Law of worship.' The Gospel gives a comprehensive picture of the image of Jesus Christ. This Christ image encompasses the content of the Christian faith. The image of faith can be a message of faith. That is, the image is a message. Ritual is a religious act that interacts with images between human and God. Because this is accomplished through visual things, physical things. There is preaching in worship, and preaching can be a worship in itself. When preaching is regarded as a factor of worship, it can be worship only by preaching, and when worship is the time to hear God's revelation, spiritual communication can be established with the faith community including the message of preaching in some formal ritual of worship. Thus, Worship and Preaching are each understood as a unified faith value rather than a separate, independent. And This concept forms a broader faith world.

The Korean church loves to read the Bible, Word of God, and its preacher is sincere to deliver messages daily and weekly on the Bible for the life of people. However, it is admitted to say that the church’s way of reading and understanding the Bible determines the church’s way of being in the world. Our loyalty to the Bible often makes us ignore a new challenging way of reading and takes us back to fundamental and Biblicist way of believing in God. Thus, we, preachers, are responsible to be a more faithful and biblical readers for the church, and reading the Bible as a literature helps preachers open wide their eyes to sense God and humanity from a new perspective. This study purposes to introduce an inter-textual reading of the Book of Jonah as one of case practices of literary reading of the Bible for preaching. Inter-textual reading of the Bible helps the church read the church’s book more biblically and faithfully because the inter-textuality informs its reader of the earlier texts which the writer used to create a new meaning. The Book of Jonah is one of exciting stories in the Bible to show us how one text is made up of other texts for creating a new meaning. For this study, I will first give an overview of what inter-textuality is and what the story of Jonah tells about. Then, it moves to some features of Jonah’s inter-textuality with two kinds of literatures: one from the Hebrew scripture - Noah’s flood in Genesis and the Book of Ruth; the other from outside of the biblical literature, an ancient Egyptian tale, The Shipwrecked Sailor. After overviewing the inter-textuality of Jonah, this study concludes with presenting three homiletical learnings from inter-textual reading of the Bible.

The purpose of this paper investigates an important issue in the field of contemporary homiletics: the significance of the cultural context in preaching. This paper deals with the important relationship between preaching and culture. It reveals that preaching always presupposes the cultural context of the audience whose members desire to know the meaning of the Word of God for their specific situation. Preaching should not and does not happen in a wilderness or an empty place where no listener is found. In this regard, the preacher, the message, the audience and its context are interrelated, and they are all necessary and indispensable ingredients in a preaching ministry. In particular, in dealing with the relationship between preaching and culture, the paper investigates the dimension of this homiletic issue through the work of H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture. The book, Christ and Culture, was published in 1951 by H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962), a professor of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School for thirty years. This book is one of the most influential Christian books of the past century. Perhaps no other book has dominated an entire theological conversation for so long. In this volume Niebuhr comes to grips with one of the most crucial issues of the Christian faith: “What is the relation of Christianity to cultural society?” Niebuhr argues that Christianity has been in “the double wrestle with its Lord and with the cultural society.” The basic argument of this book accounts for how the Christian church has understood itself in relation to both the living Lord as the object of faith and the cultural context in which the church resides. Niebuhr emphasizes that the struggle of the church in relation to these two realities, Christ and culture, has been an enduring problem, particularly in Western society, since the coming of Christ. Niebuhr’s work essentially argues that there have been various relationships between Christ and culture in the history of human civilization. His interpretation can be an insightful resource for investigating one of the important issues in preaching: the relationship between preaching and its cultural context. Consciously or unconsciously, preaching has always been a response to its cultural context. In fact, the response of the church to its culture can be seen as the response and interpretation of the preachers or the theologians to their cultural situation. In this vein, preaching can be an important representative voice of the church which always attempts to interpret and proclaim the relationship between Christ and culture. The paper briefly describes H. Richard Niebuhr’s argument on the issue of Christ and culture, and investigates how this issue has affected the church’s understanding of its surrounding culture and society. Finally, the paper examines the implication of his work in relation to the issue of ‘preaching and culture.’

The goal of this paper is to explicate how the understanding of the doctrine of justification can affect the preaching of justification. In justification Paul greatly emphasizes the individual's lack of worthiness and need of grace before God. Since the rise of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP), the traditional interpretation of the doctrine of justification has changed in many ways. The NPP unanimously rejects the Protestant grace/work antithesis as the key to the doctrine. This paper attempts to re-emphasizes the place of the individual in justification based on textual considerations, while not neglecting important corporate elements highlighted by the NPP. Salvation for Paul was not merely about the individual, but was part of a much larger scheme where God reconciles all humankind to himself. With respect to the term of imputation, Paul never expressly states that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers. The NPP made it fashionable to regard imputed righteousness as legal fiction. However this paper proposes that the notion of imputation is entirely legitimate as a way of restating the forensic nature of justification against an infused righteousness. Besides it suggests the use of language that more readily comports with Paul's concept of justification, that is, union with Christ. Since salvation and eschatology are integrally and organically connected, the focus in our preaching should be both on the salvation which is already experienced as a present reality and on the eschatological fullness of salvation which still remains a future hope. This paper argues that the doctrine of justification is an utterly Christocentric doctrine in that the justification of sinner takes place only in and through the justification of God in the event of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The only righteousness of Christian that will avail before the judgment of God is the righteousness of Christ. Therefore preaching justification should be preaching Christ. Preachers must set forth Christ in their preaching of justification, as Christ is the center of the whole Bible.

The purpose of this study is to discover the importance of movements/dance and to apply the healing and caring functions to the pastoral care and ministry. With the question how pastoral caregivers have sympathy with the suffering people, I have an insight from a dancer. The identity of an artist makes pastors and pastoral caregivers be possible to understand and approach to their agony. Thus, I make a theological approach to beauty, art, and artist. In order to approach to the healing and caring functions, I especially pay attention to movements/dance among other art forms with the reason that they are closely related to human emotions, han and shinmyong in the Korean context. This study reveals that art leads humans to make the creative expression, deeply relating human sufferings, and also Christian art also work as a vehicle for delivering God’s messages in the daily life. Even though movements/dance have significant functions for healing and caring, they are not actively developed and utilized in Korean Christian community. Within the topic of movements/dance, I examine several subjects: the theological aspect of beauty and art, and the practical implications of movements/dance in the ministerial setting. I develop my arguments, first, with the theological understanding of God and beauty, art and the roles in human life. Then, I try to describe the healing and caring implications of movements/dance historically and psychologically in related to the Korean emotions, han and shinmyong. At last, I focus on the implications of movements/dance in pastoral care and ministry. Since dance is non-verbal art, it is somehow deeply related to spiritual concern. Thus, Christian community needs to actively develop the utilization of art in the pastoral care and ministry. This study helps the pastors and pastoral caregivers to recognize the significance in using movements/dance in the pastoral counseling as well as ministry setting. Moreover, they can acquire insights how to apply movements/dance in building the loving and caring community.

My principal concern in this study is to a explore God-human relationship in the psychology of religion, specifically in the perspective of object relations theory. Freud considers religion as an illusion defined by pathology, and thus, a product of neurosis. However, Winnicott does not see an illusion as negative like Freud’s view, but rather as positive and even as necessary for the self’s sustenance through a life-long experience. Winnicott’s conception of illusion is based on the child’s early experience of separation from its mother. Winnicott finds out, from this separation experience of the child, the notion of a “transitional space,” where the child comes to experience a middle area between illusion and reality. The child experiences this transitional space through “transitional objects, which plays an important role to suggest the relationship between religion and psychology, in terms of the interpersonal experience of the “intermediate area” between God and a human. Meissner and Rizzuto demonstrate the relationship between God and the human, building on Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects and the transitional space of reality and illusion. Now the concept of projective identification may provide an important possibility of psychologically postulating God-human relationship, in that a basic human relatedness to God come from the relationship between human limitation and ultimate Divine being. The image or representation of God as “an ultimate transitional object” can be suggested, according to Winnicott’s concept of the transitional object. Heinz Kohut’s concept of “selfobject” can be used for the analogy of God as a selfobjet in the concept of an ultimate transitional object. In probing God-human relationship in projective identification, intervention of the pastor will be inevitably involved in their projective identification. The pastors’ capacity then for toleration and containment is considered their most important therapeutic resource. The pastor can perceive that s/he plays an instrumental role in the relationship with the parishioners.

This research has endeavored to demonstrate that feminist theological approaches can be a formative strategy for spiritual direction in the Christian context. The paper began with the problematic discrimination against women that has been systematically constructed and is currently experienced by Christian women. The prevalence of male language in the traditional hierarchic and patriarchic theological structures was identified as a critical impediment for female directees to affirm not only their self-identities, but also their spiritual experiences within the Christian frame. Feminist theological themes, ranging from divine images and Christology to human nature, shed light upon deconstructing and reconstructing the theological frameworks within Christian theology. So, this study attempted to demonstrate the ways in which the traditional Christian theological approaches reconstructed with feminist approaches could play a significant role in cultivating the spiritual experiences of female directees and enhancing their spiritual identity. The feminist theological approaches contain formative and constitutive components for renewing or authenticating spiritual direction for female directees.

A religious pluralism is not a strange phenomenon in Korea because the Korean society consists of various living religions. Christianity is just one of those religions. Although Korean Christianity’s history, Catholic and Protestant, is not long, it has occupied a quarter of the whole population in south Korea. So, Christianity, a foreign Western religion, now exists as one of the main religions in Korea. Although Christianity is now a Korean people’s religion, it is also true that the Christianity introduced from Western countries is still not indigenized or inculturized into Korean culture in a true sense. That is, Christianity in Korea does not fully understand Korea’s pluralistic religious culture, so it still regards it as heretical. In this context, achieving a true encounter between Christian faith and Korean religious cultures is an important task for Christianity in Korea. It is extremely significant for Korean Christians to study comparatively other religions as living partners for Christian faith in order to make Christianity spiritually rich and fruitful in the Korean context. Although the main streams of Christianity are conservative and still opposed to other traditional religions, it is evident that Christianity in Korea has been influenced by other traditional religious cultures in whatever. In particular, the Confucian influence on Christianity in Korea was so strong because the state religion of the Choson dynasty, which lasted until the Japanese occupation in the modern times of Korea, was Confucianism. Even though many people don’t confess Confucianism as their religion, it is undeniable that Confucianism is functioning as a core and basis of Korean lives and cultures. The purpose of this paper is to explore spiritual formation for Korean Christians by doing a comparative study of Christianity and Confucianism in Korea. In this paper, I have dealt with the important issue, “Confucian-Christian dialogue” in the Korean context, focusing on the theme of spirituality. I first tried to define the term ‘spirituality’ from a comparative perspective. Second, with reference to the experience of interfaith encounters in Korea, I have searched for some models of Christian spirituality and spiritual formation which are desirable in the context of Korea. As conclusion, I have discussed about several tasks for the encounter between Christianity and Confucianism, especially for a spiritual formation in the context of the Korean Churches.

This paper discusses psychological foundations for Christian education. Any inquiry about the psychological foundations for Christian education immediately faces the question of the relationship between the science of psychology and the Christian view of man. The discipline of psychology not only embraces a diversity of subjects and interests, but also has the ability to provide practical knowledge for everyday living. The fact that both psychology and the Bible provide information for daily living as well as information about how human beings can be expected to think and behave in various environments has sometimes produced tension. Some of the uncomfortableness felt by Christians toward psychology results from the difficulty of defining precisely where psychology as a discipline begins and where it ends. As one foundation of our psychological model, we wish to set forth the presupposition that God is the ultimate source of truth. Truth exists within God. It should be remembered that try as it might, the science of psychology will never explain the purpose of human existence, nor will it explain the meaning of human life on the earth. Such questions go beyond the level of the science of psychology to engage the field of theology. Christians should never raise a psychological theory to the same level of acceptance as that of Scripture. We hold the Scripture to be God's inerrant Word; apparent scientific truth has often later been proved inaccurate. To address the question of integration, it is helpful to consider the insights shared by Lawrence Crabb Jr., a Christian psychologist, who has suggested four possible approaches. He would like to propose that anyone who wants to work toward a truly evangelical integration of Christianity and psychology should meet the following qualifications. (1) He will agree that psychology must come under the authority of Scripture. (2) He must fervently insist that the Bible is God’s infallible, inspired, inerrant revelation in propositional form. (3) He must agree that Scripture is to have “functional control” over his thinking. (4) In order to achieve such functional control of Scripture over an approach to psychology, integrationists must evidence serious interest in the content of Scripture. Traditionally, educational psychology has endeavored to apply the findings of general, social and child psychology to assist in a better understanding of learning process. It seek to discover, by studying the mental, physical, social and emotional behaviour of children and adults, the factors which influence the quality and quantity of learning. In Christian psychology, problems are often divided into the categories of spiritual, psychological, and physical. Such categories correspond to the biblical concepts of spirit, soul, and body, respectively. Although those divisions are useful in helping us think about human experiences, we need to remember that in reality a person is a whole and must be dealt with as such. Any division of human experience or of human personality should be regarded as arbitrary and operational only; the emphasis is intended to be on whole persons.

The purpose of this article is to explore constructive implications in which Christian nurture of Horace Bushnell (1802-1876) values practical, educational retrieval. Bushnell’s educational approach to Christian nurture has called our attention to the idea that Christian parents have a responsibility to nurture their children to grow up as Christians. In this sense, drawing on an educational incident in the life of a Christian mother, Susan, this article describes a brief overview of Susan’s case and her growing educational concern related to the life of her son, Ji-Hun, in the process of nurture. It also explores central elements of Bushnell’s nurture approach to Christian education, such as nurture, organic connection, educational principles, and church, which are relevant and attainable for Susan’s story. Searching for the application and relevance of Bushnell’s notion of Christian nurture in Susan’s context, it offers five constructive suggestions that help her and her family practice Christian nurture both inside and outside of the home: organic relationship, environment, family rituals of worship and prayer, family prayers, and participation in membership, fellowship, and leadership of the church. Bushnell’s nurture theory provides not only Christian parents but also Christian educators and pastors with an educational way of fostering the faith formation of their children as Christians in Christian education.

The purpose of this study was to explore conceptual and empirical researches on faith and learning integration and propose practical implications for Christian education and school contexts. For this study, different approaches to integration of faith and learning was explored and in turn organized four constructs to possible approaches to integration, namely, Hostile Separation, Independent Model, Mutual Respect Approach, and Integration Model. The need for biblical integration was highlighted and praxis of biblical integration was contemplated and suggested through this article. The implications for faith and learning integration are 1) comprehensive understanding of both the Scripture and the given academic disciplines, 2) building connection between the faith, knowledge, and lives of our students, 3) posing integrative questions, 4) developing faculty who can promote effective and biblical integration, and 5) creating environment for faith and learning integration.

Worldly, powerful big countries surrounding Korea threaten the lives of Korea citizens by the existence of nuclear weapons. Within Korea, suicide has a psycho social problem to the existence of our people. How do we solve and prevent this coming tragedy? Could scientific civilization of knowledge (such as unclear) bring peace and public goodwill to mankind? Teaching and knowledge are not neutral in value. They have either positive or negative aspects. Positive value contributes to the cultural development and succession of tradition. However, negative value is also considered. According to Parker J. Palmer, this tragedy we face is caused by “violence of knowledge” based on the information-giving-centered education, without love which is considered, an important trait of education. Thus, this study will explore Palmer’s spiritual education which recognizes love is a nature of education and teacher one who professes faith. In this study, I survey Palmer’s contribution to education and spirituality. Palmer is one of the spiritual leaders of this era. One of the more important reasons to attend to him is because he understands the essence of education, love which enables us to obey the truth. Initially, this study introduces Palmer’s spirituality and asks: what is the truth that Palmer pursues and what is entailed in his understanding of life? Second, based on his spirituality, I will explore his spiritual education. What is goal of education for him? Furthermore, what is methodology and space of education and relationship between teacher and learners, and what is the role of teacher? In addition, I will provide an application of his spiritual education in the Korean context. Specifically, this study attempts to search for a solution by examining the understanding of true knowledge worthy of our pursuit, or in Palmer's words designing a place “in which obedience to truth is practiced (community of trust,” as a “hidden wholeness) and, furthermore, by re-appraising the function of teachers, who are practitioners and confessors of our faith. In conclusion, based on Palmer’s spiritual education, I summarize my study and offer suggestions for further studies.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer(1906-1945) was a pioneer of the 20th century peace movement. Bonhoeffer was martyred because he resisted the Nazi regime while trying to live out and practice the central peace command of Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer's greatest contribution was in emphasizing the disciple's duty and responsibility for the sake of justice and peace. Inside Tegel Prison Bonhoeffer addressed the question of who is Jesus Christ for us today? This question is an important theme in Bonhoeffer's theology and life. He testified to this question and was executed at Flossenburg concentration camp by the order of the Hitler regime. The world is enmeshed in an ecological crisis, the war on terror, economic unfairness, religious and racial conflicts. The North Korean nuclear threat, China's policy of expansionism, and Japan's neo-militarism. In this context, what is the meaning of Bonhoeffer's question for the disciples of Jesus? Bonhoeffer's concept of peace has its roots in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and is christological and ecclesiological. Bonhoeffer confessed that peace was the presence of Christ and the command of God. Bonhoeffer‘s concept of peace is a peace theory of discipleship based on theologia crucis. The practice of peace in the world is the way of suffering, and this way is the way of the disciple following Jesus. Bonhoeffer's concept of peace is based on his thoughts of deputyship and responsible ethics. Deputyship and responsibility are the central themes of his theological thought and the keys to understanding the concept of peace. Bonhoeffer's act of resistance against the Nazi regime came from the decision of faith as the disciple of Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer's decision was an act of responsibility for one's neighbor and the next generation for the sake of practicing and acting out peace. Therefore, Bonhoeffer's concept of peace, as a disciple of Christ must be understood from the standpoint of deputyship and responsible ethics.