Practical Theology as Empirical Theology

Christian Theology is devoted to reflection on religion, life and faith. What can be identified as the empirical dimension of theology? The empirical interest of theology and of research in religion since the 20th century refers in manifold ways to the focal issue "experience". A contemporary life world oriented theology neither restricts its perspective to belief and faith traditions nor to "religious"objects. Rather it opens up towards an analysis of the culturally shaped forms and symbolic representations of life in order to describe religious experience as rooted in "lived experience"-a fundamental category for a refreshed understanding of human behavior. The formal object of Practical Theology as Empirical Theology is Christian praxis as action and as aesthetic praxis, centred in the first-person-perspective. The awareness of a human being interwoven with the active and re-active structure of life, with otherness, could serve as an understanding of reality in accordance with the dynamic and mysterious structure of life in theological interpretation inspired by the theology of Christ's cross. The contribution of Empirical Theology to theology in general might be to keep attentive and reflected contact with religious life in congregations and in the culture Christians are part of.