1. Starting with Experience
The first stage in the process is learning about our situation, about our community and also about ourselves and how we respond to what goes on around us. At this stage we employ whatever skills and knowledge we can, to think about and analyse our own context. Even this initial stage can present a challenge, because, as more things are discovered about our local situation, the greater is the need for us to be involved.

2. Learning from Scripture, Tradition and Reason
The second stage in the urban theology process is to reflect - to ask which parts of the biblical story or Christian Tradition have similarities with what we have discovered about our situation. The reflection goes beyond finding parallel texts or doctrinal themes. Sometimes, it involves a complicated dialogue between the past of the biblical world and the present context. For us, that includes an understanding of biblical interpretation. We develop and use skills to interpret the text and see if this accentuates links between the text and our experience of contemporary society. As a result, the reflection provokes us to discover more about the Bible, more about the Church’s tradition, more about what we believe as Methodists… because all of this helps us to see more clearly how to understand the presence of God in our communities.

3. Action: service in the community
The third stage of urban theology, following the thinking about our context and then reflection, is action. This brings us to the ‘Service’ aspect of the Methodist Church’s Our Calling and its statement that ‘The Church exists to be a good neighbour to those in need and to challenge injustice.’  UTU promotes an integration of learning, spirituality and action (or ‘Service’ to use the word from Our Calling) particularly in relation to injustices.

When we have looked at our community and have wrestled with what the Bible and our faith tradition may be saying about that, it is almost certain that areas of need will be identified: from people who are homeless, to a vacancy on a local community group. It is quite likely that areas of injustice will be recognised. Urban theology is not simply thinking about God in the city, or in any context in which we might find ourselves. What we discover in our research about our context and in our reflection then provokes action.

Possibilities for preachers and worship leaders
The three stages of urban theology can offer preachers an alternative approach to preparing sermons. For example, careful consideration of our local situation (whether it’s urban or rural) can lead us to explore how Scripture and our Church’s part in the Christian tradition reveal God’s presence in our local situation. It can also lead us to suggest possible ways Christians might take practical action as ‘good neighbours to those in need’ who also ‘challenge injustice’.

Preparation for prayers of intercession could sometimes use this three-stage approach, helping the leader of worship to express particular local concerns, to acknowledge God’s presence already in a situation and to pray for neighbourly action that seeks justice for those in need.

Learning and Service
However, there are further distinctive aspects of UTU’s approach to urban theology. The first relates to the challenge to action. Most of the academic staff are practising ministry in one form or another. Some are ordained and continue to balance teaching with an ongoing pastoral ministry. Most are involved in various community projects, community action groups and campaigning organizations. This is directly because of the conviction that academic theology needs to be integrated in our practice and our day to day discipleship. There is, therefore, a close relationship between learning and service.

God’s preferential option for the poor
The second stems from UTU’s assumption that God has a preferential option for the poor. You may well have recognised in the paragraphs above an explanation of a liberation theology method. This perspective has been a continuing influence on the way UTU understands the world to be. It influences the teaching methods used and emphasizes the need for action. Liberation Theology arose out of South America during periods of unrest and serious oppression. People like Gutiérrez, Segundo, Sobrino and Boff argued that the starting place for doing theology, for thinking about God, was acknowledging the poverty and the injustices that existed, and asking how God was relevant in those situations. It was they who focused on justice, who asked questions about God’s presence in the midst of dreadful suffering, who spoke of spirituality being lived out in action, who described how defending the poor could result in martyrdom. It was they who asked awkward questions about the way the Church had previously described God, understood the Trinity and explained the nature of sin. Social Action, an awareness of injustices, and the conviction that discipleship means responding to those issues, are key parts of what UTU stands for.

Implications for UTU (and for you, too?)
Students at UTU are challenged to integrate learning and spirituality, to be socially aware, to discover what it means to read the Bible from (amongst more traditional methods and other contemporary ones) a socio-political perspective, and to understand how this can open up a dialogue between the poverty and the injustices described in some biblical texts, with similar social problems today.

Although the Our Calling document separates ‘Service’ from ‘Learning and Caring’, UTU links the two closely. Action within the community and in the world is an integral part of Christian discipleship. It also demands a high level of pastoral care among Christian disciples – in this case, within UTU itself. Studying the Bible provokes questions and possibly doubts that challenge one’s faith. Experience of local community life and the development of skills can present difficult challenges for all of us, whether in a training institution or in circuit life. Any new learning can challenge the way we think and can make us feel threatened because we need to change the way we have previously seen the world. We encourage people to become radical disciples, but we know it is hard to integrate learning and spirituality with action. For us, it is important that the journey is shared and support and encouragement is given as well as challenges being offered.

Challenging injustice may be uncomfortable, but it is a consequence of believing God has a preferential option for the poor. It is almost an automatic consequence of reflecting on one’s context, especially when those contain some areas of need. Becoming involved in and opting for action comes as a result of taking the Bible and our faith tradition seriously; looking for the parallels and setting up a dialogue between the text and the context.

UTU is an ecumenical community, but it is close to the Methodist tradition that emphasizes that personal holiness must include social action. That leaves us with no alternative but to develop a spirituality that includes action for justice.

Christine Jones
Director of UTU

More information about UTU and its work can be found at www.utusheffield.org.uk