One small step: creative art and the art of supervision

Colin J. Hunter
This paper forms the basis of a lecture delivered at the Melbourne College of Divinity 2004 Residential School which had the theme ‘Harvesting Wisdom For Reflective Practice’. It may be viewed at: http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/chunter/web/creativeart.html

Preamble

Art has always held a certain mystique, even threat, for me. The contemptuous comments of my Year 9 (Third Form in those days) art teacher on my pitiful attempts at producing what I thought was my best artistic effort, crushed my inner artist for decades. Producing a half recognisable likeness of a human face or natural landscape was beyond my imagination and technical skill. To complicate matters, there was amongst my high school peers a student called Margaret who would one day exhibit in New York, London and Tokyo. My fragile artistic self esteem suffered an almost mortal blow when I made the inevitable comparisons between my clumsy efforts and her already remarkable portraits and landscapes. And so I have since hidden behind the excuse, ‘I haven’t an artistic bone in my body’, to explain my seeming lack of interest in all things artistic, and my embarrassment if invited to apply paint to paper or fashion clay at prayer retreats or church camps. Needless to say visiting art galleries did not become my recreational activity of choice, and yet . and yet ., there were times when a Whitely or a McCubbin or a Rembrandt would arrest my attention and stir some deep longings to be able to express myself in wordless languages of the soul.

It was not until I undertook a Master of Arts degree by supervision through the Melbourne Institute for Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy (MIECAT)
that I experienced some degree of liberation from the destructive inhibitions induced by those early influences. I learned that the use of artistic modes of expression in therapy and in supervision do not require a particular skill or aptitude, rather an attitude of intentional focus upon an experience and a reflective representation of that experience that might employ a variety of modes – painting, sculpture, poetry, mask-making, collage, drama, movement, music. Once liberated from the fear of humiliation-before-others, the power of creative expression to reframe one’s interpretation of experience became apparent. Art was no longer the domain of the ‘gifted other’ whose static work I could observe and venerate. It was transformed into a menu of dynamic and symbolic modes of depicting experience, far removed from the prosaic and exclusively verbal modes with which I had become familiar and comfortable.

The context of these musings and the motivation for enrolling in the MIECAT MA, was my prior enrolment as a candidate in the Doctor of Ministry Studies degree through the Melbourne College of Divinity (MCD). My vocation then and now is director of the supervised theological field education (STFE)
programs at Whitley College and the Churches of Christ Theological College (CCTC). STFE is a relatively recent partner in theological education and ministry formation programs in Australia, and not an unambiguously respected or universally welcome partner at that. Whilst I have always had support and encouragement from the faculties in which I teach, I am aware that not all of my STFE colleagues experience the same degree of affirmation. Thus my interest in developing a research project for the DMinStds was to enquire into the experiences of students engaged in a unit of STFE – what was it like to prepare a case study, present it to a peer group, discuss evaluations with a supervisor, etc – and to then hopefully provide a solid pedagogical and theological defence for this experiential mode of theological education. The MIECAT experience (particularly the guidance of my adviser for the MA, Jan Allen) provided me with a methodology for enquiring into human experience, of which creative modes of representation of the experience were a small, but not insignificant, part.

Art and theology

Faith has always sought to interpret its understanding of existence through art as well as through narrative and dogma. Whether it be the elegant and tender ‘Crucifix’ of Michelangelo or the confronting and controversial ‘Piss Christ’ of Andres Serrano, each work represents something of the inner life and faith of the artist, her/his understanding of Jesus as the Christ, and it also represents something of the contemporary life situation and world view of the artist’s community. Recognising art as theology, and applying the discipline of hermeneutics to art, however, is a more recent development.

The modern discipline of hermeneutics emerged as a response to the questions raised by the Reformation about the authentic meaning of the Biblical text and by the Enlightenment about epistemology and philology. The Reformers challenged the understanding that the text could only be interpreted through the lens of tradition and that its true meaning was not accessible to the contemporary lay reader. They asserted that truth was accessible to the contemporary reader and that the basis for faith and doctrine could be developed sola scriptura without reference to tradition[1].

Whilst not advocating a return to the authority of tradition as the interpretive framework of Scripture, Friedrich Ast (1778-1841) recognised that hermeneutics involved more than merely reading and understanding the language of the text. He proposed three levels of interpretation:
Ø the hermeneutic of the letter (grammatical interpretation);
Ø the hermeneutic of the sense (the matter addressed within the text);
Ø the hermeneutic of the spirit (both the spirit of the age in which the document was written and the individuality or ‘genius’ of the author)[2].

Hermeneutics, for Ast, required an understanding of the world-view of the author and his/her community and of the particular ‘controlling idea’ embodied in the text. It was an attempt to re-create, as far as possible, the original intention of the author, liberated from the contamination of traditional interpretations and contemporary culture.

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) similarly thought that hermeneutics required that the hearer engage the mind of the speaker as well as the text. In his concept of the ‘hermeneutical circle’, Schleiermacher grappled with the complex issues of how humans understand their world. They understand, he claimed, by comparing the object of inquiry with what they already know, thus learning is analogical in character. But they cannot fully understand a finite object (a sentence or a statement) unless they relate it to the whole context in which it exists (the intention or idea of the author). It is this dialectical movement between text and context, part and whole, that constitutes Schleiermacher’s ‘hermeneutical circle’. His purpose in the practice of hermeneutics was not so much to seek understanding as to ‘avoid misunderstanding’, misunderstanding being the default outcome when interpreting a text. His dual ‘grammatical’ and ‘psychological’ approach to interpretation recognised that the text had to be understood as the author would have intended, and this required rigorous literary and historical analysis. However the author’s intention could not be fully conveyed through the medium of language and therefore the interpreter had to, as far as possible, understand the mind of the author. What made this re-experiencing of the author’s thinking possible for Schleiermacher was what he termed the ‘shared human spirit’ of the author and the reader, but it required a rigorous method to bridge the gap and avoid the misunderstanding that was the inevitable consequence of a ‘lax practice of understanding'[3].

Schleiermacher’s concern with hermeneutics was still essentially to provide a method of interpreting Scripture for the modern mind in a way that had integrity and relevance. Wilhelm Dilthey’s (1833-1911) contribution to the development of hermeneutics was to expand the horizon of interpretation to include the humanities and social sciences, ‘. that is . all those disciplines which interpret expressions of man’s inner life, whether the expressions be gestures, historical actions, codified law, art works (my italics) or literature'[4]. All of these expressions of life were open to inquiry as to their meaning but the methods differed from objective scientific investigation; ‘Scientific experiments seek to know and explain. Inquiry into human affairs seeks to understand'[5].

Dilthey set great store on ‘lived experience’ (Erlebnis) and on the possibility of interpreting expressions of lived experience because ‘all humans participate in a common Spirit'[6] (as for Schleiermacher). He moved the locus of understanding from sacred text to human experience although that experience was more than the subjective experience of an individual. Each individual had a ‘world-view’ (Weltanschauung) which was shaped, not only in the intellect, but in the whole of life which included feelings and will as well as thinking. Dilthey had a strong sense of humans as historical beings in which the world-view of the individual developed within a society and culture, so that relationships and the sensations and feelings engendered by their experience in the world, all contributed to their world-view. The texts humans produced, whether written or artistic, were expressions of that world-view, and the task of hermeneutics was to re-create in the mind of the reader, the world-view of the author[7].

This understanding of the task of hermeneutics would change radically in the later twentieth century arising particularly out of the thinking of Martin Heidegger. According to Heidegger, ‘interpretation is not an isolated activity, but the basic structure of experience'[8]; i.e. to be human was to be an interpreter of experience. Hermeneutics presupposed a text, which, in Schleiermacher’s understanding, would mean the Biblical text, and the text became a lens through which experience was interpreted. Subsequent hermeneuticians have recognised that the principles of hermeneutics which evolved to interpret Scripture for differing contexts, could apply to any text, or even works of art which are also expressions of meaning. Spinelli used the example of the irritation that abstract art induces in many people (because of its seeming ‘meaninglessness’) to make the point that artistic expression is in fact ‘meaningful'[9]. The almost hysterical reaction to the exhibition of Serrano’s ‘Piss Christ’ at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1997 is testament to the truth of Spinelli’s thesis[10].

So then, as recently as the late nineteenth century, the nexus between art and theology, and the possibility that art might be a medium of interpreting human experience, had been recognised. It would be fair to say, however, that the emphasis of most theologians and philosophers would have been on ‘significant’ works of art by recognised artists, (eg. Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ has been widely recognised as one of the finest interpretations of the obscenities and absurdities of the Spanish Civil War[11]). Such a construction opens the door to engaging art in ‘the theological interpretation of situations'[12], but still leaves me with my Form Three insecurities and phobias and excludes me from this hermeneutical medium unless I become a student of the history of art.

Hans Georg Gadamer virtually sealed this arcane use of art as a scholarly object for interpretation rather than an accessible medium for representing experience. He was suspicious of the merit of personal reflection as a way of accessing the meaning of human experience. Like his teacher, Martin Heidegger, Gadamer saw humankind as an intrinsically historical being, and all interpretations of existence, including art, needed to be framed in terms of historical consciousness. Gadamer was convinced of the importance of the close link between aesthetics and hermeneutics[13], but at the same time did not believe that the meaning of a work of art was immediately accessible – only historical works of art were open to interpretation and interpretation came as much from the evaluation of the community as it did from individual reflection. Gadamer wanted to rescue the concept of ‘prejudice’ from the pejorative connotations that now attach to it, and believed that ‘the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgements, constitute the historical reality of his being'[14]. It was these prejudices which were formed by the participation of the individual in a family, a society and a state that were thus historically constituted and facilitated interpretation. Subjectivity, according to Gadamer, was a ‘distorting mirror’; the task of hermeneutics was to bring about a ‘fusion of the horizons of the past and the present’, but it was the horizon of the past that needed to inform the horizon of the present.

Creative art and theological reflection

The relationship between art and theology as outlined above was articulated principally by European theologians and philosophers and tended to perpetuate the impression that theology was the province of the professional theologian, and art appreciation the province of the professional artist or art historian. De Gruchy made a distinction between ‘religious art’ (which would fit within the categories described above), and ‘spiritual art’ which was so labelled by Wassily Kandinsky and ‘intended as a focus for meditation'[15]. De Gruchy wrote:
‘Spiritual art’ expresses the quest for transcendence and as such it reflects the search for spirituality that has become important to our post-modern world. .. A spiritual work of art will arrest us, prize open our minds and hearts, and bring us into relation with a world beyond the ordinary.

Whilst this is an admirable attempt to liberate art from the custody of the ecclesiastical institution, it does not necessarily render it accessible to the participation of the seemingly non-artistic (like myself). It still belongs to an aesthetic elite who have the talent to produce works capable of inspiring awe and wonder in the viewer. My intention in this paper is not, as it might seem, to diminish the significance of religious art or spiritual art, nor is it to question the valid insights of Tillich et al. who have drawn connections between theology and art, aesthetics and spirituality[16]. Rather I am wanting to explore ways in which different modes of artistic expression can be enlisted in the enterprise of theological reflection, and in the context of supervision for ministry.

One starting point for this quest might be the renewal of interest in art as worship in Protestant faith communities (it might be argued that it was never lost in Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions). The combination of Reformation iconoclasm and Enlightenment rationalism led to what Begbie described as ‘the alienation of art'[17] in Western society, the outcome of which was ‘the [isolation] of a work of art from the particularities of everyday life'[18]. The catch cry ‘art for art’s sake’ reflected this sense that art and aesthetics were unrelated to everyday life and thus divorced from the tasks of understanding and meaning-making[19] which had become restricted in the modern era to rational processes. In recent decades Protestant churches have experienced their own renaissance through the recognition that art (often in the form of banners, flower arrangements, liturgical dance and the like) could breathe new life into worship practices that may have become sterile. Dyrness described art as a form of meditation (as for Kandinsky’s ‘spiritual art’); ‘Like the biblical notion of Sabbath (which means at its root to “stop”), art stops us in our tracks and forces us to pay attention to life in a way that we had not previously done'[20]. It is this ‘paying attention’ that makes creative art a potentially powerful instrument in the processes of supervision and theological reflection. In their classic work ‘Method in Ministry'[21], James and Evelyn Whitehead identify ‘Attending’ as the first stage in their method of theological reflection. By ‘Attending’ they mean listening to the necessary sources for theological reflection that they identify as ‘Tradition’, ‘Experience’ and ‘Culture’ (other models add ‘Reason’, ‘Scripture’, – as a separate source from ‘Tradition’ – ‘Revelation’ et al). Attending also includes listening to the community and listening to oneself, and it is in the latter task that the use of creative art can be especially helpful. Reflection on experience, especially when written up in a case study or verbatim, is always revelatory. Representation of the experience in some artistic form adds a dimension of depth not always accessible through reflection or written description and analysis.

So then, having begun to establish a case for the employment of modes of art in theological reflection I need to suggest some ways in which this can happen. In this I am indebted to Dr Warren Lett, the Director of MIECAT, for his published material and for modelling procedures of enquiry with the MA students. In the early 1990’s Lett conducted research, which he described as ‘a process as near as possible to a purely phenomenological journey'[22], with a group of therapists. He wrote:
Four conceptual blocks were combined to underpin this research.
1. The arts, as modes of knowing, are conceived of as vehicles for carrying meaning in supervision, as in therapy.
2. It is an assumption that emotion is significantly attached to experience, often disconnected from full awareness, and acts as signifier for access.
3. The experiencing self is the experiential container of awareness and can be refocussed into fuller awareness.
4. A phenomenological process can be adopted to encounter the essence of experiential structures, leading to the acquisition of meanings in an amplified self-awareness[23].

The arts ‘as vehicles for carrying meaning in supervision’ needed to stand apart from other sources for theological reflection so that meaning was allowed to emerge from the experience and not from any external interpretive framework (such as Scripture or Tradition). Lett argued, ‘A hermeneutic interpretation that goes outside the text for paradigms of meaning is not phenomenologically pure in this writer’s view'[24]. By ‘text’ he meant the text created through the processes of phenomenological enquiry.

Obviously in supervision for ministry, theological reflection must make significant reference to the tradition, but the quality of reflection will be greatly enriched, and will be more authentic, if the tradition is in a dialectical conversation with the meaning that emerges from a phenomenological enquiry into experience. Describing experience through some mode of artistic representation will enhance the enquirer’s ability to discern intrinsic meaning in an experience before passing it through the filters of other sources for theological reflection. In this way not only does tradition inform one’s interpretation of contemporary experience, experience (phenomenologically interpreted) informs one’s interpretation of tradition and may lead to a re-framing of one’s ‘operational theology'[25].

One small step

I mentioned at the beginning of this paper that my renaissance in matters artistic was triggered by my involvement in a MIECAT Master of Arts by supervision which was a precursor to a doctoral research project that enquired into the experience of students undertaking a unit of STFE. The MIECAT program introduces students to processes that allow enquiry into human experience using a variety of recognised qualitative research methods such as interviews and focus groups, as well as different modes of artistic representation of experience. I incorporated some of these ‘MIECAT processes’ into the research design and what follows is a description of some of the actual experiences of using art in the research process to demonstrate how art might be used as a tool for theological reflection in supervision for ministry.

STFE provides supervision for ordination candidates with the Baptist Union of Victoria at two levels. Each student has a personal supervisor who has been trained to standards established by the Victorian Association for Theological Field Education (VATFE) and accredited with the Melbourne College of Divinity (MCD). The students also meet weekly for peer supervision facilitated by myself or another qualified facilitator. In each mode of supervision the students set goals for their learning in the field placement, prepare and present case studies, and evaluate their learning during the semester and achievement of their goals. My interest in the research was to enquire into the various experiences that constitute STFE, such as presenting goals to the supervisor or presenting a case study to the peer group.

I was able to enlist one of the peer supervision groups, comprising four students, as co-researchers. There were five research segments, each enquiring into a different aspect of the program, and each comprising a questionnaire and a one hour group session. The basic questions were the same for each questionnaire[26]:
1. In as much detail as you are able, write a description of your recollection of this experience. What happened as you presented the goals? Please underline in your description any key words or phrases that represent what was most important about the experience.
2. Do you recollect any particular sensory responses? Do you associate these with any particular point in the presentation?
3. Do you recollect any particular emotional responses? Do you associate these with any particular point in the presentation?
4. Represent the whole experience of presenting the goals in some form that is comfortable to you (prose, poetry, drawing etc).
5. Complete the following sentence in 35 words or less: Presenting goals to the peer group is like.

The research process allowed the participants at least a fortnight to complete the questionnaire. In the research session, they would review their responses to the questionnaire and individually identify the key words and phrases in their material (including the artistic representation) that they felt most aptly described the experience. As a group they then gathered their key words and phrases into clusters of similar descriptors of the experience, and named each cluster. The naming of the clusters of key words represented the first stage in developing themes to describe their experiences of STFE and, to this point, all of the work in producing and processing the data was undertaken by the participants themselves[27]. I then gathered all of the data from the five research sessions, identified the themes for each session and then developed overarching themes, or ‘metathemes'[28], for the overall experience of undertaking a unit of STFE[29].

This is the context within which I took my ‘one small step’ into the use of art as an instrument, in this instance for research, but with implications for supervision for ministry. The participants’ responses to question 4 of the questionnaires (represent the experience in some creative form) were varied and imaginative. One favoured drawings (though not exclusively)
whereas the others favoured poetry.

When describing the experience of preparing a case study Angela Thomas (permission granted to identify the author) drew a wrapped parcel marked ‘fragile, handle with care’ to represent the pain she felt in identifying with the mother of a troubled family:

To represent the same experience of preparing a case study, Chris Turner (permission granted to identify the author) wrote the following poem:

Snatching Moments

Can one moment ever really
find itself snatched from
the fabric of time,
to be
relived, rejoiced, rehurt,
relost, like an eternally
rotating rhyme?

What are tears if they
fall for a moment lost?
Was not anxiety wasted?
Spent on events unchangeable
like prayers for a fallen
forest; like warmth after
a fatal frost.

Yet time boasts many
dimensions.
Memories are never frozen,
and the heart of creation
beats to the rhythm of
a million moments snatched
from the fabric of time.

Savoured like a
smooth red wine,
bitter and sweet,
dancing on a palette of
eternal horizon.
Memories of moments
snatched from the past.

Moulded into a single
reflection, mirrored in an
empty stained glass,
swallowed by the soul
of creation,
thirsting for a healing
past.

Chris’s written description of the experience (Question 1) focussed on what the particular choice of case study revealed about himself, but his poem led him much deeper into a profound reflection on the complex interaction of experience, memory and time.

By contrast David Enticott (permission granted to identify the author)
described the experience of preparing a case study as a ‘precious sanctuary where time can be given for reflection and growth’ and represented it in poetry thus:

A Place to Call Home

So much ministry
takes place in the market
here items are bought and sold
A conversation here
Administration there

A cycle of
increasing intensity
that builds to a storm
on Sunday

But into these
rushed moments
come small pockets
of precious sanctuary

Here the noise
of pressing needs
& blaring phones
is replaced by
the simple
sound of running water

There is green grass
flapping birds
dancing children
and clouds

Time to reflect

Peace

A place to call home.

‘Joshua’ (pseudonym) was able to identify that he experienced ‘sweating’ and ‘dry mouth’ when presenting his goals to the peer group, an experience that caused him ‘nervousness’ and ‘fear’. He represented the experience in this poem:

My Nerves are Working

Armpits start to sweat
A lump in my throat
My mouth is dry

My nerves are working.
I wonder if my goals will?

Dave’s goals were different to mine.
He’s done this before.
Mine must be wrong.

My nerves are working.
I wonder if my goals will?

The faces around me look friendly.
They’ll say nice things anyway.
Here goes nothing.

My nerves are working.
I wonder if my goals will?

Wow.
Gordon and Colin know their stuff.
My goals are taking shape.

My nerves are working.
I wonder if my re-written goals will?

The time is over.
I learned a few things,
things I didn’t know about goals.

My nerves are finally unfolding.
I wonder how my goals will?

Much of Joshua’s poetry was graphic, capturing the dynamic feelings and emotions of the experience. His representation of the experience of presenting a case study to the peer group read:

Wow

Wow!
It works.
It really works.
Open up, trust the group, and they will honour that trust.
They ask, they help, they encourage, they discern.
They learn with me.
This is great!
But I’m exhausted now.

Of the same experience, Chris wrote:

All will be well
Have you ever noticed
what strange things
will happen to
you if you let
them?

The other day I was
lying on a table with
a good number of
my colleagues
standing around me
all dressed in white
gowns with gloves on.

I was chatting with them
about this and that and
they kept bending over me
to look at my chest.
So I looked down and noticed
that my entire front was
cut open and my
colleagues were actually
performing surgery
on me.

I was about to protest when
I noticed that they all
had large healing
scars on their fronts
and they were looking
at me with deep gratitude.

It is the least we could do
they said,
after you healed
us.

All will be well,
all will be well.

When asked to describe an experience, most of the participants produced material that was somewhat self-conscious and mono-dimensional. When invited to express themselves creatively, their material became lively and vital, with drawings or poetry that had colourful expression and passion and identified new dimensions of the experience not evident in their prosaic descriptions.

The next step

The scope of the research did not allow for a greater exploration of the use of art in supervision for ministry. However, the research participants were unanimous in their affirmation that this small step was a significant part of the phenomenological exploration of their experiences of STFE, and that the use of creative art in the representation of experience would greatly enhance theological reflection in supervision. I am acutely aware that art has been widely used in supervision for other disciplines such as psychology and social work, as it has been as an aid to therapy in palliative and aged care, grief counselling, and a plethora of other helping contexts. I am also aware that some of my colleagues in STFE have begun to use art in supervision and may well have taken many more and bigger steps than I have. My hope is that my small step will encourage others whose creative urges may have been repressed to explore this rich resource for theological reflection, and in the process find their vocation of supervision for ministry greatly enhanced.

References

Bauman, Zygmunt. Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to Understanding. London: Hutchinson & Co, 1978.
Begbie, Jeremy S. Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991.
Crotty, Michael. The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1998.
de Gruchy, John W. “Visual Art in the Life of the Church.” Journal of Theology for South Africa, no. 107 (2000): 37 to 52.
Dyrness, William A. Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.
Farley, Edward. “Interpreting Situations: An Inquiry into the Nature of Practical Theology.” In Formation and Reflection: The Promise of Practical Theology, edited by Lewis S. Mudge and James N. Poling, 1 to 26. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Translated by David E. Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
Hunter, Colin J. “Supervised Theological Field Education: A Phenomenological Enquiry.” Doctor of Ministry Studies Thesis, Melbourne College of Divinity, 2003.
Lett, Warren. “Therapist Creativity: The Arts of Supervision.” The Arts in Psychotherapy 20 (1993): pp. 371 to 86.
Lohse, Bernhard. Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Translated by Robert C. Schulz. Philadelphia: Forttress Press, 1986.
Moustakas, Clark. Phenomenological Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1994.
Palmer, Richard. Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer, Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy. Evanston [Ill.]: Northwestern University Press 1969, 1969.
Piteri, Rita. The Andres Serrano Controversy [Internet]. 2003 [cited 14 May 2004 2004]. Available from http://home.vicnet.net.au/~twt/serrano.html.
Spinelli, Ernesto. The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology. Thousand Oaks Ca.: Sage Publications, 1989.
Tesch, Renata. “Emerging Themes: The Researcher’s Experience.” Phenomenology + Pedagogy 5, no. 3 (1987): 230 to 41.
Tillich, Paul. Theology of Culture. 1 ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Whitehead, James D., and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead. Method in Ministry: Theological Reflection and Christian Ministry. revised and updated ed. Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1995.

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[1] Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work, trans. Robert C. Schulz (Philadelphia: Forttress Press, 1986), pp.159f.
[2] Richard Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer, Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy (Evanston [Ill.]: Northwestern University Press 1969, 1969), pp.78f.
[3] Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p.xiii.
[4] Palmer, Hermeneutics, p.98.
[5] Michael Crotty, The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1998).
[6] Zygmunt Bauman, Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to Understanding (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1978).
[7] Palmer, Hermeneutics, p.123.
[8] Clark Moustakas, Phenomenological Research Methods (Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1994), p.10.
[9] Ernesto Spinelli, The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology (Thousand Oaks Ca.: Sage Publications, 1989), pp.6ff.
[10] Rita Piteri, The Andres Serrano Controversy [Internet] (2003 [cited 14 May 2004]); available from http://home.vicnet.net.au/~twt/serrano.html.
[11] Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, 1 ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959). Tillich regarded ‘Guernica’ as the outstanding example ‘of an artistic expression of the human predicament in our period’.
[12] Edward Farley, “Interpreting Situations: An Inquiry into the Nature of Practical Theology,” in Formation and Reflection: The Promise of Practical Theology, ed. Lewis S. Mudge and James N. Poling (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987). Farley was critical of the structure of theological education in the modern era and its inability to equip students to interpret situations theologically.
[13] Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, pp.95ff.
[14] Crotty, The Foundations of Social Research, p.103.
[15] John W de Gruchy, “Visual Art in the Life of the Church,” Journal of Theology for South Africa, no. 107 (2000).
[16] See particularly Jeremy S. Begbie, Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991).
[17] Ibid. pp. 186ff.
[18] Ibid. p.193.
[19] Ibid. pp.201f. Gadamer’s call to interpret art according to the ‘horizon of the past’ was a protest against the estrangement of art from culture.
[20] William A. Dyrness, Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001).
[21] James D. Whitehead and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead, Method in Ministry: Theological Reflection and Christian Ministry, revised and updated ed. (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1995).
[22] Warren Lett, “Therapist Creativity: The Arts of Supervision,” The Arts in Psychotherapy 20 (1993).
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] I understand ‘operational theology’ to be the core beliefs and values, recognised or unrecognised, by which a person instinctively makes judgements and takes action in response to situations. One’s operational theology is formed cognitively, affectively, aesthetically and socially through one’s life experiences. It may well embody contradictory values (e.g. ‘I value the rule of law and I value justice’) assimilated from different sources (family, church, popular culture) that create dissonance in the face of a given situation.
[26] Colin J. Hunter, “Supervised Theological Field Education: A Phenomenological Enquiry” (Doctor of Ministry Studies Thesis, Melbourne College of Divinity, 2003).
[27] As an example, the clusters of key words for the research session enquiring into the experience of presenting a case study to the supervisor were named Challenge, Affirmation, Choices and Discovery.
[28] For a description of ‘metathemes’ see Renata Tesch, “Emerging Themes: The Researcher’s Experience,” Phenomenology + Pedagogy 5, no. 3 (1987).
[29] The metathemes identified were ‘Mutuality of learning’ (all participants in STFE are learners), ‘Intersubjective learning’ (learning in STFE is principally intersubjective), ‘Chosen vulnerability’ (the greatest learning occurs when students choose to make themselves vulnerable), ‘Revelation as a path to new understanding’ (revelation of self to others leads to new understanding), and ‘Experience as a locus for learning’ (experience is a primary source for learning).