Practical Theology's History: Some of it is in our archives

Did you know that the APT is the successor to what began–in 1950–as the Association of Seminary Professors in the Practical Fields?
The report of their first “Biennial Conference” from June 1950 has them discussing the purpose and rationale for the ASPPF, as well as “Re-designing professional education for the ministry” and “Toward a body of teachable knowledge and policies in certain areas of the practical fields.”
It is fascinating to read and–because a good number of “their” concerns seem familiar to “us”–suggests to practical theologians the staying power of certain questions and themes over nearly 70 years… such as fragmentation in theological education, and the need for a way of coordinating “secular” and “theological” knowledge so as to bear more productively on an understanding of religion in practice, or as the document evocatively reads: to aid theologically “studying what happens to people religiously.”
According to these early papers, the idea for the ASPPF was actually born in 1949 in Evanston, Illinois, at a gathering called The Evanston Workshop on Theological Education in the Practical Field.
There is so much more to read about not only the first ASPPF conference in 1950, but all the conferences up through the early 1980s. (The ASPPF became the Association for Professional Education for Ministry in 1972.)
APT members have access to this incredible digital archive of our “early years,” generously set up by APT President (2010-2012) Gordon Mikoski of Princeton Theological Seminary, under “Resources” and “Archives” on the APT website (www.practicaltheology.org).
Having dipped here and there into the materials over the last few years, I find myself wanting to read even more deeply in them. It is humbling to see how many deeply creative, learned, and industrious people have committed themselves to the enterprise of deepening and expanding our theological capacities in what eventually became known as “practical theology.” (Though as we know, that name, too, is never done–because of the theological history we have inherited–being contested).
APT members, I can pretty much promise it will be worth your while to spend some time reading around in the first several decades of the Biennial Conference minutes and papers of the APT’s predecessor organizations. There are certainly many things we don’t want to repeat from that past for our future, but even that sort of discernment is profitable for an historical consciousness of practical theology’s institutional backgrounds in the USA. And there is definitely a considerable amount to appreciate in the remarkable labor that came before us. Practical theology in the USA would probably benefit anyway from a deeper historical consciousness (and I presume there are a variety of historical consciousnesses) about our inherited ways of proceeding, our terms, commitments, and tasks.
When you get a chance, check out the archives.
Thank you, Gordon Mikoski, for making sure we have access to those early records!
Tom Beaudoin, Fordham University, APT President (2014-2016)