How Are the Streets in the Practical Theology Classroom?

I write from New York City, where the longstanding and painful tensions, griefs and grievances between law enforcement and communities of color, especially in struggling neighborhoods, has come more into larger public awareness than it has in a long time. (And by “coming into public awareness,” I mean essentially that publicly influential media outlets and their related enfranchised white publics, of which I am a part, seem now to be noticing more than in recent memory.) I grew up in Missouri, a few hours but a world away from Ferguson. The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the related larger nexus of matters of life and death, of social advantage and disadvantage — these are catalyzing me and my students of various backgrounds. From your own situation of teaching and learning practical theology, how are the streets of Ferguson and Staten Island (and well beyond) making their way into your classroom setting? One way we tried to keep our practical theology studies connected to these streets in one of my Fordham classes this fall was to frame our semester with a simple photograph of a protest march in Ferguson, Missouri, that involved clergy and many other people. (See this photo by Jamelle Bouie.) Pedagogically, the photo became the occasion for drawing out theologically significant practices bearing on the march and onto which the protest march opened. It is just one example of the ways that Ferguson and Staten Island were “in the room.” We started and ended the semester with the photograph and made reference to it throughout. The photo was an icon of pain, rage, and hope all at once, and that helps make understanding what is at stake in studying practice even clearer.
Tom Beaudoin, New York City