Editorial 16-01

Abstract

A major change occurs this year in our journal prompted by the decision of the publisher not to limit the size of any issue of the journal. In the past we were given a budget number of pages for each issue and consequently the whole year’s Volume and this restriction is no longer being applied. The only remaining requirement is to publish a minimum number of articles and book reviews each year. The implication of this is that we can publish as many articles as are available as each issue goes to publication, which means the articles will move more quickly to being assigned an issue after being published online. In addition, there is no longer any requirement for ‘double issues’. Therefore, in this issue we publish ten articles and we expect two of our Special issues this year, one on Majority World Epistemologies and the 2022 BIAPT Conference Issue on Embodiment to be substantial as well. We apologise that, due to circumstances beyond our control we are not able to publish any book reviews in this issue. This will be rectified in forthcoming issues throughout the year. Our ten articles fall into two halves. We begin by placing issues of justice to the fore; care of our elders in residential homes; homelessness; gender silencing; and the environmental degradation of the oceans. We pivot with an article addressing time in relation to Christian discipleship into five articles concerned in various ways with the Church and its worship; the attitudes of Polish youth to the Church; inculturation in Eucharistic worship in Pakistan; reflection on online worship in Australia and Indonesia; and lament-driven preaching the Asian-American community. What readers of the journal might be interested to note is we have articles from two theologians within The Salvation Army and two articles studying aspects of the Roman Catholic Church, expressing the great breadth of Christian traditions we embrace in the journal. Perhaps for the first time (and definitely not the last) we have a small minority of the authors hailing from England. There are first-time contributions from a Muslim author in Pakistan, a Korean and two from Indonesia. The Practical Theology Journal is thereby stepping well outside of its origins in Britain and Ireland and this trend will continue in 2023. We begin this issue by publishing the BIAPT article prize winner for 2022, Helen Hindle. This is an outstanding piece of work, both in the original doctoral research (funded, we should note by the Methodist Homes Association) and the summary of it which is presented astutely and with aplomb here. What strikes me powerfully is the way Hindle is able to use the personal experience of a neighbour going into a Care Home as motivational fuel for the research, which leads her to care deeply and even love her research participants in four Care Homes. They are full participants in the research and everyone benefits as a result, there is a proper research ‘holiness’ demonstrated here in the methodology as it is designed and employed. No doubt many of us at some point in our lives will have to deal with a Care Home, either for a relative, friend, neighbour and, possibly ourselves. For such individuals, as well as readers who are Ministers and those of us with public roles Hindle addresses a gap in the theological literature. As she points out there is much theological writing on ageing, much less on the practical issue of designing and delivering care in a residential institution. In engaging with the medieval Anchorite, Julian of Norwich, Hindle is able to draw on a rich resource for her