ANGLIA POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY
(now
Anglia Ruskin University )

 BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

MAKING CONNECTIONS: DISCERNING RELATIONSHIPS

MICHAEL POWELL

 

 Doctor of Philosophy  February 2003

4 - METHODOLOGICAL MATTERS

In everything that nature makes, nature records how it was made. In the rock is a record of how the rock was made. In man is the record of how man was made. (Louis Kahn)

4.1 Purpose

The purpose of this Section is to record and reflect on how the materials described in Section 2 and the models described in Section 3 came together to create this thesis.

4.2 Recognising complexity

While much material could be read, little progress could be made until the multi-stranded, complex nature of the work came to be recognised and accepted. Strands included the following dualities:

 Biblical Theology                  Built Environment

Chelmsford                             Tasmania

Materials                                Models

Specific materials                 Wider materials

Picture model                        Disclosure model

Study of texts                         Study visits

Descriptive work                   Analytical work

Flexible work in UK                Time-limited work in Tasmania

Action time                             Gestation time

 

4.3 Matters of process

The following main sequence of work was envisaged at the outset:

Year 1 first half                       research on Biblical Theology and compiling a Section of the thesis

Year 1 second half                research on Chelmsford and compiling a Section of the thesis

Year 2 first half                       research visit to Tasmania and compiling a Section of the thesis

Year 2 second half                integration and compiling the final Section of the thesis.

 

While the above had to be broadly maintained because of the fixed timing of the visit to Tasmania , the reality was blurred. It went approximately like this:

Biblical Theology       first iteration               ) concurrently with

Chelmsford                 first iteration               ) development of models

Tasmania                    first iteration

Tasmania                    second iteration

Chelmsford                 second iteration

Biblical Theology       second iteration

All areas                     third iteration

Each iteration involved research and the compilation of a working paper

The Tasmanian work became the `meat in the sandwich' because it had to be completed iunng the course of the study visit.

 

4.4 Matters of general structure

The simple word `iteration' hides two problems.

The first was the continuing search for the best way to relate the various categories of materials, as each of them was becoming almost a research field in itself.

At one time it was thought that each category, already substantially written up as a working paper. could be a Section represented by some part of the Sydney Opera House with one integrating, final Section based on the notion of the single sphere. As it became progressively more apparent that this was likely to prove too cumbersome, it also became progressively more difficult to part with 'my paper on Chelmsford ', `my paper on Tasmania ' ‘my review of biblical commentaries'. Valuable in themselves, they were impeding progress.  

The second, more fundamental problem was to discern what the materials and model were sayng about the nature of connections between Biblical Theology and Built Environment. There emerged a list of some fifteen topics, such as Light, Boundaries and Walls, Beauty,or Trees and Timber that seemed to arise across the categories of materials. By themselves they seemed too definite and theoretical to form the main structure of the thesis.  

Back-to-back' structures such as the one set out below were interesting to experiment with but again seemed too rigid and ran the danger of being seen as `the answer':

Biblical Theology                 Built Environment

Creation/redemption            Usefulness

Location                                 Land Materials Materials

Meaning                                 Aesthetics

Relationships                         Relationships

Hope                                       Worth

A combination of topic-based and back-to-back connections was explored but it seemed that it would produce a two-part approach with little coherence.

The matter of general structure remained irresolvable for a considerable time. In the meantime, consideration had to be given to the other matters discussed below.

 

4.5 Matters of cross-disciplinary working

It was not easy to maintain a balance between Biblical Theology and Built Environment. There were times when one or other was over-dominant and claiming the other as a subordinate - `built environment is just a case of applied theology' or `biblical theology is really no more than a particular case of archaeology or history`.

This unease gave rise to the possibility that a third discipline, such as Cultural Studies or Textual Studies, might force its way in as a means of making connections. To have let that happen would have been to lose the desired head-to-head encounter between Biblical Theology and Built Environment.

Another aspect of the cross-discipline problem concerned the nature of research. Biblical Theology often tends to be scholarly and discursive, while Built Environment can be empirical and use report-like forms of presentation.

Perhaps the most important matter was that of making appropriate connections. Both the Built Environment and Biblical Theology materials needed to be handled with respect for factual accuracy but also with an imaginativeness that enabled them to be related to each other. It was found that while there were some places where the connections were quite explicit and could be discussed easily, there were others where the links were more subtle and implicit, needing careful discernment.

There was a specific question about Illustration. A decision had to be taken on whether to include in the thesis photographs of Built Environment locations. To do so properly would have required professional photographic skills in both Chelmsford and Tasmania . The view was taken that the text itself should be written with sufficient simplicity and clarity to convey required meanings. Had the thesis been solely in the field of Built Environment, that argument could not have been deployed.

 

4.6 Matters of scholarly practice

A recurring matter concerned epistemology. It needed to be bome in mind that this thesis was not being written to contribute significantly to what may be thought of as the internal knowledge edge banks of the Built Environment and Biblical Theology fields. Its intended contribution should lie in the area of modelling and making clear and explicit connections between the two. Put colloquially, the question it seeks to answer, at least in part, is `What have Environment and Biblical Theology got to do with each other?

While it had been envisaged that both Biblical Theology and Built Environment could be approached either in a straightforward way - `this is what the text says' or 'this is what happens when people build'- or in a probing, analytical way, it has emerged that these are not always so much alternatives as ends of a continuum. It has also become apparent that a source which in itself may be very deep and probing, can be used in a straightforward way. The approach has been largely pragmatic, choosing and using materials to suit the purposes of this thesis but in ways that do not violate the intentions of their authors.

The materials that have come to light have come from a mix of historical and contemporary sources. In several cases fictional materials have been used where they make a point well. An item has been used for the illumination it brings to the matter in hand. Whether it is historical, contemporary or fictional is of little relevance provided it does the job required of it, again without violation to its source.

While the built environment materials for Chelmsford and Tasmania lent themselves to parallel rather than integrated consideration, the question arose at a late stage as to whether it had been correct to assume that the Biblical Theology materials would relate to Chelmsford and Tasmania , the UK and Australia , without differentiation. Malone's Developing an Australian Theology (1999) raised the question of whether one should look for Australian texts on Biblical Theology. General searches suggested that this was not a substantive issue for the present purpose at the present time. To go further, one would have *o spend time in an Australian theology department. There is none in Tasmania .

Throughout, there was a need to find appropriate scales and textures with which to work and viewpoints at which to stand. On the matter of texture, Grayling (2001) says:

The ability to see the small and the ordinary in their full particularity brings the texture of the world richly into view, and surprises one because it shows that small things can be large in meaning, and that scarcely anything is ordinary after all.

(Grayling 2001:207) 

On the matter of viewpoint, McNiff (1998) says

I n order to understand how objects of contemplation change in relation to the perspective of the viewer, place a simple rock in the middle of your lawn or on the floor in a room. Move very slowly round the rock and notice how its appearance changes as you adjust your vantage point. There are many different ways of looking at the same rock. Change the height of your vantage point as you move round the rock. Get down low and as high as possible_ Look at it dose up and from a distance. Imagine what it would be like to look at the world from different vantage points inside the rock. Imagine the rock looking at you.

(McNiff 1992:72)

It was necessary to recognize that there is always a personal relationship with materials being studied, whether texts or places. Ralph (1980) identifies seven such relationships, some of which have been found by the writer to be applicable to himself over the course of preparing this thesis:

Existential outsideness            A self-aware and reflective uninvolvement; alienation; not belonging; homelessness

 

   Objective outsideness             The academic changing of immediate experience into theories; deep separation of person from place

 

Incidental outsideness            Place is simply setting or background for activities

 

Vicarious insideness              Deeply felt involvement but without having visited a place

 

Behavioural insideness         Deep attention to the place which is often marked by wails or other kind of boundary

 

Empathetic insideness         Deep and willing openness to significance and symbols

 

Existential insideness          Non-self-conscious belonging; deep and complete identity

(Ralph 1980:51)

 

4.7    Matters of detailed structure

A still unsolved methodological matter was that of the form of the detailed work.

While working through the materials and the various methodological matters discussed in 4.5 and 4.6 above, it became apparent that two sets of small Sections would be appropriate. One set (Sections 5-9) would start at the centre of the single conceptual sphere with a major biblical text and envisage centrifugal forces towards built environment. These Sections, related to the Concert Hall in the picture model, would have the following sequence:

1.         Purpose of Section

2.         Summary of the biblical text

3.         Survey of commentaries on the biblical text

4.         Consideration of wider theological materials

5.         Consideration of wider buift environment materials

6.         Links to the Chelmsford materials

7.         Links to Tasmania materials

8.         Synthesis and centrifugal dynamic

The other set (Sections 10-14) would start at the surface of the single conceptual sphere with a major built environment theme and envisage centripetal forces towards biblical theology. These Sections, related to the Opera Theatre, would have the following sequence:

1.         Purpose of Section

2.         Nature of theme

3.         Insights from Chelmsford

4.         Insights from Tasmania

5.         Consideration of wider built environment materials

6.         Consideration of wider theological materials

7.         Links to the biblical texts

8.         Synthesis and centripetal dynamic

 

Each of the ten Sections could be envisaged as a dynamic centre-to-surface or surface-to­ centre cone.

For a long time it seemed there would be no sensible, unforced way of relating these conical Sections to the interesting surface pattern of pentagons and hexagons. However, late in the process it was realised that little use was being made of the biblical material from the Epistles and that what use was being made could be combined with Revelation, thus giving five biblically led sections, which became Sections 5-9. Nothing would be lost in balancing this with five built environment-led sections, which became Sections 10-14. Each of these sets of five Sections could be related to the ring of five hexagons around a pentagon

As the work proceeded, it became possible to identify a built-environment-related theme in each of Sections 5-9 and to relate each of Sections 10-14 to one of the sections of biblical materials under consideration, giving a balanced, back-to-back structure as follows:

 

CENTRIFUGAL TRAJECTORIES                                  CENTRIPETAL TRAJECTORIES

 

Biblical text                           Built environment               Built environment                           Biblical text

                                                related theme                       related theme

 

5 Psalms                                Wonder and beauty              10 Traversing places and times      Psalms

 

6 Genesis and John 1          Beginning                               11 Resources                                    Genesis and John 1

 

7 Nehemiah                           Significance                           12 Types and purposes                   Nehemiah

 

8 John’s Gospel                    Identity                                    13 Cost and worth                             John’s Gospel

 

9 Epistles and Revelation    Becoming                              14 Home                                            Epistles and Revelation

 

These Sections and their internal structures present a tidy and logical appearance. That is only part of the reality they represent. The other aspect of reality is that of pragmatic judgement including the following:

 

4.8 Concluding matters

It will be apparent that the development of the methodology and the exploration of structural options extended over a long period. It is believed that the decision to stop experimenting and stop searching at the point reached in section 4.7 was the right one. Had the process been taken further, the point would have been reached where structure and model had evaporated, to leave something like the text of a book. If that had been allowed to happen, much of the methodological value of the work, as opposed to content value, would have been lost.

This methodology has proved to be heuristic. It does enable discovery to happen or, to put it another way, it enables inherent truth and meaning to emerge or be revealed.

This is not a prescriptive methodology that could have been stated at the outset and followed through in a rigorously disciplined way. It is much more a belief that, given time and space, things will come to make sense of themselves. It is a journey of trust that something will happen and that some measure of an appropriate type of creativity will occur

It was at a time of some darkness and doubt in the gestation of the work, that the text by McNiff (1998) entitled Trust the Process, came to hand. He writes about his experience as a postgraduate research tutor in the visual arts, linking what he has to say with an aspect of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead: `In his classic text, Process and Reality, Alfred North Whitehead affirmed the ultimate goal of the creative process as an "enlargement" of imagination for all people.' (McNiff, 1998:4). If we are to be creative, we need to accept the challenge of letting our imaginations be enlarged. McNiff’s argument is that for this to happen one has to entrust oneself to the creative process and go where it leads.

Sections 5-14 which follow are detailed studies. The general discussion of process and methodology will be resumed in Sections 15 and 16

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