– a  report of 1988, revisited 2014, with notes added in italics

After 15 years of practice, ‘theological auditing’ ranges from the gentle probing of discipleship at work to the severe and willing re-appraisal of all our professional responsibilities.

Its ‘audit’ foundation lies in the OED definition, “a searching examination (especially the day of judgement)” (sic), which makes possible a good-humoured but valid claim to a relationship between faithfulness and account-ability

Its ‘theological’ foundation lies in the responsibility of the “laos”, ordained or not, to explore as ‘jobbing theologians’ their discipleship in all the manifestations, complexities and knock on effects over time and space of our actions and decisions.

EXAMPLE: A quarterly forum on ‘Accountancy with theological resonance’ now attracts 40 financial professionals, who together probe the demands of accounting for sustainability (? eternity). [ It survived until I left before falling apart or lack of a free agent {servant leader?} with time, a wide perspective to keep each person individually affirmed]

EXAMPLE, 20 persons each year, in training for ordination of stipendiary or non-stipendiary ministry, submit themselves to a theological audit in the 3rd year with painful but exhilarating effect. {note that after ten years of formal appraisal of the school ended this deep probing part of the curriculum, describing it as’ too idiosyncratic’ – that is, it gave a tutors’ voluntary three hours given to each student severally to wrestling with their own unique faith and its application!!! They wanted a CofE ‘brand’ it seems]

EXAMPLE: Individuals work with SLIM Chaplains, at levels appropriate to the associate’s courage and ability to stretch and translate their theological perceptions, on designing their own theological audit from several available models. One, which has now revised in each of 4 succeeding years back in the professional arena, bears the light but serious description, ‘The humble grocer and the theology of the chicken and ham pie’. It reaches parts that less developed forms of discipleship at work rarely reach. [ Note; 20 years later this person wrote to say that regular re-examining that ‘audit’ profoundly sustained his understanding of his faith and commitment in his economic role in JS. It was the same JS whose Board in 1992 after ten years of my chaplaincy asked me to leave because ‘ My presence brought to the surface matters they could not afford to face’!!!.]

The pattern of TA is simple, the execution demanding. Themes of faith, as they represent its comprehensive, contemporary and everywhere pertinent nature, are explored. The neglected themes (usually those with corporate and global implications beyond, the simply intimate) are identified and examined. [ see thoughts on ordinate triniarian responsibilities  shared in 2014]

Trust between auditor [chaplain/witnessing lay person?] and voluntary client individual or team is a requisite. We look then to see if some (the tougher ones hopefully) are affirmed at work, and acknowledged openly where they are affirmed already. Then we look for blocks that frustrate the interpretation and application of those themes. Finally, as stage three, we devise and hold to step by step ways that avoid or overcome the blocks. This lets higher responsibilities come into play, bringing structural inclusive justice, non-violence as a road to peace and the sustaining of the integrity of creation to bear upon a decision, an action or some aspect of the corporate plan.

Theological audits have changed patterns of individuals’ work and teams’ contributions in many places where faith is not readily accepted as having pertinence: e.g – in accounting and banking and general financial transactions in contracts and covenants in perceptions of wealth – in teaching and training of many different kinds – in redeployment – in brokerage -in information technology – even in map-making…- and so on, and so forth. [I recall 800 such audits that I’ve been privileged to undergird in patient mutual attention to people’s opportunities for witness in daily life]

Theological audit increases the possibility of bringing covenantal faithfulness into all the underlying aspects of this bold, brief but demandingly comprehensive statement:

‘THE PROCLAMATION OF JESUS CHRIST AS THE CRUCIFIED AND RISEN LORD AND THE CONFESSION THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD HAVE BOTH A PERSONAL AND COSMIC IMPLICATION. WE CANNOT CONFESS JESUS CHRIST IS LORD WITHOUT SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE ORDERING OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIPS AND THE HARMONY IN WHICH WE LIVE AS A PART OF THE WHOLE CREATION.’   Anglican Mission Agencies. Brisbane 1986.

Christians are prone [if they even hear this] to acknowledge it as a fine statement and ignore its sustained challenge. They approve it and then fail to apply the reigning of God to the highlights beyond what is here called the ‘PERSONAL. The other aspects are personal too, though not intimate. The ECONOMIC, the POLITICAL, the relationships of HUMANKIND to the CREATED ENVIRONMENT in which we are set are conveniently, or conventionally, kept in low key, if not forgotten. This forgetting, theological auditing makes less likely.

[Asking clergy and laity I find almost no one who remembers or uses this fine credo with its expansive interpretation of ‘Ubuntu ‘ I am because you are’, and ‘Umoja’, ‘We are together’.]

Peter Challen

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