Pastoral Bearings
Lived Religion and Pastoral Theology
Contributions by Esther E. Acolatse, Eileen R. Campbell-Reed, Susan J. Dunlap, Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Barbara Hedges-Goettl, Jean Heriot, Jane Maynard, Mary Clark Moschella Yale Divinity School, Janet E. Schaller, Karen D. Scheib, Siroj Sorajjakool, Sharon G. Thornton Professor of Pastoral Theology, Emerita, Andover Newton Theological School, Lonnie Yoder Edited by Jane F. Maynard, Leonard Hummel, Mary Clark Moschella Yale Divinity School
Publication date:
18 March 2010Length of book:
310 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
240x161mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780739123607
The study of lived religion is an enterprise which attempts to elucidate how "ordinary" men and women in all times and places draw on religious behavior, media, and meanings to make sense of themselves and their world. Through the influence of liberation theology and postmodernism, pastoral theologians—like other scholars of religion—have begun more closely to examine the particularity of religious practice that is reflected through the rubric of lived religion.
Pastoral Bearings offers up ten studies that exemplify the usefulness of the lived religion paradigm to the field of pastoral theology. The volume presents detailed qualitative research focused on the everyday beliefs and practices of individuals and groups and explores the implications of lived religion for interdisciplinary conversation, intercultural and gender analysis, and congregational studies. Reflecting upon the utility of this approach for pastoral theological research, education, and pastoral care, the studies collected in Pastoral Bearings demonstrate the importance of the study of lived religion.
Pastoral Bearings offers up ten studies that exemplify the usefulness of the lived religion paradigm to the field of pastoral theology. The volume presents detailed qualitative research focused on the everyday beliefs and practices of individuals and groups and explores the implications of lived religion for interdisciplinary conversation, intercultural and gender analysis, and congregational studies. Reflecting upon the utility of this approach for pastoral theological research, education, and pastoral care, the studies collected in Pastoral Bearings demonstrate the importance of the study of lived religion.
Pastoral Bearings is a richly textured mosaic of lived religion, as practiced in local communities, denominations, and individual lives. The pictures are painful, inspiring, and joyful, providing an earthly view of religious life in diverse communities facing diverse challenges. The concern for pastoral bearings— the pastoral effects of religious beliefs and practices— is addressed in the ethnographic and interview narratives themselves, and also in the probing interpretations that evoke complex pictures of bodies, race, gender, poverty and social class, material culture, illness, dis/ability, and suffering in the religious landscape. Pastoral care-givers and practical theologians will be challenged and informed by this book.