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This article advocates a pedagogy of Religious Education (RE) based upon a narratival framework informed by both narrative theology and narrative philosophy. Drawing on the work of narrative theologians including Stanley Hauerwas, the article outlines the nature of the framework, describes the four phases of learning that comprise the pedagogy, and explains how such an approach can overcome existing difficulties in how biblical texts are handled within RE. Working from the narrative assumption that individuals and communities are formed by reading, sharing and living within stories, it suggests that the pedagogy might encourage pupils to think about how the lives of Christians are shaped by their interpretations of biblical narratives, to offer their own interpretations of biblical and other texts, and to consider the stories – religious, non-religious or both – which shape their own lives. In so doing, the article moves away from a ‘proof-texting’ approach to the Bible towards one in which pupils are enabled to think about the significance of biblical narratives for both Christians and themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes to explore new ways of speaking about disability by drawing from the theology of Johann Baptist Metz. Specifically, it uses Metz's ideas of subjectivity, narrative, memory, and hope and applies them to mental illness, with the intent to enable theologians to respond to mental health issues in a more nuanced way and to encourage Christians to foster a deeper solidarity with those suffering from mental illness. The article then briefly considers how Metz's paradigm may be used to enhance our understanding of other categories of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the philosophical, pedagogical and practical challenges encountered in constructing an interdisciplinary curriculum that combines insights from the worlds of theology and creative writing. Issues raised include the similarities and differences of the disciplines, the vulnerability required of students and teachers and whether creativity can be taught. The topic is explored through life writing, autoethnography and constructive narrative theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this article is the person in the experience of dementia. Narrative is highlighted in the context of narrative theology, and upholding the identity of the person with dementia through spiritual reminiscence and programs of art, music, pastoral care, and prayer and meditation. These provide the basis for critique of current practices and challenges of providing person-centred care. This article addresses issues of resistance to seeing the person in dementia and possibilities for resilience in dementia through rementia. The article outlines some changes in care provider practices that make for greater quality of life for those with dementia, acknowledging the crucial impact of the quality of relationship between the care provider and the person with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Postliberals have hailed H. Richard Niebuhr's The Meaning of Revelation as a harbinger of narrative theology. A careful reading of Niebuhr's argument, however, suggests a theological ethic that is at once attentive to the narrative formation of agency and yet distinct from postliberalism because of its attention to the divine object of Christians' stories. Niebuhr's theocentrism yields a view of narrative as opened from the inside because it requires appropriation of what he calls "external" narratives in order to do justice to the sovereignty of God. The result is a theological ethic which is sharply critical of modern conceptions of agency and yet continually sifted by contemporary insights and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

September 11 raises a broader issue about the roles of theology in public life, especially in relation to acts of violence. This essay proposes that the theologian has particular responsibility for the interpretive frameworks and narratives within which public discussion situates acts of violence, and it illustrates this proposal through brief comments on the concept of "the fragment" in recent theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with the premise that theory should illuminate stories rather than stories illustrating theory, this article offers an extensive clinical story as the centerpiece of an exploration of the Christological nature of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Relying on the listening stances provided by Klein, Fairbairn, Bion, Grotstein, and early Christian theologians among others, this article explores original sin, fallen creation, demonic possession, lost innocence, and trauma as sources of mental anguish. Portraying God as the 'Background Presence' and defining therapy as a Christological defense of God, the author argues that the lens of Christology deepens the psychotherapy endeavor and that transference (re)presents the 'hypostatic union' of Christ as well as mirrors the relationship between the Background Presence and those seeking psychotherapeutic forgiveness and exorcism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches the immense popularity of Mel Gibsons 2004 film. The Passion of the Christ as a significant artifact in the contemporary public, cultural curriculum, and a unique opportunity for religious educators to build on its notoriety. Five interrelated contexts are identified and explored to assist religious educators more deeply understand and better interpret the significance of this film and all Jesus films. These five contexts are: (1) narrative theology, (2) scripture, (3) midrash, (4) the early film industry, and (5) the Jesus film canon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction This paper will explore the fundamental views of Russian Orthodox Christianity on the contemporary world and its own place in it, and will then inscribe these views within a broad narrative of western thought of recent centuries. I proceed from an assumption that the main objective in western religious thought over the last three centuries was the construction of subtle bridges and continuities linking 'this world' with the transcendental, identifying as its central concern man's relationship to 'this world', and further associating 'this world' with new epistemological fields of 'culture' and 'society'. Russian religious thought was definitely a part of this process. Thus my purpose here is to approach the issue of where Russian Orthodoxy stands today in its vision of the whole complex of world/culture/society. The main source for this study is a document produced by the Russian Orthodox Church, the Foundations for a Social Concept (FSC), officially adopted by the Bishops' Council of 2000. The word 'social' in this document covers a variety of socio-cultural phenomena, encompassing a whole range of issues from state and law to culture to bioethics to secularism. The very fact of formulating these objects of theological quest as an official authoritative endeavour is unprecedented in Eastern Christianity; the document can be seen as the first official, though indirect, response to independent theological modernism in the Christian East, to mainstream trends in western culture, and to (post)modernity as a whole. While drawing a comparative background for the ideas vocalised by the FSC, I chose as a main point of reference another official and authoritative document - the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) (Catechism, 1997). This text is far larger than the Russian text and by definition cannot be seen as a direct counterpart to it. The Russian document under study can be compared to it only in what both of them say about social/cultural topics, which is just a small part of the Catholic Catechism. Nevertheless, I chose to compare these two documents of different genre and scale because no other authoritative Orthodox Christian catechism addresses most of the topics that interest me in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of feminist theo/alogians has generated new and transformative expressions of spirituality. They have challenged the dualistic and androcentric assumptions underlying traditional spiritualities. The inclusion of 'women's experience' in theo/alogical reflection has led to a further awareness of the relationship between narrative, identity and spirituality. For a growing number of feminists, however, the term 'women's experience' has become problematic because of its apparent assumption of an essentialist, universal phenomenon that denies difference and its presupposition of the ontological nature of a 'vision of wholeness'. Further challenges to feminist spiritualities have come from postmodern/ poststructural critiques of the notion of an authentic, unified self. These have prompted some feminist thinkers to reflect upon the multiple and fluid nature of subjectivity as process. Feminist thinkers such as Braidotti and Haraway have called for new 'figurations' to represent the epistemological and social implications of such reflections. This article presents an exploration of ways in which Goddess-talk could contribute to such explorations and provide new images to express as spirituality the process by which we trans-form and re-member subjectivity and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]