{"title":"Rehabituating Theology: Habit Forming Theological Education Integrating Contemplative and Embodied Pedagogy","authors":"Sophie Callahan","doi":"10.1111/teth.12667","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12667","url":null,"abstract":"Theological education faces the task of forming leaders and scholars with the capacity for personal and social transformation. This effort requires a deeper understanding of habit formation as both problem and potential. Utilizing the example of how racism functions through embodied habits, this article emphasizes bodily awareness and repeated practice as necessary components for theological formation. In doing so, this approach integrates contemplative and embodied pedagogies and suggests ways to address the research gap in these areas, especially regarding the study and teaching of religion. The tools and resources of somatic abolitionism offer a way to rewire bodily perceptions with theological classrooms.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"6 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141684061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Allen G. Jorgenson, Bethan Riehle‐Johns, Katrina Urquhart, Nancy L. Dresser
{"title":"Embodying Pedagogy","authors":"Allen G. Jorgenson, Bethan Riehle‐Johns, Katrina Urquhart, Nancy L. Dresser","doi":"10.1111/teth.12662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12662","url":null,"abstract":"This article reflects on an instructor's experience of incorporating an optional assignment in a theology class wherein students are invited to learn a new athletic skill, journal while doing so, and then theologically reflect on their experience. It begins with the instructor making a case for the need to bring the body back into the classroom. This is followed by the theological reflections of three of the instructor's students. Finally, the instructor reflects on the themes of balance and muscle memory, stretching, and flow developed in the student reflections. These are used to outline how a balanced classroom revives theological wonder, affirms change in a cruciform fashion, and understands failure as part of God's modus operandi and so intrinsic to theology.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"46 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141116853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Beautiful Death","authors":"Paul Houston Blankenship‐Lai","doi":"10.1111/teth.12658","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12658","url":null,"abstract":"This article is about the death of a graduate school for spiritual formation and theological education. I ask what the death of this school can teach us about teaching theology and religion for the sake of student transformation and more loving pedagogies. I also ask how, when an institution dies, it can die beautifully. The underlying thesis of this article is that there is, alive in our classrooms (and ourselves, perhaps), a spiritual wound that can be named an experiential death of divine love—and that this wound is manifesting as unshepherded fear, rage, and discontent. I suggest that this spiritual wound be tended through skillful pedagogical tenderness, flexibility, and liberative co‐creation with students to cultivate a presence of love and feed the spiritual hungers of our time. I also suggest that a school (and a teacher) dies beautifully when its death is allowed and free to become a scene of beautiful instruction.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":" 31","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140385590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reimagining Theological Education in an Interreligious Setting: A Hindu Perspective","authors":"Pravina Rodrigues","doi":"10.1111/teth.12657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12657","url":null,"abstract":"Hindu sacred scriptures are a rich interweave of cosmological revelation that is embedded in melopoeia (melodic poetry) and sung in designated meters during rituals, liturgical services, festivals, and personal prayers. Revelation is conveyed through enigmatic dialogues, debates, parables, anecdotes, legends, and narratives. These occur between mendicants and saints, kings and mystics, and sometimes fables that include the natural world. These narrative accounts appeal to the young and the old and influence the body–mind–sense complex. A growing body of evidence attests to the positive effects of music and storytelling in the classroom setting. Drawing from these data and Hindu understandings of sacred mantric sound and storytelling, I discuss my experiments with musical frameworks and storytelling in my classes at the Graduate Theological Union, the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, and Starr King School for the Ministry in California. I contend that the incorporation of parables, tales, legends, and narratives within a musical melodic framework, as is used in Hindu texts, is an effective means of imparting Hindu–Christian theological education.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"7 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140232605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The GTU at 60","authors":"Kyle K. Schiefelbein‐Guerrero","doi":"10.1111/teth.12656","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12656","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"58 18","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139533666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Team‐based learning in the biblical studies classroom: Utilizing the 4S application task to promote deep learning","authors":"Denise C. Flanders","doi":"10.1111/teth.12652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12652","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides a brief overview of the instructional strategy known as team‐based learning (TBL). It then focuses specifically on the use of one of its integral components in a biblical studies classroom—namely, the “4S application task.” The 4S application task, which is one of the fundamental pieces of the learning experience in TBL, consists of the problems that small group teams of students need to solve or the decisions the teams need to reach in each class session. The title 4S refers to the fact that the problems must be characterized by the following: significant problem, same problem, specific choice, and simultaneous report. The main aim of this article is to share this engaging and generative pedagogical activity, but to do so effectively by providing some context as to how it is situated within the overarching flow and goals of a TBL approach.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"19 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139157433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decolonizing science‐engaged theology","authors":"Zara Thokozani Kamwendo","doi":"10.1111/teth.12653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12653","url":null,"abstract":"This piece is about the value of decolonization for teaching and doing science‐engaged theology. I argue that decolonization should be seen as a useful tool that helps students, teachers, and scholars to re‐imagine the modern distinction between science and theology/religion.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"54 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138950834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why we need to complicate things: The teaching and learning of religion beyond simplification","authors":"Johan Roeland","doi":"10.1111/teth.12654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12654","url":null,"abstract":"Much knowledge production, both academic and non‐academic, is driven by a need to simplify the world in order to enable people to navigate the complexities of everyday life. Such simplifications not only risk offering less reliable representations of the world, they can also turn into disruptive and harmful images of the world. In this article, students and teachers in the field of religion and theology are encouraged to value scientific research as a form of knowledge production that complicates things. In an age in which scientific knowledge is constantly contested and in which it competes with other forms of knowledge production (including problematic ones such as fake news, conspiracy theories, stereotyped representations of religion and religious others, and poorly executed journalism), it is important for students to understand that complicating things is a key step in developing reliable knowledge on religion and the (ir)religious other. This article, written for students starting out in the field of theology and religion and for those who teach them, explains how complicating things takes shape in scientific research by discussing three basic elements: (1) not taking things at face value, (2) understanding science as knowledge production and reflecting on science as production, (3) and realizing that there is no absolute certainty.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"21 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138954916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Quilts and crossings: A call to wholistic, multi‐modal, and multi‐layered andragogic practices in theological education","authors":"Charissa Jaeger‐Sanders","doi":"10.1111/teth.12651","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12651","url":null,"abstract":"When you think back to your own experiences as a student, what was meaningful? Memorable? Had a lasting effect? Who are the teachers that stand out? And why? Throughout our lives, we have instructors both in and beyond the classroom, and upon intentional reflection, we can pick up on some qualities that make certain teachers more effective than others. Passionate, kind, humorous, and grace‐filled teachers, who used wholistic, multi‐modal, and multi‐layered pedagogical practices, enabled us to learn in “thick” and lasting ways. This article examines wholistic, multi‐modal, and multi‐layered andragogic practices in theological education that lead to “thick,” collaborative, and lasting learning. I argue that these practices should be embodied in theological education so that students can become not only story receivers but also fellow storytellers in their own journey of lifelong learning.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"12 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138585192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From free‐for‐all (free‐for‐some?) to speakers' list: Using consensus‐based decision‐making practice to enhance student participation in the theological classroom","authors":"Sheryl Johnson","doi":"10.1111/teth.12650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12650","url":null,"abstract":"Although the goals of consensus‐based decision‐making (CBDM) and the academic theological classroom are quite distinct (most notably that in the classroom, there is no need to come to a group decision), both share the aim of honoring all voices and perspectives and ensuring that marginalized voices and experiences are elevated. It is an important tool for all to consider, particularly due to its benefits for students from different cultural backgrounds who may experience various forms of systemic inequality. This paper considers the strengths as well as limitations of CBDM‐related practices for facilitating conversation in a theological studies classroom, with specific emphasis on the speakers' list—a common CBDM tool.","PeriodicalId":284869,"journal":{"name":"Teaching Theology & Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139225476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}