Volume 26, Issue 2

Children help create and shape their social worlds, including that of worship. This article explores how children negotiate and appropriate worship practices and incorporate their own values, understandings and creative ideas into their worship. This analysis of children’s agency relies on qualitative data drawn from direct observation of Dutch Protestant worship services designed for and/or attended by children. Recognising that children have agency in worship encourages practitioners and practical theologians to identify how children already help shape the worship they take part in and enhance opportunities to strengthen their agency and influence.

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the phenomenon of loneliness that was caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. As this is a very broad issue, it was just limited locally to the Polish society, and thematically to the religious aspect. Pandemic loneliness was mainly the result of social isolation to contain the spread of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, causing the Covid-19 disease. In terms of religion, loneliness was caused by separation from public religious practices and the feeling of a lack of Providence. This paper presents three faces of religious loneliness caused by the COVID-19 pandemic: liturgical loneliness, doctrinal loneliness and loneliness related to the feeling of lack of full religious freedom.

Cases from both Germany and Austria exemplify how the COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly changing traditionally held ideas of Islamic community, religious congregations, and pastoral care. These cases were collected during Ramadan 2020, as this particular period signifies a time of paramount spirituality, social solidarity, and communal festivity. They reflect the rich and vibrant efforts and responses of Muslim leaders, organizations, and institutions to the challenges posed by the current pandemic. Different initiatives and solutions Muslim communities have developed as a response to COVID-19 are characterized as “caring communities.” Muslim chaplains, despite their highly limited personal access to secluded, lonesome, and distressed individuals in need of support, overcame the restrictions. Muslim leaders have striven to make use of the virtual space to fulfil the ordinary function of mosques as places of worship and communication. They have thus attempted to uphold social solidarity ( zakat) . Their responses to the pandemic raise questions about the future of religiosity and its manifestation as well as possible forms of religious communities and their ethical values.

Xenophobic attitudes towards migrants and refugees reflect a sentiment which rejects strangers as the Other. In response to Pope Francis’ appeal to educate conscience and using the normative and pragmatic tasks of Osmer’s framework of Practical Theology as a basis, this paper aims to outline the construct of human dignity as found in three dominant moral views in Africa, viz., Christianity, Islam and Ubuntu. Furthermore it investigates the use of the metacognitive strategy of critical reflection to effect a recognition of a shared core humanity and explores the translation of conscious awareness to praxis as envisaged by Paulo Freire in conscientisation .

This paper develops a model of pastoral formation that acknowledges the relentless formative pull of whiteness and centers the work of dismantling white supremacy. It critiques three related framings of pastoral formation: excellence in ministry, pastoral imagination, and Christian practical wisdom. These framings orient pastoral formation around an a-contextual telos or goal, an approach that ultimately reinforces markers of white normativity. Teleological framings of pastoral formation need not be abandoned altogether, but they do require a more nuanced reckoning with white normativity. The paper offers a preliminary re-framing of pastoral formation as a process that requires an ongoing negotiation of the terms of pastoral formation even as practitioners deepen their pastoral expertise, wisdom, and imagination.

Interest in understanding and responding to conspiracy theories has exploded in recent years. This article seeks to engage with a range of scholarship utilizing a practical theological methodology in order to discern an appropriate response. Because conspiracy theories often produce division in congregations, as well as isolate the conspiracists from their faith community, responding in a wise manner is clearly important. This article first surveys some of the theory and research related to the topic and then discusses the connections between religion and conspiracy theories. It then moves to recommend that a “pastoral” response, including a focus on caring and maintaining sense of belonging, is preferred to a rationalist response, aimed at convincing the conspiracists that they are wrong.

Discourse surrounding Christian leadership is often influenced by colonialistic assumptions and theology that centralizes the role of the leader as change agent. In this article, the author uses Gordon Kaufman’s conception of God as serendipitous creativity as a resource for moving toward a practical theology of leadership that acknowledges colonialistic undercurrents within leadership discourse and responds to the shifting place of the church in our world. Naming God as uncontrollable, unplanned creativity engenders practices of Christian leadership that focus on the power of the community, discern divine creativity in one’s midst, and embrace the mysterious emergence of new realities.

The objective of this study is to describe resonance as concept in a theopoetics of practice in practical theology. Resonance is the vibration that takes place when practitioners (1) sense a deep relation with practice, frequently at a pre-verbal level, (2) recognize the alterity of the other and are willing to be transformed by it, and (3) use poetics to redescribe a practice in which reality itself may appear as resonance. Resonance is exemplified in chaplaincy and lived religion. I conclude that resonance should be part of a theopoetics of practice in practical theology because it helps to sense the sacred and make sense of the sacred.

Several scholars in practical theology have lamented inattention in the field to environmental crises, raising the question: what is the state of research on climate? This report analyzes the scholarship with the hope of raising consciousness about contributions and sparking greater political and moral engagement. Contrary to initial impression, the review concludes that practical theologians have written more than people realize, offering up-close analysis of human proclivities toward climate violence and religious practices of earth justice. If anything, practical theologians need to do a better job drawing on past research in the field and honing what we have to offer.