Intersecting Realities
The Nexus of Marriage and Religion: Lessons Learned from the American Families of Faith Research Project
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Loren Marks,
David Dollahite
For 25 years, the American Families of Faith Research Project has explored the nexus of religious faith and family relationships. Nearly 200 academic publications have resulted from this work. In this paper, we will outline several of the most important findings from in-depth qualitative interviews with more than 300 racially and ethnically diverse families from the Abrahamic faiths who are living in the United States of America. (These families hail from more than 20 countries of origin on four different continents.) See: https://americanfamiliesoffaith.byu.edu/
An Intercultural Proposal for Strengthening Social Interactions through Religious Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Erika Márjory Huamaní Rimachi
In Italy there is a great cultural and religious diversity that is present in our daily interaction, but which we unconsciously ignore; this happens because certain standards of life and behaviour are imposed, while others are rejected, generating racial and religious discussions that fragment society and encourage segregation. One way to address this problem is through education, where the main behavioural imperatives of the future citizen are established. In this context, religious education plays a key role in providing tools for an agonistic dialogue with the other/them. This research proposes a methodological strategy for revaluing the other/them through the development of competencies in religious education. For this purpose, a feedback synthesis was carried out from the curricular bases to the methodological construction. The study is structured in three parts: (1) an enquiry into religious education in Peru and its educational competencies; (2) an analysis of the principles of religious interculturality applied to integral formation; and (3) the design of a methodological strategy for religious education. This process makes it possible to understand the relationships between religions and their interaction with the other/them, to identify common aspects between them and to evaluate the impact of the recognition of the other. In conclusion, the need for a methodological proposal that distinguishes the doctrinal from the formative is evident in order to guarantee pluriculturality in religious diversity and improve coexistence between citizens of different cultures.
Benedictine Stabilitas and Institutional Fragility: Cultivating a Spirituality of Stability for Uncertain Times
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Elizabeth Anderson
Benedictine monks and nuns take a vow of stabilitas, or stability of place, vowing to live their monastic life in the same location with the same group of people. That commitment to a particular community of people has also been foundational in the spirituality of many oblates and laypeople inspired by the Benedictine tradition. Yet declining religious vocations in Europe and North America have meant that monastic institutions themselves are increasingly unstable and impermanent, and those seeking a monastic vocation today must grapple with the likelihood that they will outlive their monastery. The Rule of Benedict counsels its readers to keep death daily before their eyes, but this is often thought of as referring only to the individual’s death, while the community might be imagined as eternal. This experience of institutional precarity is also relevant for many clergy and laypeople outside of a monastic context, as many denominations struggle to keep parish churches open. Moreover, patterns of migration and displacement have made stability of place an unachievable ideal for many people. Drawing on the literature of late antiquity and the experience of orders that were forcibly closed during the Protestant Reformation, this paper explores what wisdom the Christian monastic tradition has to offer for living a life of stabilitas in the midst of unstable institutions.
