Originally published more than fifty years ago, The Courage to Be has become a classic of twentieth-century religious and philosophical thought. The great Christian existentialist thinker Paul Tillich describes the dilemma of modern man and points a way to the conquest of the problem of anxiety. This edition includes a new introduction by Harvey Cox that situates the book within the theological conversation into which it first appeared and conveys its continued relevance in the current century. "The brilliance, the wealth of illustration, and the aptness of personal application ...make the reading of these chapters an exciting experience."--W. Norman Pittenger, New York Times Book Review "A lucid and arresting book."--Frances Witherspoon, New York Herald Tribune "Clear, uncluttered thinking and lucid writing mark Mr. Tillich's study as a distinguished and readable one."--American Scholar Selected as one of the Books of the Century by the New York Public Library

存在的勇气 = The courage to be

Research on children, young people and religion is becoming more prevalent following an increased interest in this traditionally under-researched area. However, little discussion has taken place to date on the appropriateness of past frameworks for making sense of children’s religious lives. This article calls attention to the issue of religious identity in relation to children and young people. By drawing on the diffuse body of interdisciplinary social scientific research in this area, the article seeks to apply the new social studies of childhood model through the two concepts of complexity and agency. Following this, it then goes on to make some suggestions for future directions in the study of children, young people and religious identity.

Researching children, youth and religion: identity, complexity and agency

This paper suggests hermeneutic phenomenology as a theoretical framework for reflecting, interpreting and gaining insight into children’s spirituality. It describes an episode that took place in a Year 5 classroom involving a 10‐year‐old child and his response to an Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime story. The possibilities this observed incident opens for hermeneutic phenomenology are then explored using van Manen’s notion of lifeworld existentials as guides to reflection upon the life expression of this child. The four lifeworld existentials are lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality) and lived human relation (relationality). In using these as a means by which to interpret the life expression of this child, it is argued that some insights into his or her spirituality can be gleaned.

Beyond logic - entering the realm of mystery: Hermeneutic phenomenology as a tool for reflecting on children's spirituality

In this article I examine the nature of ecological spirituality as it is discovered within the growing field of holistic education. I introduce holistic education and attempt to describe its chief characteristics by reference to the thought of Dewey and Hegel. Dewey was the ultimate progressive, yet his attachment to scientific progress and disregard for inherited wisdom mean that his work is not suitable for holistic education without adaptation. Hegel was the metaphysical philosopher of wholeness, yet his systematic, totalizing view of democracy which so alarmed Karl Popper similarly means that adaptation is again required. I argue that holistic education takes up a position between the two philosophers, experiential yet enculturated, metaphysical yet fluid and processual. I examine the ideas of both writers in relation to four key elements of holistic education and conclude by showing how they could combine to provide a rationale for the future.

Nurturing Spirituality: A rationale for holistic education

In taking its theoretical impetus from hermeneutic phenomenology, the qualitative research reported in this paper aimed to identify characteristics of children’s spirituality in Australian Catholic primary schools. The videotaped life expressions of two groups of six children in each of three Australian Catholic primary schools formed the texts of this study. A reflection upon the texts, guided by van Manen’s lifeworld existentials, resulted in the identification of four characteristics of these children’s spirituality – the felt sense, integrating awareness, weaving the threads of meaning, and spiritual questing. In the light of these findings, some pedagogical implications for nurturing spirituality through the primary religious education curriculum in Catholic schools are proposed.

The identification of four characteristics of children's spirituality in Australian Catholic primary schools

What is the education of the whole child? the educational climate and the children and worldviews project how we carried out the research children's experience of conflict and loss children's religious and scientific thinking the identity of "Asian" children taking children's stories to other children children and parental separation religious identity and children's worldviews the implications for education the implications for the classroom religious education and collective worship children's spirituality and our contemporary culture prospects for education.

Danny Sullivan

Papers

The Education of the Whole Child

The development of children's worldviews