Showing papers by "Protestant Theological University published in 2012"

Developing a Framework for Research on Religious Identity Development of Highly Committed Adolescents

Abstract: The aim of this article is to present a framework for studying the religious identity development of highly religious Christian and Muslim adolescents. Building on existing theories on identity development, the authors define highly religious Christian and Muslim adolescents as orthoprax adolescents and explore the consequences of this for reflection on the religious identity development of these groups of youngsters. This study is a first step toward gaining qualitative insights into the religious identity development of orthoprax adolescents and filling up a perceived gap in research on religious identity development.

Assessing the construction of spirituality: conceptualizing spirituality in health care settings.

Abstract: Spirituality has become a popular term in chaplaincy and health care settings, but is defined in such a myriad of ways and in such broad terms that, as a term, it threatens to become unfit for clinical practice. Several prominent conceptualizations of spirituality are analyzed in an attempt to recover the distinctiveness of spirituality. An adequate understanding of spirituality for clinical use should run close to the lived spirituality of persons in their unique individuality, differing contexts and various persuasions. In the second place a distinct discourse on spirituality needs to be sensitive to characteristic experiences of that which is other.

Educating young people through Christian youth worship: Reclaiming space for learning in liturgical contexts

Abstract: This article dealt with the relationship between education and youth worship in Protestant contexts in the Netherlands. Consequently, it dealt with the relation between Liturgical and Educational Studies. Our interest in the research project on youth worship in Protestant contexts centred on the question: How do young people, in a late-modern context, participate in youth worship? In our qualitative research, it appeared that ‘learning’ is a key word with regard to youth worship. This article discussed the questions: How are youth worship and ‘learning faith’ related? And, what are the qualities of learning faith in youth worship? Empirical results of the research in local youth worship services and national youth worship events were presented. These results concentrated on the dialogical dimension in youth worship gatherings and gave indications about the contents of what adolescents learn in youth worship gatherings. This ‘what’ referred, amongst other aspects, to the important content of ‘rules and freedom’. Respondents often valued and appropriated youth worship along the line of ‘(do not) have to’, with regard to a Christian life style, their relation with God, ethics, and doctrines. Moreover, themes in youth worship gatherings often focused on a specific Christian lifestyle, on its boundaries and its spaces. Some reflections with regard to the question ‘Why is learning faith a dominant element in youth worship?’ were given. The conclusions that the cognitive element is important in youth worship and that the explicit aspect of learning is a main approach in youth worship were discussed in relation to J. Astley’s (1984) theoretical notion that the language of worship is ‘performing non-cognitive’.

Educating young people through Christian youth worship : reclaiming space for learning in liturgical contexts : original research

Abstract: This article dealt with the relationship between education and youth worship in Protestant contexts in the Netherlands. Consequently, it dealt with the relation between Liturgical and Educational Studies. Our interest in the research project on youth worship in Protestant contexts centred on the question: How do young people, in a late-modern context, participate in youth worship? In our qualitative research, it appeared that 'learning' is a key word with regard to youth worship. This article discussed the questions: How are youth worship and 'learning faith' related? And, what are the qualities of learning faith in youth worship? Empirical results of the research in local youth worship services and national youth worship events were presented. These results concentrated on the dialogical dimension in youth worship gatherings and gave indications about the contents of what adolescents learn in youth worship gatherings. This 'what' referred, amongst other aspects, to the important content of 'rules and freedom'. Respondents often valued and appropriated youth worship along the line of '(do not) have to', with regard to a Christian life style, their relation with God, ethics, and doctrines. Moreover, themes in youth worship gatherings often focused on a specific Christian lifestyle, on its boundaries and its spaces. Some reflections with regard to the question 'Why is learning faith a dominant element in youth worship?' were given. The conclusions that the cognitive element is important in youth worship and that the explicit aspect of learning is a main approach in youth worship were discussed in relation to J. Astley's (1984) theoretical notion that the language of worship is 'performing non-cognitive'.

Why participation matters to understand ritual experience

Abstract: Two cases in which researchers take part in religious ritual show how being a participant enhances the researcher’s understanding of what is happening. Through these cases the authors attempt to shed light on the methodological problems concerning the “intersubjectivity” of research on ritual. Ritual goes beyond the verbal and pulls bodily sensations, emotion and gestures into the domain of intersubjectivity established through fieldwork. Experiencing the emotional and physical sensations that accompany ritual give the researcher a clue as to what other participants experience. But maybe more importantly, the participation of the researcher also triggers reflections on the meaning and efficacy of the ritual. These verbalized interpretations of what has happened may further strengthen the researcher’s understanding. The authors argue that it is exactly through putting this intersubjectivity at the centre of both the actual fieldwork and the subsequent analysis that the ever flexible and contested nature of ritual and the dynamic tension between semantic and tacit meaning can be most fruitfully explored.

Civic engagement measured in square metres. Church and civil society in a Dutch suburb

Abstract: In a case study on suburban churches the author describes how religious ideas, material resources and relationships of trust together form capital that enables and limits the civic engagement of the churches. The case study is based on ethnographic research in the newly built suburb of Leidsche Rijn in the Netherlands. The author concludes that a focus on the combination of different forms of capital available in congregational networks helps to obtain a better understanding of the often noted positive relationship between religion and civic engagement. The study shows that capital has an ambiguous influence: it enables and limits civic engagement. Researchers should therefore not be overly positive about the effects of social capital. They should also be aware of the ‘essential contestedness’ of civic engagement. The way civic engagement actually works on an empirical level calls into question any easy definition that researchers may devise.

De liefde van God

Abstract: The love of God In this essay, an attempt is made to understand what Christians mean by the love of God. Starting point for this understanding is the biblical witness about the decisive self-revealing actions of love God has performed in the history of Israel and in Jesus Christ. Then, different forms of human love are described. A definition of divine love is given in terms of elements that can be found in these forms of human love and in God’s self-revealing actions of love. Two questions about this definition that are crucial to Vincent Brummer’s account of the love of God, are discussed. First, what is the nature of God’s longing? And second, does the love between God and human beings exclude rights and duties?

Vroom en daarom rechtzinnig. Brümmer over het primaat van de geloofsbeleving

Abstract: Pious and therefore orthodox. Brummer on the primacy of faith experience In a new (as yet unpublished) manuscript Vincent Brummer’s academic work takes a surprising turn, in that he moves from philosophical theology to historical theology. This paper shows that behind Brummer’s recent historical work (a sample of which has already been published in Brummer 2010) a strong systematic concern can still be discovered: Brummer wants to show how the theology of Nicolaas Hofmeyr (1827-1909), Andrew Murray (1828-1917) and their followers was largely determined by their spirituality (which focused on the experience of a personal relationship with God through Christ in the Spirit) rather than the other way around. As mystical theologians, and contrary to the contemporary (Kuyperian and Princetonian) confessionalists, piety was more important to them than orthodoxy – and this is indeed what we should learn from them. In response to this, I suggest that the relation between piety and orthodoxy is more of a synthetical than of an antithetical nature.

Kinetics of Healing: Protestant Women Pledging Baptism in Saydnaya Orthodox Monastery

Abstract: They travel for many hours on the long, winding, and arid road up the rocky hills to the monastery of our lady of Saydnaya. They climb the high stairs, visit the small apse-shaped chapel, light some candles, chat to the nuns and bring back holy oil and incense. Most of them have done this at some point in their life. Many have done it more than once. They have visited, they have been baptized or have had their children baptized there. Though socially they are considered Protestants, their bond with Saydnaya is very special and it inspires something particular in each one of them. They are the women considered in this ongoing study and Saydnaya is one of their places. They are Lebanese women from Antiochian Orthodox or Maronite backgrounds who, by marrying a Lebanese Protestant Reformed man, join the small Lebanese Reformed Protestant Church. In these Protestant congregations they constitute the great majority of the women. In Middle Eastern Christianity, it is customary for women to join their husband's church and denomination upon marriage. As this joining requires no official transfer of membership or re-education, it happens automatically and rather smoothly. Though the official liturgy of the Lebanese Reformed Protestant Church seems to be unaffected by this massive and regular grafting into its membership, the unofficial liturgical practices that result from the