More than a decade ago, Dr Joyce Bellous and I collaborated in writing a book, Conversations That Change Us, as an extension of several years of work together, leading ministry reflection seminars with theological students. We mostly dumped our class teaching notes and exercises into a book format and found a publisher. Although we did a lot of work developing the materials, we didn't spend much time on crafting, editing and formatting a readable book.
For the past decade, however, several seminaries have used our book as a text because it touches on issues not necessarily addressed elsewhere (and probably because we were Canadian authors for seminaries who pay attention to CanCon). As time went by, students would regularly comment: "great content, very hard to read." So we decided to completely reorganize, edit, craft, update diagrams and reformat the book. I think Joyce and I are both happier to have our names on this version of the book :)
Comments from back of book:
Theological reflection is conversation that’s personal as well as collaborative. It’s not a monologue. Thinking itself is dialogical. In order to learn the arts of theological reflection, we must first understand that when theological reflection is working, it’s effective because the conversation is dialogical. We may begin by engaging in conversation, but it only becomes a theological dialogue under certain conditions.
Bellous and Sheffield introduce the notion of theological reflection as a conversation with God, with oneself, and with the Christian community. It’s a conversation in which we encounter the humanizing gaze of God breaking into our alienation. As we converse, we stop and listen to ourselves and our own assumptions and allow others to listen and serve as witnesses to the story we are telling. That story is a personal narrative each one of us has been gathering since childhood that shapes how we understand ourselves, God and the world.
In the book you hear us engage with Piaget & Vygotsky, with Freud, with Freire, with Gendlin, with Eastern Orthodox monks, with the Prodigal Son. We talk about Lectio Divina, focusing, generative themes, etc.
Part One
- Theological Reflection as Dialogue
- Practicing Healthy Theological Reflection
- Speaking the Truth in Love
Part Two
- Generative Themes and Personal Inquiry
- Narrative Inquiry and Theological Reflection
- Spiritual Types that Influence Theological Reflection
Part Three
- Collaborative Inquiry
- Theological Reflection and Representing Meaning
- An Approach to Collaborative Theological Reflection
For those who choose to order/read the book, feel free to put a review on Amazon or Good Reads!
Learning to engage with difference - identity politics in Canada
Or, why I prefer to nod and smile affably and not contribute to the debate on identity politics, while getting on with actually bridging differences.
A lot of the current debate on identity politics tends to emerge from those who hold what are regarded as socially progressive views about these topics. For the sake of argument, I would like to suggest that there are actually two fields of study that are part of this debate. The disciplines of sociology and psychology.
For most of the 20th century, the discipline of psychology was prominent in the public consciousness with such personages as Skinner, Freud, Piaget, Erickson and Rogers. The discipline of sociology grew in increasing significance during the late 20th century and also has its well-known names: Durkheim, Weber, Foucault, Habermas and Bourdieu.
A simple, however reductionist, summary might be: psychology examines individual human behaviours, while sociology examines collective human behaviours. Again, fearful of simplifying, we might say there is a debate going on about who or what is responsible? Individual human responsibility or collective social systems? Again, fearfully broaching… In the Boushie/Stanley encounter, who/what is responsible? Two individuals making very emotional responses and stupid behavioural choices that ended in tragedy? Or two products of socially pre-determined systems where this outcome was completely predictable? Interestingly, the court system is built on the notion of individual responsibility (intent/behavior) and verifiable proof – thus the outcome of the trial. The popular media and a generation of millennials raised on sociology (systemic responsibility), not psychology (individual responsibility), however, see through the lens of the socially pre-determined inevitabilities of racism and unconscious bias.
In search of more clarity, I would like to introduce the discipline of anthropology into this conversation:
Anthropology has a long tradition in Canada. In fact, Franz Boas, considered by many as a founder of the discipline, did his most significant ethnographic work among Canadian indigenous peoples in the late 1800s. One of his students, Edward Sapir, was chief ethnologist for the Geological Survey of Canada (1910-1925), producing seminal work on linguistics and culture before his death in 1939. He was also an ardent pacifist and humanist who challenged narratives of European cultural superiority over Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Other students of Boas included Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict.
It is within the learning framework of anthropology that I have spent most of my adult life. I was born and raised for the first 11 years of my life in the multi-ethnic mix of 1960s northern Ontario. I was exposed in everyday life to multiple, first-gen central and eastern Europeans, with some Scandinavians thrown in. This social context also included First Nations peoples. As an elementary school-aged observer, the stark reality of “poor living conditions” and “people in distress” was apparent. My parents, primary influencers of my early worldview, spoke of “these poor people who need help.” My parents, generally, had a positive desire to be service-oriented rather than judgmental or derogatory toward First Nations people; this included several summers where we “camped” on, or near reserves, to facilitate religious education experiences. My father tells a story of visiting in Norval Morrisseau’s home in the late 60s.
These early life exposures were fundamental to my understanding of difference. Languages, foods, living conditions, customs, values, were “interesting, but different.” To be explored and understood. I would go on to have other experiences with First Nations friends (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Huu-ay-aht First Nation). Further life experience has led me to engage with people and explore cultures in Mexico (6 weeks), Egypt (14 months), Cyprus (1 month), South Africa (6 years), Hungary (5 weeks), Niger (2 months), Ghana (6 weeks), Sri Lanka (8 months), India (2 months), and The Philippines (1 month).
OK, thanks for all that, Dan, so what’s your point?
“Applied anthropologists use their knowledge of peoples and cultures for practical purposes.” How does this knowledge and experience of diverse peoples help us in this current conversation? One of the applications of anthropology is to the discipline of intercultural communications, which aids in the development of intercultural competence.
Let’s catch up. Psychology situates the debate in individual terms, sociology as systemic and collective. Intercultural communication (an area of applied anthropology) says, "hold on, let’s sit down and figure out what’s going on and how we can move forward." This debate has individual, social, cultural, linguistic, political, economic and institutional implications. Meaning, engagement and dialogue is complex and any simplistic, reductionist media bites (on either side) completely miss the point.
The person who says “get your act together and pull up your bootstraps, Colten/Gerald” is missing the more complex work that needs to be done. As is the person who says “systemic racism caused this tragedy, we need to deconstruct the system.” It’s clearly both/and. But you know what? – all that takes time and commitment to engage, while suspending judgement in the meantime. And “the meantime” may take a long time.
Intercultural communication/competence provides these clues to the work that needs to be done:
And that’s my point. I’m tired of the debates – they only lead to further polarization, an entry-level phase of developing intercultural competence. I’m tired of the arm-chair, sophomoric social philosophers. I’d rather just sit down and spend some time engaging with, and learning from, someone who sees things different from myself – and doesn’t feel a need to convert me to their way of thinking. Maybe after I’ve listened long enough, I might get a chance to respectfully share my thoughts.
So I would respectfully suggest the beginning point is individual response (engagement, rethinking, changed behaviour) that leads to changes in systems, over time, because enough individual responses produce systemic change.
Posted at 02:50 PM in Current Affairs, dan's missional journey, Intercultural development, Social justice commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)
|