Anne Wimberly Joins the Blog: Narrative as Method in RE and as Practical Theological Endeavor

My opening question is: By what methodological means may religious education bring clarity to teaching and learning that takes age/stage, cultural and religious pluralism into account?

As an invitation to our thoughts on the question, I want to begin with a particular story.During a cross-denominational pan-African youth group's guided story-sharing and discussion on meanings of hope in the throes of their lives as teens, one teen who had been sitting quietly with head bowed and arms folded, raised her head and spoke out: "Let me tell you what I think! Maybe there isn't such a thing as hope. My situation at home never changes for the better. I can't do anything about it. And, I don't see God changing it either! Sure, you can say that the Bible gives us some answers. I heard the scripture about God's plans for our good and not for harm; and I heard what was said about it. (Ref. Jeremiah 29:11). But, change for good? I don't see it! Has God left me out?" These words of one teen re-opened an entirely new collaborative interchange with like and different stories from the one shared by the youth. It led to the group's deep theological reflection on and answers to the dilemma of God's activity in the realities of life raised in the question, "Has God left me out?"

Whether with participants and leaders in the youth theology program I lead, or in seminary classroom, church school class, or in lay or pastors' study groups across denominations, I have noted that a narrative method to religious education becomes a significant means of entering into what I call a IDEA pedagogy of engagement or deep faith Inquiry,Discovery, futher Exploration, and Application. It becomes a way of framing religious education as a pratical theological endeavor in which tough questions and answers to life and faith are probed. The work of Groome (1980, 1999), Gilmour (1997), Shaw (1999), and my own work (1994, 2005), for example, place narrative at the center of the practical theological task of religious education. Of course, Mary Elizabeth Moore (Teaching From the Heart, 1991, 1998) is correct in her statement that "Teaching narratively is more than a set of techniques that can be thrown into an eclectic bag of tricks. Narrative is a significant mode of human communication, a bearer and critic of culture, and a potentially profound and far-reaching educational method." (132-133)

I would also suggest that narrative helps us bring into focus "theology-in-action" where persons are in their social location and across the plural circumstances of persons' lives.But, is it also possible for narrative methodologies to to invite responses to additional questions: What kinds of narrative methods are needed for what we might consider helpful theological reflection? To what ends or for what outcomes do we see as important for narrative as practical theological method in religious education? Indeed, we might well consider the question: How important is the use of narrative in religious education as a practical theological endeavor?

Anne Streaty Wimberly