Everywhere in the western world the process of secularization leads to the decline of faith in God. The concept of secularization itself, however, has come under attack by critics who believe that it does not adequately account for processes which may be part of a certain renascence, as marginal and unrecognized as it may be, of belief in God. Whether these processes are actually taking place, and whether this renascence, if such it is, will bring about a transformation of that belief are questions still waiting to be answered. Are we witnessing the (re)creation of God images, or the...

The idea for this volume originates from the first meeting of the International Society of Empirical Research in Theology (ISERT) in 2002 at the Radboud University Nijmegen. In this volume, researchers and academics from South Africa, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands debate about the fundamental question of the role of theological normativity in empirical research in theological fields. In fourteen contributions this book would like to illuminate the significance of this central topic for the discipline of practical theology.
The first part of the book provides a...

There is a growing consensus among scholars in different countries about the object of practical theology. Hans van der Ven has contributed much to this consensus through his writings on the foundations of practical theology, the empirical paradigm within practical theology, and specific subdisciplines within practical theology, especially religious education, moral education, church development and ministry. At the center of this growing consensus is an understanding of the independent hermeneutical role of religious experiences and practices of people in the process of theological...

The volume entails a well-documented empirical study of attitudes of clergy and lay personnel in the Dutch Roman-Catholic Church regarding church, sacraments and spirituality, which are studied as positive or negative motifs to engage in professional policies of their profession.

This book reports on a theoretical and empirical study of spiritual care as a profession in health care, particularly from the angle of quality care. Theoretically the central issues in spiritual care are analysed: quality care, medicalisation and contingency as its limit, the function of worldviews in health care, personal identity, legitimacy and position in health care, goals and tasks of the profession. Specific attention is spent to the determinants of the goals in the interaction with patients. Empirically the attitudes of Dutch spiritual caregivers towards these issues are...

Changes in the religious landscape present challenges to conceptualization, methodology and empirical research of religion. The volume, Religion inside and outside Traditional Institutions, which includes contributions to the 2nd conference of the International Society for Empirical Research in Theology (ISERT) in Bielefeld, Germany, responds to these contemporary challenges. While the concept of religious praxis is their common theme, they include a focus on deinstitutionalized religion. The contributions in the first part present and discuss a variety of innovative conceptual,...

Discourse in Ritual Studies invites you to enter a conversation on the topic of liturgy from the perspective of ritual studies. Since liturgical topics are not among the most frequently addressed issues in ritual studies, this volume supplies a need for studies of public worship that take into account the multidisciplinary and innovative research in ritual studies while dealing with basic issues of religious studies and theology. The contributing authors share an action-oriented and empirical interest in ritual studies while not losing sight of perennial and normative questions that...

By integrating cultural, political, social and economic factors the book empirically affirms, the importance of culture, represented by religious values, in the fight against poverty and that political and economic attitudes have a role to play in the development process.

Drawing on the insights of Catholic and Protestant scholars, this collection of essays advances new insight into the theory, practice and relevance of empirical research in theology.

Many academic disciplines have contributed to the study of popular religiosity, but the definition of this phenomenon and of its relation with official religion still remains a problematic topic. This book offers an empirical-theological investigation of popular religiosity by exploring among Italian Catholics the relation between popular religious participation (processions, pilgrimages, vows, et cetera) and religious beliefs. The investigated beliefs are beliefs about God, about human suffering in relation to God, about Jesus Christ, and about the church. The results indicate that popular...