Author:
Wang, D. C., Reed, A., Greggo, S., Bowersox, L., Drennan, A., Strawn, B., King, P., Porter, S. L., Hill, P. C.
Abstract:
In recent decades, theological schools have demonstrated increased interest in educational models that not only transmit knowledge and skill to students, but also prepare them to have the character and virtue dispositions needed to successfully navigate the moral challenges that await them in future ministry settings. This shift is reflected in the most recent 2020 accreditation standards of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS), which highlight the importance of “personal and spiritual formation” as a key facet to seminary programs. Research conducted by the ATS (2018) into how seminaries understood the terms “personal and spiritual formation” revealed that over 40% of seminaries do not have a formal or working institutional definition of personal and spiritual formation. While this finding may be understandable given the complexities of terms and definitions in light of diverse Christian spiritual traditions, it also highlights an area of crucial need given the centrality of spiritual formation to the mission of theological education. Accordingly, the aim of this present paper is to support work in this area and to stimulate a larger discussion into the topic of spiritual formation within the seminary context by articulating and putting forth four different institutional perspectives on the topic (from Fuller Theological Seminary, George Truett Theological Seminary, Talbot School of Theology, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School).
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Spirituality
Religion as Fertile Ground
Abstract An extensive body of research points toward spirituality and religiousness as resources for promoting human thriving. People with strong connections to the transcendent and religious meaning in life often view morals and values as central to their self-concepts. Although moral identity theory and contemporary views of virtue development emphasize the importance of narrative identity for habituated moral action, the two are often discussed in isolation of each other. In this chapter, the authors highlight how their commonality is particularly evident when examining the potential of religion to provide a transcendent self-narrative that leads to virtue formation and moral action…
Gratitude
How diverse beliefs shape the experience of transcendent gratitude
Author: Jeane Nelson, Susan Mangan, Rebecca Ann Baer, Jeff V. Ramdass, Pamela Ebstyne King Abstract: As a novel contribution, this study considers transcendent gratitude (e.g. gratitude towards non-human benefactors such as God, Science, or Karma) across diverse belief systems. The sample included 619 participants (M age 37.5, 52.6% female) across the U.S. with beliefs across three distinct categories: a) Theistic; 38.4%), b) Spiritual but not theistic; 26.4%, and c) Non-theistic/Non-spiritual (Other); 35.2%. Across the three belief systems, we tested the associations between gratitude and theistic predictors (e.g. feeling comfort or anger towards God, fidelity, interaction with God, attachment to…
Meaning
Spirituality and meaning-making across contexts: Structural topic modeling of the Fetzer spirituality study in the United States
Author: Kim, S.-H., King, P. E., & Trudeau, S. M. Abstract: Given the significant shifts in religious affiliation and spiritual seeking over the last 20 years, a rigorous and updated understanding of how spirituality functions are essential to understand the impact of these changes on individuals and society. Drawing on an integrated view of spirituality informed by relational developmental systems (RDS) and meaning-making approaches, in the present study, we sought to identify commonalities within varied expressions of spirituality described within interviews of a religiously and spiritually diverse sample of adults. Structural topic modeling (STM) was applied to infer the…