A Narrative Pedagogy For Transformative Christian Faith

270 Pages·2014·2.21 MB·English

Story-Making: A Narrative Pedagogy For
Transformative Christian Faith
Author: Nathaniel Girard Samuel
Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/3403
This work is posted on
Boston College

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Department of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry

STORY-MAKING: A NARRATIVE PEDAGOGY FOR TRANSFORMATIVE
CHRISTIAN FAITH

a dissertation

by

NATHANIEL GIRARD SAMUEL

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

December 2013
© copyright by NATHANIEL GIRARD SAMUEL
2013
ABSTRACT

STORY-MAKING: A NARRATIVE PEDAGOGY FOR TRANSFORMATIVE
CHRISTIAN FAITH

NATHANIEL GIRARD SAMUEL

ADVISOR: THOMAS H. GROOME

The mid-twentieth century upsurge in scholarship on the methodological and
conceptual importance of narrative for theology - established in the work of H.R.
Niebuhr, Hans Frei and Stephen Crites inter alia – was a watershed moment for narrative
pedagogy in Christian religious education. By and large, narrative approaches have
however tended to privilege one form of narrative embodiment - literary (or discursive
narratives) - over action (or non-discursive narratives).
This dissertation points to the equivocal and pluriform nature of narrativity, and
its codification in much more than oral and written textuality. I extend it to refer to a
distinct competency for establishing a meaningful world (or ethos) to inhabit, which
congeals in varied forms of human expression including our lived narratives. Narrative
competency allows us to understand ourselves as persons and communities in
(synchronic) relationship with the rest of creation, as well as in (diachronic) relation with
persons and communities from the past and in the anticipated future.
I propose a narrative pedagogy for transformative faith based on the concept of
story-making, which draws on this expanded understanding of narrativity. My story-
making approach is grounded in Christian praxis that aims to establish the experiential
matrix that, through the working of God’s grace, invites and aids the re-storying of the
learner’s life. Story-making also has as its vision narrative historic praxis that incarnates
in social action the understanding that human subjectivity is lived in responsible agency
in the present, retrieving the memory of suffering and possibility from the past, in the
hope of a more just future.
This dissertation is inspired by the Caribbean heritage of survival and grace-filled
possibility, but ultimately extrapolates for universal wisdom. It is sustained by a belief
that Christian religious education is about forming disciples with agency for furthering
the Great story of the reign of God in history and society. The creative, even poetic,
enterprise of Caribbean existence is iconic of this existential challenge that remains
ubiquitous for life in the modern globalized economy.
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
REVISITING NARRATIVE IN CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: PROBLEMS AND
POSSIBILITIES OF CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES .................................................................. 1
The Storied World in Which We Live .......................................................................................................... 1
Christian Religious Education for Agency and Responsibility in God’s Reign ........................... 5
Caribbean Inspirations: Narratives of Survival, Resistance and Possibility ............................ 12
Contemporary Narrative Approaches to Religious Education ...................................................... 20
Core Themes of a Transformative Approach to Narrative Education ........................................ 32
THE TEXTURE OF NARRATIVITY ..................................................................................................... 36
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................... 36
A Model of Narrative Ethos ........................................................................................................................... 40
Judging the Efficacy of the Model of Narrative Ethos ........................................................................ 48
Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Narrativity ............................................................................. 60
Revisiting Ricoeur’s Framework from the Perspective of Curriculum Planning ................... 72
Summary: Religious Education and the Texture of Narrativity .................................................... 81
ENCOUNTERING THE RISEN JESUS ON THE ROAD: A PEDAGOGICAL HERMENEUTIC
AROUND NARRATIVITY ....................................................................................................................... 86
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................... 86
Some Comments about Jesus’ Narrative Pedagogy ............................................................................ 91
The Lukan Jesus as Empowering Story-Maker ..................................................................................... 97
Pedagogy on the Road to Emmaus ........................................................................................................... 103
Implications for Employing Narrativity within Religious Education Today ......................... 114
FOUNDATIONS OF A NARRATIVE PEDAGOGY IN A CARIBBEAN NARRATIVE-
PRACTICAL THEOLOGY ...................................................................................................................... 119
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 119
A Narrative Theology of Being ................................................................................................................... 124
A Narrative Theology of Praxis .................................................................................................................. 131
The Texture of the Caribbean Yes: Theological Debates ................................................................ 137
The Yes of Faith as Shaped by a Narrative Historicism .................................................................. 145
Yes as the Recognition of Being through Narrative Hospitality .................................................. 152
Yes as a Celebration of Being through Festivity ................................................................................. 164
Conclusion: The Significance of Story-making .................................................................................... 169
STORY MAKING: TOWARDS A NARRATIVE PEDAGOGY FOR TRANSFORMATIVE
FAITH ......................................................................................................................................................... 171
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 171
On the Perennial Need for Critically Reflecting on our Stories ................................................... 175
Approaching Adult Faith Formation through Story-Making ........................................................ 183
The Movements of Story-Making .............................................................................................................. 204
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................................... 229
CONCLUSION: STORY-MAKING AND BECOMING HUMAN BEFORE GOD .................... 230
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation delineates a narrative pedagogy for religious education that is
intent on transformative faith. A significant question for consideration is how does
Christian religious education invite learners to a re-storying of their lives, by imagining
and embracing life-giving and freeing narratives, while also abandoning destructive and
oppressive ones? My focus here is on Christian religious education (or educating for
Christian discipleship), delimiting this work within the universe of religious education
models. It is hoped, however, that much written here on the role of narrativity in religious
education may be of use in broader educative circles.
I contextualize my reflections by drawing on the Caribbean faith witness, in the
belief that its unique particularity can ultimately provide lessons of universal import. The
Caribbean has forged stories of resistance, survival and creativity amidst the immense
challenges of a colonial past. Its people – my people – have been a primary inspiration
for my scholarship – to them I offer the first fruits of thanksgiving.
Many others have provided accompaniment, prayer and mentorship in my
academic journey. Regretfully, I can only mention a few here. I am deeply grateful to
Profs. Tom Groome, M. Shawn Copeland and M. Brinton Lykes for their scholarly
mentoring, but also for their invaluable life witness. To my colleagues in the doctoral
program in the Department of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, and to the
numerous faculty, staff and students throughout Boston College who nurtured, supported
and challenged me over the last few years – my heartfelt thanks! And to my family, near
and far, especially to Wendy and Zara: this work is dedicated to you.
1

CHAPTER 1

REVISITING NARRATIVE IN CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: PROBLEMS
AND POSSIBILITIES OF CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES

The Storied World in Which We Live
How ought we to live? Robert Bellah and his colleagues preface their insightful
1
critique of American democratic society with this perennial question. They observe that
the modern American psyche is pervaded by an anxious search for moral integrity amid a
burgeoning culture of individualism that values independence, self-reliance and pure
2
undetermined choice above all else. These values have often proven to be morally
unfulfilling, leading to a ‘win or lose,’ ‘sink or swim’ mentality that venerates strength
and success while dismissing weakness and failure. The culture of individualism is
revealing itself to be bankrupt at providing a vision of life that upholds personal freedom

1
Robert N. Bellah and others, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American
Life: With a New Preface., 2008 ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), xlvii.

2
I have witnessed this search in my religious education work with the undergraduate population at
Boston College. Many students are restless for new and innovative experience, ritual practice, or prayer
form to hang an integral spirituality. This search is often interpreted negatively – as a naive rejection of the
metanarratives and traditional rituals of institutional religion, or positively – as the active search for a more
authentic and sustaining spirituality. Both of these readings indeed illustrate specific instantiations of the
postmodern condition. See Harold D. Horrell, "Cultural Postmodernity and Christian Faith Formation," in
Horizons and Hopes: The Future of Religious Education, ed. Thomas H. Groome and Harold D. Horrell
(New York: Paulist Press, 2003); Harold D. Horrell, "Fostering Hope: Christian Religious Education in a
Postmodern Age," Religious Education 99, no. 1 (2004).
2
and agency, while at the same time safeguarding the intrinsic dignity of human beings
3
and the indispensability of the common good.
One way of interpreting this existential angst is as revelatory of a yearning for
deeper connectedness – a desire to not only foster the bonds of community, but even
4
more profoundly, to be part of a transcending story and vision that gives meaning and
5
direction to our limited existence. This role has traditionally been played by the
6
foundational myths – both sacred and secular – of religion and civic society. However,
7
unmoored from such narrative foundations in a secular age, modern democratic society
has struggled to enunciate a common vision of the human good, and an alternative to the
culture of radical self-reliance and individualism.
Bellah et al help us recognize how morality and identity are shaped by the
narrative world in which we live. I consider the culture of individualism as constituting a

3
Modern sociology has long rejected John Locke’s description of the human being as a rational,
self-determinative monad that ontologically precedes society, in favor of Durkheim influenced theories on
the social connectedness that constitutes human being. We are by nature relational beings, flourishing not
as individuals but as persons in relationship with others. An unchecked ego-centered individualism is
generally considered antithetical to forming healthy, life-giving relationships.

4
I believe Thomas H. Groome was the first to use these two terms – story and vision – as partners
in his treatment of the Kingdom of God. See Thomas H. Groome, Christian Religious Education: Sharing
Our Story and Vision, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), 193.

5
Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1963); Viktor E. Frankl, The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy (New
York: World Pub. Co., 1969).

6
But as the late Joseph Campbell has insisted, the modern atrophy of such mythologies has left a
moral void for discerning how we are connected, or for navigating the web of commitments that tie persons
together into what Bellah et al called a social ecology. See Joseph Campbell and Bill D. Moyers, The
Power of Myth, 1st ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1988).

7
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
2007).
3
8
narrative world. It is more than a mindset or a set of practices; rather, it is better
perceived as a confluence of practices, mindsets, symbols and mythic discourses. It
references a storied world, wherein the story is one of the virtues of self-reliance and
radical independence. This story has been transmitted through history by way of cultural
myth, values and norms, and ultimately congeals in the practices, mindsets, and
discourses of our time. It is within this storied context that the question “how ought we to
live?” resonates.
Admittedly, I have expanded the idea of narrative beyond its traditional
identification with literary genre. In a general sense, narratives establish meaning through
connectivity. The archetypal form (literary narrative) links events, characters, actions and
goals into meaningful plots. The unique artistry of historical and fictional writing is to
establish for people meaningful connections among events, persons and places, which
otherwise exist in simple temporal sequence (or, in the case of fiction, may not exist at
all). Narrative connection transcends identification with a particular genre or cultural
9
artifact. Indeed, some consider it as permeating human existence. Narrative
psychologists tell us, for instance, that personal identity is derived from the sense of
having an ongoing life story that links past experiences and future aspirations in
10
meaningful ways. Similarly, we understand day-to-day events by seeking the stories

8
I should make it clear that this reference to individualism is by no means an exhaustive
characterization of American society. It serves rather to initiate this discussion on how narratives shape
human meaning, identity and morality.

9
I use narrativity here to denote the ‘doing’ of narrative, or the work of connection that is
achieved by narratives such as literary plot.

10
Stephen Crites, "Storytime: Recollecting the Past and Projecting the Future," in Narrative
Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct, ed. Theodore R. Sarbin (New York: Praeger, 1986);
Michele L. Crossley, Introducing Narrative Psychology: Self, Trauma, and the Construction of Meaning
(Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press, 2000); Gary M. Kenyon and William L Randall, Restorying Our