Religious Experience and Its Transformational Power

Front matter

~ DE GRUYTER

Sabrina Müller

RELIGIOUS EXPERIEN AND ITS TRANSFORMA- TIONAL POWER

Preface

The Theological Faculty of the University of Zurich accepted the present study as a habilitation thesis in the autumn semester of 2021. This study was made possible by 20 co-researchers who entrusted me with their religious experiences. These individuals helped me understand the feelings, thoughts, and processes that trigger such experiences as well as their formative impact on individuals. As a qualitative researcher who enjoys working with people, I can only express my gratitude for the interest, cooperation, and openness that my co-researchers have shown me.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the three examiners of my work. My sincere thanks first go to Prof. Dr. Thomas Schlag, who prepared the initial assessment, accompanied me throughout the entire study with benevolence, and provided constructive criticism. He also offered me a postdoc position, which enabled me to gain a wide range of teaching experiences. Because of this, I was consistently encouraged, supported, and challenged to engage in practical theological research, teaching, and publishing. Without Thomas Schlag, I would not be where I am now, academically and theologically. Next, I would like to thank my second examiner, Prof. Dr. Ralph Kunz, for the perspectives he brought to the table. He always asked the right questions at critical junctures to help shape and develop me, practically and theologically. I also would like to extend my gratitude to the external examiner, Prof. Dr. Uta Pohl-Patalong, for her appreciative and encouraging report, her many helpful academic impulses, as well as the human support and encouragement she provided over the last few years.

This study was made possible thanks to the gracious and professional support of my friends and research colleagues. They encouraged me, offered constructive criticism, brainstormed with me about coding, helped me when I struggled with phrasing, and proofread my texts. I want to express my heartfelt thanks to Andreas Bosshard, Dr. Jasmine Hieronymi, Aline Knapp, Dr. Patrick Todjeras, and Michéle Wenger. You are all awesome!

Many others have contributed to this study at conferences, workshops, research societies, and academic discussions. For example, I would like to thank Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Dr. h.c. Ingolf Dalferth, who influenced the beginnings of this study during my time at Claremont. I would also like to thank the Claremont School of Theology, which hosted me as a visiting researcher for several months. Specifically, Prof. Dr. Philip Clayton, Prof. Dr. Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook, and Prof. Dr. Frank Rogers. I am also grateful to the practical theological “community” ofthe American Academy of Religion (AAR), the International Academy of Practical Theology (IAPT), and the Ecclesiology and Ethnography network, which all taught me new ways to practise practical theology. I would also like to thank the tri-na-

VIII —— Preface tional practical theological research society of Groningen-Kiel-Zurich, which I have always perceived as an extremely interested, collegial, and encouraging research community.

I am also deeply indebted to the Stiftung Kirchgemeinde Zürich for their tremendous support, as they funded part of my research employment. I would also like to express my gratitude for the University of Zurich for providing me with a one-year research credit, the Center for Church Development (ZKE) of the UZH, where I first worked as a postdoc and theological executive, as well as the University Research Priority Program (URPP) “Digital Religion(s)” of the UZH, which enabled me to complete my habilitation alongside my job as an executive.

I would also like to thank Walter de Gruyter Verlag, especially Katrin Mittmann and Dr. Albrecht Döhnert, for their friendly cooperation. This study is being published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF). Only thanks to generous grants provided by the SNF is publishing this open-access research study possible.

Zurich, Easter 2023 Sabrina Miller

Contents

List of figures — 1

1 Introduction: religious experience as a practical theological challenge — 3

1.1 1.2 1.3

Part I Sensitizing Concepts Introduction — 13

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2

2.3.2.1 2.3.2.2

2.4

Experience - an etymological definition — 15

Lived experience and experience — 16

Religious experience - a brief historical overview — 17 Religious experience in monasticism, Martin Luther, and Pietism — 19 Religious phenomenological and sociological conceptions of religious experience - selected examples — 21

Examples of sociological approaches to religious experience — 21 Examples of religious phenomenological and theological concepts of religious experience — 24

The living and experiential space of urban people — 33

The digital experience space — 36

The individualized and pluralized space of experience — 40 The urban living spaces — 43

Urbanity in facts and figures — 45

Urbanity research — 47

Social scientific and anthropological definitions of the city — 49 Conditions and characteristics of being human in urbanity — 51 Freedom and foreignness — 51

Individuality and sociality — 54

Theological perspectives on life in the city — 56

X — Contents

Part II Methodological Interlude Introduction — 63

4 Practical theology within the horizon of qualitative social research - Methodology —— 64

4.1 Research subject and co-researchers —— 66

4.2 Research principles —— 67

4.3 Sample structure: Case groups and locations — 68 4.4 Data collection concept — 72

4.4.1 Preliminary phase — 74

4.4.2 Phase 1: Welcome and introduction — 75

4.4.3 Phase 2: Standardized questionnaire — 76

4.4.4 Phase 3: Creative approach to the theme — 77

4.4.5 Phase 4: Biographical-narrative explanation of the drawing — 78

4.4.6 Phase 5: Group discussion — 79

4.4.7 The farewell — 80

4.5 Grounded Theory: The inductive character of the survey and evaluation procedure — 81

Part III A Grounded Theory on the Change of the Frame of Reference through Religious Experience

Introduction — 87

5 Individual case presentation: the content of religious experience — 88 5.1 Group 1, Los Angeles: Abby and Vanessa — 88

5.2 Group 2, Los Angeles: Carmen and Kristine — 91

5.2.2 Kristine — 93

5.3 Group 3, Los Angeles: John, Micah, Sophie, and Tim — 94

Contents —— XI

5.4 Group 4, Hanover: Niklas, Janik, Sabine, and Mirjam —— 99

5.5 Group 5, Zurich: Ronnie, Gina, Leandra, and Felix — 105

5.6 Group 6, Zurich: Sara, Tobi, Colin, and Simone — 111

5.7 Summary: Defining religious experience from the perspective of the co-researchers —— 116

6 Excursus: Inner aspects and basic observations on the religious experiences of the cross-case and cross-group evaluation — 119

6.1 The meaning of religious experiences for the co-researchers —— 119

6.2 “Imprinting” as a liquid phenomenon before, during, and after a religious experience —— 120

6.3 Verbalization — 122

6.4 Subjectivity — 123

7 Processual aspects: Religious experience and the change of the personal frame of reference - cross-case and cross-group evaluation —— 127

7.1 Religious experience: from experience to changing the frame of reference — 128

7.2 Before - Contingency, Search, and Relationship —— 129

7.2.1 Experience in contingency and conflict — 130

7.2.2 Active search movement and relational impulses —— 132

73 Moment of happening - the religious resonance space and the special everyday experience — 137

73.1 The place of religious experience — 138

7.3.2 Embodiment and emotions during the religious experience — 140

XII — Contents

The Ability to Remember — 142

Relational (God) cognition - recognizing and being recognized —— 143 Afterwards - from effect to experience — 148 Self-efficacy and dissolution of limitation — 150

Effects on everyday life — 151

Overcoming contingency through visualization —— 152 Emotional changes inside and outside: “To become a better person” — 154

Belief - knowledge - certainty: verify and interpret — 157 Verify and interpret — 158

Meaning and orientation — 161

Rhythmization — 164

Certainty of faith and self-assurance — 166

Changing the frame of reference - Summary — 168

Part IV Discussion and Outlook Introduction — 173

8 Interpretation of the results within the horizon of the initial questions — 174

8.4.3 8.4.4

8.4.5 8.5

Methodological preface — 175

Practical theological anthropological considerations — 176

Quality of knowledge of religious experiences — 184

The transformative effect of religious experiential processes — 190 Personal hermeneutics — 191

The transformative potential: religious experience as Widerfahrnis and life-historical interpretation of meaning —— 193

Religious experience as an unavailable resonance relationship — 195 Religious experience as a catalyst for a personal transformation process within the horizon of Christian perspectives of hope —— 197 Individualized religious identity — 201

Contents — XIII

9 Experiencing the Christian perspectives of hope - a practical theological outlook — 207

9.1 References between religious experience and lived theology — 207 9.2 Lived theology - a definition of the term — 210 9.3 Lived theology as a complement to the conceptions of lived religion, lived faith, and ordinary theology —— 212 9.4 Lived theology as practical theology “from below” —— 216 9.5 Outlook —— 219 10 Bibliography — 225

Register — 241

List of figures

Fig. 1: World Urbanization Prospects, 7 —— 45 Fig. 2: World Urbanization Prospects, 10 —— 46 Fig. 3: Overview of case groups —— 71

Table 1: Overview of people —— 71

Fig. 4: Survey phases —— 73

Fig. 5: Drawing Abby —— 89

Fig. 6: Drawing Vanessa —— 90

Fig. 7: Drawing Carmen —— 92

Fig. 8: Drawing Kristine —— 93

Fig. 9: Drawing John —— 95

Fig. 10: Drawing Micah —— 96

Fig. 11: Drawing Sophie —— 98

Fig. 12: Drawing Tim —— 99

Fig. 13: Drawing Niklas —— 100

Fig. 14: Drawing Janik —— 102

Fig. 15: Drawing Sabine —— 103

Fig. 16: Drawing Mirjam —— 104

Fig. 17: Drawing Ronnie —— 106

Fig. 18: Drawing Gina —— 107

Fig. 19: Drawing Leandra —— 108

Fig. 20: Drawing Felix —— 110

Fig. 21: Drawing Sara — 111

Fig. 22: Drawing Tobi —— 113

Fig. 23: Drawing Colin —— 114

Fig. 24: Drawing Simone —— 116

Fig. 25: Coding process —— 128

Fig. 26: Code tree —— 129

Fig. 27: Drawings contingency experiences —— 133 Fig. 28: Drawing search movement —— 135 Table 2: Setting of religious experience —— 139 Fig. 29: Drawings (God) cognition —— 144

Fig. 30: Drawing recognize —— 145

Fig. 31: Drawing afterwards —— 149

Fig. 32: Drawing self-efficacy —— 151

Fig. 33: Drawing hope perspective —— 155

Fig. 34: Drawing rhythmization —— 165

8 Open Access. © 2023 bei den Autorinnen und Autoren, publiziert von De Gruyter. Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitung 4.0 International Lizenz. https:/doi.org/10.1515/9783110990461-001

1 Introduction: religious experience as a practical theological challenge

The object of theology is found in the symbols of religious experience.’

More than a century ago, William James distinguished between research on institutionalized religion — whose focus is the church and systematic theology - and research on individual religion, which focuses on personal religious experiences.” His interest subsequently turned to research on personal religion and faith. As with James, the focus of this study is on the individual, experiential religiosity and the transformational logic that emanates from it.’

The explorative, empirical study presented here is a search for traces of how young urban adults understand and interpret their religious experiences and relate them to their everyday lives. This study intends to provide impulses for current practical theological theory formation on the horizon of social change. At the same time, practical theological theory and object reflection expand to include a contextual and inductive perspective of individualized urban people.

1.1 Problem horizon and aim of the study

Friedrich Schleiermacher did much to make it legitimate in theology to speak of religious experience as a scientific subject.* Since then, the issue has not lost its

1 Paul Tillich, ‘Theology and Symbolism, in Religious Symbolism, ed. F. Ernest Johnson (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955), 108.

2 Cf. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (Lexington, KY: Renaissance Classics, 2012).

3 At the beginning of the study, the author decided not to speak of spiritual but of religious experiences (in the Christian system of meaning). This is because the focus of the study is on the form of religiosity that, although based on personal experiences, clearly shows an orientation towards a specific and institutionally anchored religious system of meaning (religion). In contrast to this are spiritual experiences, in their syncretic arbitrariness, “which do not seek their justification in the social, but in the subject itself. It denotes the increasing tendency of members of society to regard their own experiences of transcendence as the source, evidence and ‘goodness’ criterion of their own religion.” Hubert Knoblauch, ‘Die Soziologie der religiösen Erfahrung), in Religiöse Erfahrung, ed. Friedo Ricken, vol. 23, Münchener philosophische Studien (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2004), 78.

4 Grethlein on Schleiermacher: “Here, Herrnhut’s congregational ideal shimmers through, in which religious experiences, not hierarchical offices, were regarded as decisive.” Christian Greth-

8 Open Access. © 2023 bei den Autorinnen und Autoren, publiziert von De Gruyter. Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitung 4.0 International Lizenz. https:/doi.org/10.1515/9783110990461-002

4 —— 1 Introduction: religious experience as a practical theological challenge importance, but its position continues to grow, especially concerning questions of the relation of practical theology to the lifeworld. This is especially true because personal experiences have become the individual point of reference and orientation for interpreting the world and understanding oneself and God: “Instead of relying on tradition as before, one now relies on one’s own experience,”° Gerhard Ebeling put it provocatively.

Human existence cannot be understood - either in practice or in theory - without experience. Experience is one of the most central concepts of practical theological research, social science, and humanities theory formation.‘ Nevertheless, even today, and more than half a century after Hans-Georg Gadamer’s saying, the concept of experience is still one of the most unenlightened concepts in philosophy and theology.’

A theological sharpening of the terminology of experience on religious experience does not lead to a simplification of the discourse. Perhaps this explains the relatively small number of practical theological publications on the topic, which stands in contrast to the centrality of the terminology.

The complaint about the lack of experience in theology is not new and was already taken as an occasion for reflection in Protestant theology by Ebeling when he founded the Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Theologie.” He links the lack of experience in theology with the flood of experience in modern society: “The experience deficit — or in less fashionable terms: the lack of experience — means for theology a disease that can be fatal [...] Theology is not able to grasp the flood of experience in modernity, and through this contrast, its lack of experience becomes all the more noticeable. This threatens to destroy it.”®

Since Ebeling, the discourse has not become more straightforward but has further increased in complexity within the horizon of social changes such as individualization, pluralization, digitalization, and urbanization. Nevertheless, and all the more so, practical theology, which at the same time sees itself as a science of perlein, Christsein als Lebensform: Eine Studie zur Grundlegung der Praktischen Theologie (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018), 70.

5 Gerhard Ebeling, ‘Die Klage über das Erfahrungsdefizit in der Theologie als Frage nach ihrer Sache’, in Wort und Glaube. Band 3: Beitrage zur Fundamentaltheologie, Soteriologie und Ekklesiologie, vol. 3 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1975), 3.

6 Cf. Werner H. Ritter, ‘Erfahrung. Religiöse Erfahrung/Erleben/Gefühl/Deutung’, in Handbuch Praktische Theologie, ed. Wilhelm Grab and Birgit Weyel (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007), 52.

7 Cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 2nd ed. (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1965), 329. 8 Cf. ‘Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft Für Theologie’, accessed 26 February 2020, http:// wwwweth.de/index.php.

9 Ebeling, ‘Die Klage über das Erfahrungsdefizit in der Theologie als Frage nach ihrer Sache’, 3.

1.1 Problem horizon and aim of the study — 5 ception’ and orients towards the lifeworld,' is called upon to confront precisely this complexity of experienced and lived religion and theology.” This is in the knowledge that both hermeneutic and empirical approaches to the concept of religious experience, especially from a practical theological perspective, can only ever be fragmentary and incomplete and must be contextualized.’*

A current practical theological science theory must necessarily turn to these individual and contextual interpretations of people and integrate them into its theory formation.'* Experience as a life process and life as an experiential process cannot be separated.'” Instead, “[it] was and is necessary to model practical theological work balancing the ability to connect to theological theory-building and the reference to the concrete lifeworld.”*®

I pursued this balance in this study with a consistently inductive’’ and discursive approach, which attempts to do justice to individual religiosity’s processual dy-

10 Cf. Albrecht Grözinger, Es bröckelt an den Rändern: Kirche und Theologie in einer multikulturellen Gesellschaft (Munich: Kaiser, 1992), 51-52.

11 Cf. Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, ‘The Contributions of Practical Theology’, in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology, ed. Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley- Blackwell, 2013), 1-3; Cf. also: Thomas Klie et al., eds., Lebenswissenschaft Praktische Theologie?! (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2011).

12 E.g. Wilhelm Grab, Religion als Deutung des Lebens: Perspektiven einer Praktischen Theologie gelebter Religion (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006); Albrecht Grözinger and Georg Pfleiderer, eds., ‘Gelebte Religion’ als Programmbegriff Systematischer und Praktischer Theologie (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2002); Sabrina Müller, Lived Theology: Impulses for a Pastoral Theology of Empowerment (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021).

13 Representatives of liberation theologies, contextual theologies as well as feminist theologies have repeatedly referred to the contextuality of all theologies as well as to experience as primary sources of knowledge. E.g. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, trans. Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 1973); Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology, trans. John Drury (Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 1976); Robert J. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, Revised (Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 2007); Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 2002).

14 “A practical theology oriented towards the religious individual must develop the guiding concepts of religious identity, life history and biographical reference, orientation towards experience and religious development. Aspects of the sociology of religion are important here, because the individual is not to be considered in isolation, but in the context of his or her social and institutional location.” Kristian Fechtner et al., eds., Praktische Theologie: Ein Lehrbuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2017), 46.

15 Cf. Gerhard Ebeling, Wort und Glaube. Beitrage zur Fundamentaltheologie, Soteriologie und Ekklesiologie, vol. 3 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1975), 17.

16 Grethlein, Christsein als Lebensform, 10.

17 “Inductive analysis means that the patterns, themes, and categories of analysis come from the data; they emerge out of the data rather than being imposed on them prior to data collection and

6 —— 1 Introduction: religious experience as a practical theological challenge namics’ and liquidity.'” The reference literature raises awareness of the topic as an epistemological counterpart for discussion and a hermeneutic visual aid. However, it is not used in the sense of a specific guiding theoretical approach.

This study intends to contribute to a better understanding of every day, individual and social religious reality construction, religious imprints, and the emergence of religious identity. In addition, aspects of a narrative practical theology from below, i.e., from the theology-productive, late-modern subject, are outlined.

1.2 Research question and structure of the study

This interdisciplinary study is an inductive, empirical, contextual Western (Europe-

an and North American), and foundational exploratory contribution to practical

theological research. Theories are used as a net to capture the lived, experienced,

and narrated reality of the religious experience of young, urban people. Specifically, I empirically investigate how and why urban people perceive their

experiences as religious and how they categorize them and put them into language.

In addition, I ask inductive questions about transformation logics in religious proc-

esses, which can be mapped, for example, concerning self-perception and perception

of the world, identity or personal theologizing. Based on this, I reflect on theological implications and action-guiding impulses for practical theology.

A fourfold perspective determines the structure of the study. This follows the classical design of qualitative research in the paradigm of grounded theory:

1. In the first part of the study, I present and discuss theoretical foundations in terms of sensitizing concepts in chapters two and three. In chapter two, different understandings of religious experience are presented, especially concerning relevance for practical theology. In chapter three, I discuss social changes with particular attention to the discourse of urbanity. The aim is to raise awareness both for the topic of religious experience and for the changed living conditions of latemodern, urban people. In presenting different concepts of religious experience and social analysis, the focus is on the thematically releanalysis.” Michael Quinn Patton, Qualitative Evaluation Methods (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1980), 306.

18 Individual religion at the place of the subject is therefore to be understood and accompanied in practical theological terms fundamentally as a dynamic process. Cf. Martina Kumlehn, ‘Religion und Individuum), in Praktische Theologie: Ein Lehrbuch, ed. Kristian Fechtner et al. (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2017), 54.

19 This way of working is typical for qualitative, explorative work in the style of Grounded Theory, but also for practical theological research in the Anglo-Saxon context.

1.3 Personal interest and self-reflexivity — 7 vant, hermeneutic discourse contexts. Through the hermeneutic foundation of contemporary historical and academic lines of development, I open the possibilities of perception and interpretation of religious experience in the context of urban people.

2. Inthe second part, in the sense of a methodological interlude, chapter four discusses the significance of qualitative social research — here especially grounded theory - for practical theology and describes the methodology of this study in detail.

3. In the third part of the study, I present the results from the qualitative data analysis in detail. This is done first in chapter five through individual case presentations, which focus on the content of religious experiences. I present the findings across cases and groups in chapters six and seven: chapter six focuses on fundamental observations, and chapter seven focuses on the processual aspects of religious experiences.

4. Against this empirical background, in the fourth and final part of the study, I discuss and classify the inductively elaborated theories theologically Specifically, in chapter eight, the results are discussed theologically within the horizon of the initial questions. In chapter nine, the resulting conception of the experience of Christian perspectives of hope is made fruitful for practical theology, especially within the horizon of lived theology

1.3 Personal interest and self-reflexivity

During the ten years that I worked as a youth worker and the six years that I worked as a pastor, religious experiences were often a topic: in pastoral counselling, at team meetings, in confirmation classes, but also at church festivals and in church services. Light broke into a problematic divorce situation, self-doubt became self-confidence, a bulimic dared to take the step into therapy, religious demarcation became friendship across borders, and laypeople dared to talk about their individual faith experiences in the service, to name just a few observations. As a pastor and youth worker, I was - and still am as a theologian - a listener and witness to many stories about religiously interpreted experiences and the resulting, often every day, transformation processes.

Such observations were the initial point for this study as well as the astonished (co-)experience of how a religiously connoted experience changes people, redirects life trajectories and releases intrinsic transformation potential. However, I did not remain with this wondering listening, but these observations became

8 —— 1 Introduction: religious experience as a practical theological challenge the basis for the practical theological investigation presented here.” Therefore, the research object and the research question have a lot to do with me as a researcher and theologian. They are based on the fact that I have allowed myself to be affected by these stories and thus also by the people and their existential experiences. A deep interest in these multifaceted experiences has grown out of this.”*

The works of the systematic theologian Paul Tillich have repeatedly been a visual aid and a dialogical counterpart for me in the research process, especially where it concerns the core task of theologians, who must allow themselves to be affected to approach their object of research: “The theologian, quite differently, is not detached from his object but is involved in it. He looks at his object (which transcends the character of being an object) with passion, fear, and love. This is not the eros of the philosopher or his passion for objective truth; it is the love which accepts saving and, therefore, personal truth. The basic attitude of the theologian is the commitment to the content he expounds. Detachment would be a denial of the very nature of this content. The attitude of the theologian is ’existential’. He is involved — with the whole of his existence, with his finitude and his anxiety, with his self-contradictions and his despair, with the healing forces in him and his social situations [...] The theologian, in short, is determined by his faith.”??.?

The awareness of the interrelatedness of personal religious existence and academic theological work, especially concerning theological preference and difference, does not hinder the necessary self-reflexivity but promotes it.”*

20 Cf. Hans-Günter Heimbrock and Astrid Dinter, ‘Erträge für praktisches Handeln (in) der Kirche’, in Einführung in die Empirische Theologie: Gelebte Religion erforschen, eds. Astrid Dinter, Hans-Günter Heimbrock, and Kerstin Söderblom (Göttingen: UTB, 2007), 119.

21 One challenge in particular should be highlighted: as a researcher, I can only ever tell and interpret — especially when it comes to experiences that cannot be observed — how a narrative told to me is interpreted in relation to the narrative itself, the life process, and transformation processes. 22 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology Volume 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 22f.

23 In contrast to religious studies, which consciously seeks to deal with the external perspective of Christian faith, theology works just as consciously with the internal perspective. “Both are to be distinguished, but related to each other, in many ways even dependent on each other.” Wilfried Härle, Dogmatik, 3rd ed. (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2007), 10. Both theology and religious studies know numerous different foreign and self-determinations. In this respect, the respective reference to each other must be determined contextually and a juxtaposition, in a classical dualistic sense, is always a gross simplification.

24 Konrad Schmid, ‘Wissenschaftliche Theologie und Pfarrerbildung. Einführende Worte aus der Perspektive der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft fiir Theologie (WGTh)’, in Pfarrer oder Pfarrerin werden und sein. Herausforderungen fiir Beruf und theologische Bildung in Studium, Vikariat und Fortbildung. ed. Bernd Schröder (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2020), 35-36. “The first danger is our self-banalisation: if we do not fully face up to the critical questions that we ourselves and

1.3 Personal interest and self-reflexivity — 9

Theological-hermeneutical reflections are shaped by the theological reference just described, but also by the personal social location of the researcher: “social location, [...] the researcher’s position in the academic field, [...] and the intellectualist bias””°; that is, biography, gender, age, skin colour, academic position, and the reference to practice, among other things, shape the reflections and program of the researcher.”°

My perspective, in addition to many years of ecumenical practical church experience in Switzerland and abroad, is determined by the fact that Igrew up in Switzerland as a white woman - in the traditional middle class without an academic background - and that I lived in the USA for more than two years and did research in England for a more extended period. I am mainly influenced by German-language practical theology. Still, through my various research experiences abroad and my interest in Anglo-Saxon and ecumenical theological perspectives, these aspects also flow into my theological reflections.”’

Through my many years of practical experience, I am also convinced that practical theology cannot be armchair research’? but must actively enter the field to inductively get to know the various facets of the reality of people’s lives and the object of study. Connected to this is also the goal that the theoretical discourse flows back into practice to support life-promoting developments in individual others have of Christianity, we will hardly have a flourishing future ahead of us. The second danger is the creeping docetism in the church and in theology: our talking about God cannot hover quasidocetically over what we have to say critically on the subject, as if this had nothing at all to do with our faith.”

25 Jaco Dreyer, ‘Knowledge, Subjectivity, (De)Coloniality, and the Conundrum of Reflexivity’, in Conundrums in Practical Theology, eds. Joyce Ann Mercer and Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, vol. 2, Theology in Practice (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 99.

26 Cf. Joey Sprague, Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers: Bridging Differences, 2nd ed. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2016), 3-4.

27 During my time as a visiting researcher at Claremont School of Theology (CST) in the USA, I noticed big differences between Anglo-Saxon and German-speaking academic environments, especially in dealing with the relationship between theory and practice and the theme of experience. In German-speaking academic-theological circles, there is hardly any talk about religious experience and what intrinsically drives theologians. In Anglo-Saxon academic circles, personal experiences and faith convictions are reported more freely, without this casting doubt on a person’s academic competences and self-reflexivity.

28 The term armchair research comes from ethnology and goes back to Bronislaw Malinowski. Malinowski argued that other peoples cannot be studied from the university library, but that one must go into the field and live with the people and become part of their community. Cf. e.g. Efram Sera-Shriar, ‘What Is Armchair Anthropology? Observational Practices in 19th-Century British Human Sciences’, History of the Human Sciences 27, no. 2 (2013): 26-40.

10 —— 1 Introduction: religious experience as a practical theological challenge lives, church, and society.” It is undisputed that my social and theological location also helped determine the research design.

For methodological reasons, the open naming of such backgrounds is desirable because the explanation of personal imprints and biases leads to normativity being set less unconsciously. Thus, credibility can be increased, especially in qualitative research.®° The synopsis of subjectivity and reflexivity is seen as a strength in qualitative research, as it increases the self-reflexivity in a study and can counteract normative ideologies.**

29 The understanding of practical theology on which this study is based fits into the classic theory-practice circle of German-language practical theology: “as a way of thinking and a discipline, practical theology is the reflection of the theory-practice relationship in the field of tension between theological science and lived Christian religion.” Volker Drehsen, ‘Praktische Theologie’, in Handbuch Praktische Theologie, eds. Wilhelm Grab and Birgit Weyel (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007), 174; Equally, however, many references go beyond the German-speaking context, which leads to the fact that a pragmatic Anglo-Saxon understanding, which is to be located close to practice, also determines the investigation. The circle here is as follows: ‘practice-theory-practice’. Cf. Don Browning, Fundamental Practical Theology: Descriptive and Strategic Proposals (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 5-7.