This article advocates a pedagogy of Religious Education (RE) based upon a narratival framework informed by both narrative theology and narrative philosophy. Drawing on the work of narrative theologians including Stanley Hauerwas, the article outlines the nature of the framework, describes the four phases of learning that comprise the pedagogy, and explains how such an approach can overcome existing difficulties in how biblical texts are handled within RE. Working from the narrative assumption that individuals and communities are formed by reading, sharing and living within stories, it suggests that the pedagogy might encourage pupils to think about how the lives of Christians are shaped by their interpretations of biblical narratives, to offer their own interpretations of biblical and other texts, and to consider the stories -religious, non-religious or both -which shape their own lives. In so doing, the article moves away from a 'proof-texting' approach to the Bible towards one in which pupils are enabled to think about the significance of biblical narratives for both Christians and themselves.
The recognition that female embodiment and feminine experience are legitimate and specific sites of the revelation of God's love has been one of the most significant developments in theology in the last hundred years. However, an over-emphasis on feminine experience as supervening on female embodiment risks erasing unusual sex-gender body-stories and perpetuating the idea that only some bodies can mediate the divine. Feminist Theology's future must involve a reexamination and re-negotiation of what it is to be feminist theologians without fixed gender essences. Does Feminist Theology have space to hear from and nurture the voices of those whose gender experiences (especially as transgender, 'third' or otherwise) challenge a binary, either-or model? Can Feminist Theology, in contrast to much secular feminist theory, give space at the table to those whose sex-gender life stories undermine the notion that there is such a thing as a common or biologically-contingent feminine experience in the first place?
Intersex conditions might be more usefully explored in light of theologies from impairment rather than those from sexuality. The areas of concurrence between intersex conditions and disability feed into theologies which fully respect and take into account such bodily states. Hegemonies of `goodness' and `normality' which lead to the marginalization of intersexed and impaired bodies are grounded in theological beliefs which fail adequately to `queer' oppressive socio-cultural discourses. The disability theology of John M. Hull is used to argue that the `ideologies of dominance' which assume the `sighted world' to be the only `real world' are also evident in assumptions that the binary-sexed world is the only real world; and that it is appropriate for theologians to query and subvert such assumptions. Kenotic behaviour in the realm of gender identity might involve the ceding of sexed signification by those who are not intersexed, rather than the assimilation or unchosen `correction' of those who are.
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