Promoting a New Yes to Life: Religious Education Amidst the Decline in Religious Affiliation

Описание: Presenter: Tom Beaudoin, professor of religion, Fordham University
October 7, 2021

SIXTH ANNUAL STM RELIGIOUS EDUCATION LECTURE
Promoting a New Yes to Life: Religious Education Amidst the Decline in Religious Affiliation

Catholicism and other religious traditions in the USA are struggling with a decline in religious affiliation, especially among younger generations. In this lecture, Dr. Tom Beaudoin explores the implications of affiliational diversity and non-normative religious identity for Catholic religious education in the context of widespread disaffiliation from institutional religion, particularly among younger generations. Drawing on empirical data, ethnographic insight, and theological reflection, Beaudoin critiques the normative emphasis on high affiliation and proposes a pedagogical shift toward spiritual agency, non-directive religious education, and contextualized faith formation. Using the Pantheon in Rome as a metaphor for a capacious and historically layered ecclesial identity, he advocates for educational practices that acknowledge grief, promote intergenerational reconciliation, and engage the lived religious complexity of students and families. The lecture calls for educators to reimagine success not as institutional retention but as accompaniment in meaning-making across diverse spiritual trajectories.

About Prof. Beaudoin's ongoing research on the Pantheon: https://news.fordham.edu/arts-and-cul...

Also check out his edited volume: Secular Music, Sacred Theology
https://litpress.org/Products/8024/Se...

Learn more in a CSTM: Crossroads online course on religious education https://bit.ly/4casZdP

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