The Ambiguity of (Religious) Practice, Part 4 of 4

Part one is here, part two is here, and part three is here.
So I have been laying out (loosely) some elements of thinking about the ambiguity of (religious) practice especially in view of teaching such ambiguity. How do I treat this in the classroom? In the syllabus for my foundations course in practical theology, I make a point of having a specific lesson about it. I used to place it at the end of the course, because I thought we had to built up a rich multi-layered approach to practice as a positive phenomenon before I could “take that away” or seriously complexify it. It was about what my students are ready for and on what sort of learning timeline. However, what I found over the years was that it was too much to place it there because at the end of the term, it’s hard to maintain fresh thinking especially for such a new idea that goes against the grain of how practice in theology is typically taught. We’re all often just too tired from a (hopefully) lively 15 weeks, and more in a mood to synthesize the semester rather than to radically re-think. Also, the impending end of the term lets the depth of the matter be put to the side in a way, and then there is not really time to let it sink in and process it in relation to further material. So I started moving it more to midway in the course. That works better, because by then we usually have momentum about the theological significance of practice, they have some history and conceptual diversity in mind, and they are better able to factor the ambiguity of (religious) practice into their thought and life. And with much of the semester yet to go, we can revisit the “positive/negative” frame over the rest of the term as occasions warrant. A third option I have tried is to drop it altogether as a specific lesson and just teach it across the semester as occasioned by the readings. (One can, after all, discover the ambiguity of practice almost anywhere.)
I also want to teach this “ambiguity” in a sufficient layered way, so I introduce two types of ambiguity: practices as destructive, and practices as not singularly religious. For the first type, they read something about the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. For example, I sometimes assign Kathryn Lofton’s essay “Sex Abuse and the Study of Religion” to start. Lofton (Yale University) argues for thinking of Catholic sex abuse along the lines of a (deeply damaged and damaging) Catholic practice.
For the second type of ambiguity, I sometimes assign Michelle Gonzalez’ chapter “If It Is Not Catholic, Is It Still Popular Religion? Evil Eye, Espiritismo, and Santeria: Latino/a Religion Within Latino/a Theology” (in Isasi-Diaz and Mendieta (eds.), Decolonizing Epistemologies (Fordham Univ Press, 2012)). Gonzalez (University of Miami) argues that Catholicism in Guatemala is not easily distinguishable from and indeed is strongly striated by local traditions such as Santeria, Espiritismo, and Evil Eye–and that this is too “is” Catholicism, however underacknowledged in Latino/a theology. She discusses several practices in particular that show the rich complexity that is experienced by local Catholics as fitting and sensible. We then use this example to reflect back critically and creatively on the students’ own local religious practices as potentially “multireligious”.
There’s a great deal more to say, of course, but not for what needs to be a reasonable blog post. I’m interested to hear from others in practical theology about how these and related matters are addressed in your own teaching/learning.
Tom Beaudoin, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York