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Document Details : Title: Kontexte heutiger Familienpastoral in einer Welt ungezählter Optionen Subtitle: Pastoraltheologische Reflexionen angesichts aktueller kirchlicher Spannungsfelder Author(s): LOFFELD, Jan Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality Volume: 27 Issue: 2 Date: 2021 Pages: 271-286 DOI: 10.2143/INT.27.2.3289978 Abstract : In addition to the loud conflicts and polemics in the church, such as those surrounding the treatment of families or sexual morality, which seem to be increasingly harsh and have parallels in various cultural concerns, other questions have existed for a long time for people working part-time or full-time in pastoral ministry. Why, for example, is it so hard to instill in people the church’s theology when so much effort is put into catechesis and ministry? This article analyzes these issues and shows, with the help of Charles Taylor’s approach to the history of ideas, that they are in the end based on different concepts of secularization. Current data from empirical studies in the sociology of religion are cited to support the thesis. For this reason, the author argues, pastoral outreach to families today can only be approached as one proposal among many options, geared to the individualism that characterizes our consumerist culture. It should recognize, with William James, that theistic religion is often a 'weak option'. The witness of the Christian way of life, where the Gospel is chosen as a 'strong option', is thus much more important, along with what this can mean in both its successes and its failures. |
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