The study of lived religion is an enterprise which attempts to elucidate how "ordinary" men and women in all times and places draw on religious behavior, media, and meanings to make sense of themselves and their world. Through the influence of liberation theology and postmodernism, pastoral theologians like other scholars of religion have begun more closely to examine the particularity of religious practice that is reflected through the rubric of lived religion. Pastoral Bearings offers up ten studies that exemplify the usefulness of the lived religion paradigm to the field of pastoral theology. The volume presents detailed qualitative research focused on the everyday beliefs and practices of individuals and groups and explores the implications of lived religion for interdisciplinary conversation, intercultural and gender analysis, and congregational studies. Reflecting upon the utility of this approach for pastoral theological research, education, and pastoral care, the studies collected in Pastoral Bearings demonstrate the importance of the study of lived religion.

In this book, established scholars from different religions, regions, and disciplines continue the dialogue that Veli-Matti Karkkainen began in his A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World series and respond to his work in light of their diverse expertise and context. Each of the three parts focuses on a key area of Karkkainen's engaging work: 1) highlighting how his method shaped each volume, 2) highlighting his commitment to global perspectives, and 3) highlighting his interreligious and interdisciplinary dialogue partners. Together, these essays seek to deepen and extend the impact of Karkkainen's work, taking it seriously as a substantive model for contemporary systematic theology in listening and engaging with this world.

The study of lived religion is an enterprise which attempts to elucidate how 'ordinary' men and women in all times and places draw on religious behavior, media, and meanings to make sense of themselves and their world. Through the influence of liberation theology and postmodernism, pastoral theologians_like other scholars of religion_have begun more closely to examine the particularity of religious practice that is reflected through the rubric of lived religion. Pastoral Bearings offers up ten studies that exemplify the usefulness of the lived religion paradigm to the field of pastoral theology. The volume presents detailed qualitative research focused on the everyday beliefs and practices of individuals and groups and explores the implications of lived religion for interdisciplinary conversation, intercultural and gender analysis, and congregational studies. Reflecting upon the utility of this approach for pastoral theological research, education, and pastoral care, the studies collected in Pastoral Bearings demonstrate the importance of the study of lived religion.

In Ghana today, many people who suffer from a variety of human ills wander from one pastor to another in search of a spiritual cure. Because of the way cultural beliefs about the spiritual world have interwoven with their Christian faith, many Ghanaian Christians live in bondage to their fears of evil spiritual powers, seeing Jesus as a superior power to use against these malevolent spiritual forces. In For Freedom or Bondage? Esther Acolatse argues that Christian pastoral practices in many African churches include too much influence from African traditional religions. She examines Ghana Independent Charismatic churches as a case study, offering theological and psychological analysis of current pastoral care practices through the lenses of Barth and Jung. Facilitating a three-strand conversation between African traditional religion, Barthian theology, and Jungian analytical psychology, Acolatse interrogates problematic cultural narratives and offers a more nuanced approach to pastoral care

Among the many factors that separate churches in the West from those of the global South-worship styles, approaches to Scripture, demographic trends of growth or decline-there may be no greater difference than their respective attitudes toward super-natural "powers and principalities." In this groundbreaking follow-up to her book For Freedom or Bondage? African theologian Esther Acolatse attempts to bridge this enormous hermeneutical gap-one that exists not only between the West and global Christianity but also between the West and its own biblical-theological heritage. Interacting with the work of Kwesi Dickson, Rudolph Bultmann, Walter Wink, Karl Barth, and others, Acolatse facilitates an intercultural, contextualized approach to hermeneutics that is at once global, creedal, and faithful to the biblical witness.