Renewing interiority in religious education considering subjectivity and intersubjective experience

Tendencies in popular thinking and emphases in modern religious education have led to the suppression or neglect of interiority. This has occurred in theory that represents formulations based on an existing conceptual framework, or out of a concern to present conceptualizations that can be scientifically validated. The models of Ellis Nelson and James Fowler are critiqued on these bases. An alternative approach to religious education is based on experience of the concrete world, and that accepts subjectivity in the reflection upon experience. It is concerned with personal meanings. These issues are the concern of Chapter 1. The approach to interiority through personal meanings is based on the work of Ross Snyder. This theme has been his concern over an extended period, and he has considered it in relation to children, youth and adults.;Meanings are related to value and, ultimately, to God. The non-theist positions of some existentialist and phenomenological thinkers is rejected. An epistemology based on the thought of Gabriel Marcel advances the discussion of meanings and God. This also provides a starting point for a consideration of the ethics of meanings. These issues comprise the content of Chapter 4.;Ross Snyder's Meaning Formation Workshop is described in Chapter 5. It is concerned with the uncovering and enhancement of meanings for adults. An analysis of this workshop includes an overview of his sources, and an evaluation by persons who have participated in it. The final chapter adapts Snyder's workshop to a practice of interiority that develops personal meanings and places them in dialogue with Biblical texts for their further enhancement. Finally, a style of thinking is encouraged that maintains interiority and resists the tendencies to suppress it.;In order to describe the emergence of personal meanings the thinking of existentialism and phenomenology is utilized. This description employs themes from Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, Marcel, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty. The manner of the individual's insertion into the world, the mind-body relationship, and intersubjectivity in relation to meanings are presented in Chapters 2 and 3.