156 Chapter 4 To include practice fully in the study of theology, ‘researchers employing TAR consider all the material—written and unwritten, textual and practical—as (potentially) “theology”, as “faith seeking understanding”’ (Cameron et al., 2010, p. 54). This approach is based not only on the epistemology that includes the knowledge of practitioners that goes with action research but also on a spiritual understanding of God’s revelation in the world and through human cultures. TAR takes the practices of ‘faithful Christian people’ seriously because they are ‘themselves already the bearers of theology; they express the contemporary living tradition of the Christian faith’ (Cameron et al., 2010, p. 54). Consequently, ‘contemporary practice’ is considered ‘a part of the ongoing dynamic of God’s revealing life’ (Cameron et al., 2010, p. 55). The aspect of contemporaneity can become so important that practices may, at times, be even more reliable than what practitioners say about them (Cameron et al., 2010): As practices of faith the practical actions of Christian groups being researched and reflected on are generally always and already consciously aligned to an articulated theology. This is the ‘espoused’ theology of a group. It may well be that the espoused theology of practitioners is less well developed than their actual practice; or that the relation between it and the actions carried out is not always clear or coherent. Discovering such tensions is part of the task for TAR work. (p. 56) For this reason, it can be supposed that TAR will be especially helpful when investigating the consequences of the fragmentation of society for (traditional) Christian education and, more specifically, its broad personhood and citizenship formation. As explained in the introduction to this dissertation and in Chapter 1, MacIntyre (2007) introduced the term when discussing morality based on the larger classical and Jewish Christian tradition. His argument that, after the Enlightenment and due to the influences of rapid cultural change, only fragments of the old sense-giving systems of morality and values remain evoked the idea that elements of theological systems and convictions in an ongoing process of secularisation may possibly remain stronger in actions and habits than in coherent thinking and understanding. While the same might well have happened to practitioners in Christian education during times of rapid cultural change, including at DCU as a Reformed Christian, faith-based teacher training institute in a rapidly changing social and cultural environment, TAR seems to be the appropriate methodological choice for this reason.
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