263 Basic Attitude and the Art of Living Together 8 The reason for this clear outlier is that the conversational community, in its 11th meeting, discussed the four basic attitudes that British theologian Samuel Wells (2015) distinguished for a Christian presence in a public society: ‘working for’, ‘working with’, ‘being with’ and ‘being for’ others who need attention. In so doing, the conversational community delved into the issue of what formal theology could add to their ideas about the basic attitude to strive for in teacher training for a modern, fragmented society. As in Wells’ (2015) book A Nazareth Manifesto, which focuses on Jesus’ lifelong presence on Earth, formal theology emerged from the normative. The 11th meeting started with a meditation on the Good Samaritan, taken from Wells’ (2015) book and leading to a broad discussion on how the presence of Christian teachers in a modern, fragmented society should be theologically informed. In later meetings (14, 15 and 16), the conversational community broadened the scope, adding insights from Christian pedagogy and studying a pedagogy of longing, as reflected in the analysis of the code word ‘longing’. For these reasons, the closer analysis of each of the four voices presented in this chapter will start with the voice of normative theology (8.2.1) and then proceed with formal theology (8.2.2). Next, attention will be paid to operant theology (8.2.3) and then to espoused theology (8.2.4), as the latter seems to emerge from operant theology, especially in relation to the topic of basic attitude. The treatment of operant and espoused theology will, however, be relatively short here due to the conceptual level at which the conversational community approached the topic of basic attitude formation. 8.2.1 The voice of normative theology Of all the starting devotions during the meetings, five were directly related to the code ‘basic attitude’. Two of the selected Bible passages (2) for these devotions came from the Old Testament, while three came from the New Testament. From the Old Testament, Jeremiah 29 was read in the fifth meeting. It pertains to the start of the prophet’s letter to the captives in Babylon, applying the shalom idea that the Jews knew only with regard to Jerusalem to the dominant and even hostile kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. ‘In the letter, Jeremiah calls on the exiles not to resist, not to escape, nor to turn away from society’, explained an insider group member. ‘He calls on them to pray for the peace of Babylon and to seek the peace and wellbeing (shalom) of the city’. The basic attitude that Christians need to adopt in a modern, fragmented 2 As on all occasions, the participants were free to choose a Bible passage, with the only indication being to look for something that they—personally—combined with the central theme(s) of the research (see Chapters 4.2 and 4.3).
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