Peter van Olst

274 Chapter 8 and where the voice of operant theology appeared during other meetings of the conversational community. According to the minutes of meeting 2, wisdom is an important part of the intended basic attitude. It entails knowing the time and place to put forward one’s own opinion—after having been able to listen to the voices of the students. Only knowing the time and place, students can relax, which is another element of the ‘basic attitude’ code family. Multi-ethnic Christian education is an example of how the Christian identity can peacefully coexist with other convictions, provided differences are handled well and respect, openness and singularity are really seen as part of the Christian worldview and motivation (meeting 3). Teachers at this kind of school can be role models for Christian trainee teachers, just like they have to be role models for Christian children in a pluriform society (meetings 4 and 7). As a role model or identification figure, it is necessary for students to learn to be vulnerable and to give space to a double-sided pedagogical relation in which the teacher can also learn from the student (meeting 8). From meeting 9, it became clear that the latter can also be said of the relation between experienced teachers and students engaged in teacher training—that is, new and starting teachers could, for some time work, in a master–apprentice relation. According to the same minutes, attentive commitment and authenticity are elements that belong to the basic attitude formation, similar to maintaining the balance between activity and patience, because the formational process needs both time and rest. 8.2.4 The voice of espoused theology While Section 8.2.2 provided some insights that can be associated with espoused theology, on the co-occurrence of ‘basic attitude’ and ‘espoused theology’ there is more to be said. The two codes co-occur thirty-seven times: in the second, fifth, ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th and 15th meetings. The cooccurrences that belong to the minutes and transcripts of the 11th and 15th meetings will be considered in this sub-section because they formed an integral part of the discussions that originated from the input of formal theology and were included in the analysis presented in Section 8.2.2. This sub-section summarises how the other co-occurrences demonstrate a close connection between the voice of espoused theology, as heard in the conversational community on basic attitude (formation), and the core of Christianity, as described at the end of 8.2.1 as a Christocentric element. The following part of this sub-section elaborates on that topic by focussing on the code word ‘mission’ to clarify how the conversational community approached this topic. It then focuses on ‘WCD’ as a separate code to indicate the extent to which these approaches cohere.

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