Loss, resilience and hope A religious education perspective in late-modern ­society of loss

Abstract

Building on Andreas Reckwitz’s diagnosis of a late-modern society of loss, this article explores the implications of structural experiences of loss for religious ­education within the framework of resilience and hope. Theologically, resilience is understood not as an individual act of adaptation, but as a relational practice in which faith, hope, and love function as transformative resources for orientation. Hope appears as a practice opened up by God, culturally mediated, and socially practiced—as doing hope—which can be developed as a learnable competence in religious education. Finally, critical questions are posed to Reckwitz that challenge his framework regarding Eurocentric assumptions and the marginalization of religious interpretive potentials.