Ecclesial Practices Unit at the AAR Boston 2025

Ecclesial Practices provides a collaborative space at the intersection of ethnographic and other qualitative approaches and theological approaches to the study of ecclesial practices. This might include churches, other (new, emerging, para-church, and virtual) communities, and lived faith in daily life. International in scope, the unit encourages research contributing to a deeper understanding of “church in practice” in a global context, including decolonization and postcolonial theologies. The unit encourages ongoing research in the following areas:

• Empirical and theological approaches to the study of ecclesial communities (churches, congregations, and emerging communities), especially as interdisciplinary efforts to understand lived faith and practice extending from them
• Studies of specific ecclesial activities, e.g. music, liturgy, arts, social justice, youth work, preaching, pastoral care, rites of passage, community organizing
• Studies of global contexts of lived faith in relation to ecclesial communities, for example, decolonizing and postcolonial theory and theology
• Discussions of congregational growth and decline, new church movements, and ecclesial experiments connected to shared practices in a worldly church
• Explorations of Christian doctrine in relation to the potential implications of empirical and qualitative research on ecclesial communities and lived faith for discerning, defining, and challenging standard theological genres such as systematics and doctrine, as well as inviting new ways to understand normative logics
• Discussions of methodological issues with regard to qualitative research on theological topics, especially related to ecclesial communities and lived faith
• Discussions (both substantive and methodological) of the implications of new technologies and digital cultures for ecclesial communities and lived faith

Sessions (all times are tentative, please check the AAR website)

A22-148/P22-107

Theme: Teaching and the Futures of Freedom [click for more information]
Sarah Farmer, presiding
Saturday, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Westin Copley Place, Great Republic (Seventh Floor)

A22-416

Theme: La Herida Abierta and Freedom: Trauma, Memory and Crossing Boundaries [click for more information]
Patricia Bonilla, presiding
Saturday, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Sheraton, The Fens (Fifth Floor)

A23-212

Theme: Transgressive Freedoms in the (Un)Making of Church [click for more information]
Easten Law, presiding
Sunday, 12:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Sheraton, Stuart (Third Floor)

About the AAR

The American Academy of Religion brings thousands of professors and students, authors and publishers, religious leaders and interested laypersons to its Annual Meeting each year. Co-hosted with the Society of Biblical Literature, the Annual Meetings are the largest events of the year in the fields of religious studies and theology.