This collection of fifteen essays honors James Fowler, the best-known voice on faith development. Each essay explores faith development theory with a particular interest in extending Fowler's most original idea: the way that faith at different stages can be public--shared outside the particular congregation. Fowler's broad and encompassing attention to the four mutually influential tasks of practical theology has mirrored new understandings of the field of the last few decades. These four tasks are echoed in the four main parts of this book: the descriptive-empirical (What is going on?), the interpretive (Why is this going on?), the normative, (What forms ought religious praxis take in this particular social context?), and the pragmatic (How might this area of praxis be shaped to more fully embody the normative commitments of a religious tradition in this particular context of experience?)
