Equipping Parents for Youth Faith Formation in the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis
This project is a two-stage collaboration between researchers at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture and the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis. In the first stage, Center researchers will interview over 100 Episcopal parents about their experiences, practices, aspirations, and challenges regarding parenting and faith. In the second stage, based on findings from the interviews, the diocese will develop resources to support parents as they work to equip their children for their own spiritual journeys and lives of faith.
Project Team
Brian Steensland
Brian Steensland is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Sociology & Anthropology department at Indiana University-Indianapolis. His areas of interest include religion, culture, politics, and civic life in contemporary American society. Among his books and articles, he’s published Situating Spirituality: Context, Practice, and Power (Oxford, 2022), co-edited with Jaime Kucinskas and Anna Sun; The New Evangelical Social Engagement (Oxford, 2014), co-edited with Philip Goff; and The Failed Welfare Revolution: America’s Struggle over Guaranteed Income Policy (Princeton, 2008). Steensland’s current research focuses on contemporary spirituality, religious commitment, and religious pluralism. (For additional information, see briansteensland.com.)
Ellie Ash
Ellie Ash is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Religious Parenting in the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis project. Her research focuses on lived religion in the United States, especially Judaism, and she is particularly interested in religious and cultural liberalism, religious authority, and how culture works. At RAAC, she is enjoying the opportunity to learn more about mainline Christianity directly from practitioners and to think deeply about religious transmission, pluralism, and choice. She is also working on a book, titled Halakhic Humanism: Authority and Culture in a Liberal Observant Jewish Community, which explores how practitioners draw on different sources of authority and cultural influence as they bring together traditional Jewish ritual law and socially liberal values. Ellie earned her master’s degree in Social Science from the University of Chicago and her PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University.
Meghan Bowen
Meghan Bowen is a PhD (Theology) candidate at Regis College (Toronto, ON). Her research seeks to reconsider St. Augustine’s theology of marriage within his socio-historical context as a means of advancing current theological discussions of marriage and of sexual ethics. Along with an MA Theology, Bowen also holds an MA Ethnomusicology. Beyond her academic work, Bowen is involved in music and liturgy, and has offered workshops on moral formation and the Christian life. Bowen is currently working as a research associate with the Religious Parenting in the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis project.
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