Download or read book Public Theology Religious Diversity and Interreligious Learning written by Manfred L. Pirner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-14 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the relationship of Christian Public Theology to other religions and their ways of contributing to the common good. It also promotes mutual learning processes in public education to strengthen the public role and responsibility of religions in pluralistic societies. This volume brings together not only public education and public theology, but also scholars from a variety of disciplines such as philosophy, cultural studies, and sociology, and from different parts of the world. By doing so, the book intends to widen the horizon and provide fresh impulses for public theology as well as the discourse on public religious education.
Download or read book Circling the Elephant written by John J. Thatamanil and published by Fordham University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian theologians have for some decades affirmed that they have no monopoly on encounters with God or ultimate reality and that other religions also have access to religious truth and transformation. If that is the case, the time has come for Christians not only to learn about but also from their religious neighbors. Circling the Elephant affirms that the best way to be truly open to the mystery of the infinite is to move away from defensive postures of religious isolationism and self-sufficiency and to move, in vulnerability and openness, toward the mystery of the neighbor. Employing the ancient Indian allegory of the elephant and blind(folded) men, John J. Thatamanil argues for the integration of three often-separated theological projects: theologies of religious diversity (the work of accounting for why there are so many different understandings of the elephant), comparative theology (the venture of walking over to a different side of the elephant), and constructive theology (the endeavor of re-describing the elephant in light of the other two tasks). Circling the Elephant also offers an analysis of why we have fallen short in the past. Interreligious learning has been obstructed by problematic ideas about “religion” and “religions,” Thatamanil argues, while also pointing out the troubling resonances between reified notions of “religion” and “race.” He contests these notions and offers a new theory of the religious that makes interreligious learning both possible and desirable. Christians have much to learn from their religious neighbors, even about such central features of Christian theology as Christ and the Trinity. This book envisions religious diversity as a promise, not a problem, and proposes a new theology of religious diversity that opens the door to robust interreligious learning and Christian transformation through encountering the other.
Download or read book Public Theology Perspectives on Religion and Education written by Manfred L. Pirner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-23 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to draw out the relationship between publicly-oriented Christianity and education, this book demonstrates that education is an important method and prerequisite of public theology, as well as an urgent object of public theology research’s attention. Featuring work from diverse academic disciplines—including religion education, theology, philosophy, and religious studies—this edited collection also contends with the educational challenges that come with the decline of religion on the one hand and its transformation and regained public relevance on the other. Taken together, the contributions to this volume provide a comprehensive argument for why education deserves systematic attention in the context of public theology discourse, and vice versa.
Download or read book Faith Diversity and Education written by Allison Blosser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-12 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how conservative Christian schools are shaping education in America and in turn, students’ attitudes about diversity. Based on data collected as part of a year-long, ethnographic study of a K-12 conservative, Christian school in the South, this volume analyzes the way that diversity was thought about and acted upon in a school, and how these decisions affected students and teachers across racial differences. The book demonstrates that conservative Christian theology defined a school’s diversity efforts. It also reveals the complexity of addressing diversity in a context that is largely wary of it, at least in its typical secular usage. The findings presented in the book raise important questions about school vouchers, the influence of religious beliefs on educators’ decision-making in schools, the morality and existence of Christian schools, and diversity initiatives in white spaces. Faith, Diversity, and Education: An Ethnography of a Conservative Christian School will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of education, sociology and religion.
Download or read book Religious Diversity at School written by Ednan Aslan and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-11 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume features chapters by international experts in education, sociology, and theology who consider a range of challenges faced by educators in primary and secondary schools that are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of the ethnic and religious backgrounds of pupils. From the non-religious, to the refugee, to student fundamentalism and even radicalization—these multiple, fresh approaches analyze the dynamics of the changing pedagogical landscape in an age of ever increasing globalization and cultural plurality. Today’s classrooms are often the most crucial spaces where children and adolescents encounter new cultural, religious, and other worldviews. Increasingly, teachers are called on to empower their pupils with the tools and competencies necessary to reflect on and process this plurality in ways that are productive for their intellectual growth and moral maturation. Regional case studies provide extensive data while offering insights into developments in school settings across Europe, in Turkey, and in the United States. In addition, a number of the contributions address the delivery, content, and policies of Islamic Religious Education in European contexts, the educational strategies employed in multi-religious societies, and interreligious dialogue in schools, whether intentional or spontaneous.
Download or read book Interreligious Learning written by Didier Pollefeyt and published by Peeters. This book was released on 2007 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The growth of secularisation, pluralism and globalisation have placed the West's traditional monoreligious education under pressure. Christianity no longer possesses a privileged position in Western Europe. Since the 1970's, a number of scholars have been trying to formulate an answer to this question of multireligiosity by developing a multireligious concept of religious education. As both a critique on, and alternative for, the multireligious model, scholars in the 1990s developed the interreligious model of religious education. This aproach distinguishes itself from monoreligious pedagogy through acknowledging plurality among the pupils as both a part of departure and as a possible end result of religious education. Moreover, it openly approaches the plurality of religions and worldviews as a learning opportunity. Religious education thus becomes a place of encounter and dialogue between different religious convictions. Interreligious learning further distinguishes itself from the multireligious model by overcoming a purely objective representation of the multitude of religions. In the interreligious model, students are not only informed, but are introduced to the cognitive and value commitments underlying the different religions, giving them the opportunity to enrich and develop their own personal religious identity. The teacher takes an explicit and particular religious (Christian) standpoint, but also tries to bring in other committed religious and philosophical voices. The interreligious model aims to teach students that holding a proper religious identity while having an openness to the religious other is not necessarily self-contradictory. What is more, that authentic religiosity is able to welcome the other in his/her vulnerability and strength as a witness to God. In this volume, scholars from various disciplines (theology, pedagogy, psychology and ethics) and from different religious backgrounds (Jews, Christians and Muslims) face up to a total of ten challenges related to interreligious learning. Challenges that may act as obstacles to the acceptance of this possible new paradigm for religious education.
Download or read book Essays on the Real Church written by Dirk J. Smit and published by African Sun Media. This book was released on 2024-08-15 with total page 675 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The spirit of the Reformation is often expressed in the well-known slogan that Reformed churches are always being reformed according to God’s Word, ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei. Over the last century, the spirit of this slogan motivated someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer to argue that the visible form and life of the church should reflect the truth and message of the church. Already in his doctoral dissertation called Sanctorum Communio, the communion of the saints, the young Bonhoeffer combined theological claims and traditions with social theory and analysis, in this spirit, in an innovative way, to study the nature and integrity and witness of the church. At the time, this was a radical claim, with major consequences and challenges for Protestant churches. Their life – which meant their order, structure, actions, statements, convictions, public presence and role – was to be measured by their gospel – which meant their message, proclamation, convictions, claims. They could no longer proclaim one truth yet live a different life. It was this spirit which led to the well-known Theological Declaration of Barmen in 1934 and to the formation of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. Many called this a moment of truth, a status confessionis. It was this same spirit which later inspired the struggle in South Africa for the integrity and faithfulness of the church and for the credibility of its message, proclamation and witness. The contributions in this volume – 52 papers, essays, sermons, studies – were all produced in this spirit. Most of them have not been published before. They were all occasional pieces, written over several decades, in different contexts and for different purposes and audiences, yet they all breathe this self-critical spirit of the Reformation, considering whether the real church – the concrete, every day, actual, living church that people know and experience and perhaps belong to – truly strives to embody the gospel itself, the message which it claims and proclaims. They all inquire, under different circumstances and in diverse ways, about different social forms of the real church – from worship to congregation, from denomination to ecumenical church, from individual believers to movements and organisations – whether and how they embody the truth of the church, or not. Together, these contributions tell a story – the story of this spirit, in South African circles, over several decades, but also in the ecumenical church in our globalizing world. They offer one small glimpse into different concrete moments in the story of this spirit in the life of this tradition and community of faith. Hopefully, some of these accounts may resonate with others who also shared the same spirit – and still share it today, in new and ongoing ways.
Download or read book Religion and Education Framing and Mapping a Field written by Stephen G. Parker and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-08-26 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication makes the case for ‘religion and education’ as a distinct, but cross-disciplinary, field of inquiry. To begin with, consideration is given to the changing dynamic between ‘religion and education’ historically, and the differing understandings of religious education within it. Next, ‘religion and education’ is examined from methodologically specific perspectives, namely the philosophical, historical, sociological and psychological. The authors outline the particular insights to be gleaned about ‘religion and education’ on the basis of their commitment to these methodological standpoints. Overall, this publication is concerned with demonstrating the scope of the field, and the importance of having a range of disciplinary, and interdisciplinary, perspectives informing it.
Download or read book T T Clark Handbook of Public Theology written by and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-02 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: T&T Clark Handbook of Public Theology introduces the various philosophical and theological positions and approaches in the emerging discourse of public theology. Distinguishing public theology from political theology, as well as from liberation theology, this book clarifies central terms like 'public sphere', 'the secular', and 'post-secularity' in order to highlight the specific characteristics of public theology. Its particular focus lies on the ways in which much of public theology has established itself as a contextual theology in politically secular societies, aiming to continue the apologetical tradition in this specific context. Depending on what is regarded as the most pressing challenge for the reasonable defence of the Christian hope in liberal democracies, public theologians have focused on (social) ethics, ecclesiology, or Soteriology, with the aim to strengthen the virtues needed for democratic citizenship. Here, attention is being paid to Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox perspectives. The volume further illustrates the characteristics of the discourse by introducing the ways in which public theologians have responded to concrete challenges arising in the spheres of politics, economics, ecology, sports, culture, and religion. To highlight the international scope of the public theological discourse, the volume concludes with a summarizing overview of public theological debates in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and Latin America.
Download or read book Peace Education and Religion Perspectives Pedagogy Policies written by Marcia Hermansen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-10-02 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether formally incorporated into curriculum and teacher training or informally integrated in contexts such as state or NGO initiatives dealing with resolving social, ethnic, and religious conflicts, peace education is increasingly recognized as a critical component in addressing violence in contemporary plural societies. Peace education can constructively undertake a reframing of historical narratives while inspiring practical community activities. An important, but insufficiently studied and theorized aspect of peace education is the role of religion. The challenge to peace education in today’s globalized, diverse, mobile, and religiously pluralistic world is to be able to take both complex global and distinctive local situations into account. The contributions to this integrative collection of essays provide exactly these local and global perspectives on the state of peace education and its relationship to religion across pedagogy and curriculum, state policies, and activism within societies on the front lines of resolving internal conflicts, whether historical or recent, that often reflect aspects of religious identities.
Download or read book Exploring Islamic Social Work written by Hansjörg Schmid and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book addresses, for the first time, Islamic social work as an emerging concept at the interface of Islamic thought and social sciences. Applying a multidisciplinary approach it explores, on the one hand, the discourse that provides religious legitimisation to social work activities and, on the other hand, case studies of practical fields of Islamic social work including educational programmes, family counselling, and resettlement of prisoners. Although in many cases, these activities are oriented towards Muslim clients, more often than not they go beyond the boundaries of Muslim communities to benefit society as a whole. Muslim actors are also starting to professionalise their services and to negotiate the ways in which they can become fully recognised service-providers within the welfare state. At a more general level, the volume also shows that in contrast to the widespread processes of secularisation of social work and its separation from religious communities, new types of activities are now emerging, which bring back to the public arena both an increased sensitivity to the religious identities of the beneficiaries and the religious motivations of the benefactors. The edited volume will be of interest to researchers in Islamic Studies, Social and Political Sciences, Social Work, and Religious Studies. This is an open access book.
Download or read book Crisis Controversy and the Future of Religious Education written by L. Philip Barnes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-05 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crisis, Controversy and the Future of Religious Education sets out to provide a much-needed critical examination of recent writings that consider and respond to the crisis in religious education and more widely to a crisis in non-confessional forms of religious education, wherever practised. The book is critical, wide-ranging and provocative, giving attention to a range of responses, some limited to the particular situation of religious education in England and some of wider application, for example, that of the role and significance of human rights and that of the relevance of religious studies and theology to religious education. It engages with a variety of positions and with recent influential reports that make recommendations on the future direction of religious education. Constructively, it defends both confessional and non-confessional religious education and endorses the existing right of parental withdrawal. Controversially, it concludes that the case for including non-religious worldviews in religious education, and for the introduction of a statutory, ‘objective’ national religious education curriculum for all schools, are both unconvincing on educational, philosophical and evidential grounds. Timely and captivating, this book is a must-read for religious and theological educators, RE advisers, classroom teachers, student teachers and those interested in the field of religious education.
Download or read book Teaching Sexuality and Religion in Higher Education written by Darryl W. Stephens and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-19 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume combines insights from secular sexuality education, trauma studies, and embodiment to explore effective strategies for teaching sexuality and religion in colleges, universities, and seminaries. Contributors to this volume address a variety of sexuality-related issues including reproductive rights, military prostitution, gender, fidelity, queerness, sexual trauma, and veiling from the perspective of multiple religious faiths. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars present pedagogy and classroom strategies appropriate for secular and religious institutional contexts. By foregrounding a combination of "perspective transformation" and "embodied learning" as a means of increasing students’ appreciation for the varied social, psychological, theological and cultural contexts in which attitudes to sexuality develop, the volume posits sexuality as a critical element of teaching about religion in higher education. This book will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, and libraries in the fields of Religious Studies, Religious Education, Gender & Sexuality, Religion & Education, and Sociology of Religion.
Download or read book The Routledge International Handbook of the Place of Religion in Early Childhood Education and Care written by Arniika Kuusisto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-05-29 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding the place of religion in Early Childhood Education and Care is of critical importance for the development of cultural literacy and plays a key role in societal coherence and inclusion. This international handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the place of religion in the societal educational arenas of the very youngest children across the globe. Drawing together contributions from leading international experts across disciplinary backgrounds, it offers a critical view of how to approach the complexities around the place of religion in Early Childhood Education and Care. Through its four parts, the book examines the theoretical, methodological, policy and practice perspectives and explores the complex intersections of transmission of "cultural heritage" and "national values" with the diverse, changing societal contexts. Each chapter contributes to an increased understanding of how the place of religion in Early Childhood Education and Care can be understood across continents, countries and educational systems. The Routledge International Handbook of the Place of Religion in Early Childhood Education and Care is an essential resource for academics, researchers, students and practitioners working in Early Childhood Education, Sociology of Childhood, Religious Education and other related fields
Download or read book Improving the Pedagogy of Islamic Religious Education in Secondary Schools written by Ayse Demirel Ucan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-04 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book focusses on the central issues and questions which emerge in relation to the teaching and learning of Islam in confessional and constructivist religious education. Considering the consequences of a lack of diversity in the Islamic Religious Education curriculum, the text also explores the challenges faced by Muslim pupils in connection with secularism and radical Islam. Through rich analysis of research carried out across Muslim and public secondary schools in the UK, this book develops a meaningful pedagogy of Islamic Religious Education. In particular, the volume investigates the benefits of Critical Religious Education and Variation Theory frameworks on student learning in Religious Education classrooms and illustrates how these didactic frameworks can help to ameliorate distinct problems seen across Islamic Religious Education. Chapters identify discrete pedagogical issues that arise in the confessional and constructivist approaches to Islamic Education, such as students’ difficulties in relating to concept of Islam, and progressive approaches taken in public schools. In addressing these, the text proposes a new theoretical and pedagogical approach to the teaching of Islam, which draws on the philosophy of Critical Realism, the theories of Critical Religious Education, and Variation Theory. This book will be of great interest to postgraduate students, researcher scholars and academics in the fields of religion and education and Islamic studies. In addition, it will be of interest to social equity professionals and public policy decision makers.
Download or read book Religious Education as a Dialogue with Difference written by Kevin O'Grady and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-21 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious Education as a Dialogue with Difference addresses current issues over the study of religion in publicly maintained schools. Are liberal, inclusive approaches to the study of religion suited to the aims of education in a democracy? Do liberal democratic aims offer the right framework for the study of religion? By presenting research on English secondary school pupils' motivation in religious education, this volume argues that religious education is best understood as a democratic dialogue with difference. The book offers empirical evidence for this claim, and it demonstrates how learners gain in religious literacy, both through the exercise of democratic citizenship in the classroom and towards the goal of life-long democratic citizenship.
Download or read book Interreligious Studies written by Director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies and Adjunct Faculty in the College of Hans Gustafson and published by . This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an increasingly connected world, the question of how different religious traditions relate to one another is more urgent than ever. The study of interreligious encounters and relations, by no means a new endeavor, has recently emerged as a formal multi- and interdisciplinary academic field that seeks not only to understand how worldviews and ways of life interact and intersect, but also to suggest avenues of constructive dialogue. Interreligious Studies represents a milestone achievement, bringing together thirty-six scholars from four continents to produce dispatches on the current state of this burgeoning field. This volume probes the context, parameters, and contours of interreligious studies (IRS), including its relation to other disciplines, its promise as a field of research in secular and nonsecular contexts, its particular terminology and methodology, its civic agenda, and the various scholarly profiles of those who pursue it. Other topics taken up include historical examples of interfaith dialogue, theological and philosophical considerations of truth-seeking in interreligious encounter, and contemporary agendas such as the decolonization of the study of religion and the obligation to respond to anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and xenoglossophobia. Whatever possibilities IRS might hold, there first must be a working definition of the field and its praxis. Interreligious Studies points in this direction as it highlights the practical knowledge generated by IRS: how to cultivate empathy, make peace and build nations, promote scholarly activism, and foster meaningful interreligious relations. Scholars and students who are serious about engaging the many dynamic conversations blossoming within this nascent field will be well served by the contributions of this volume.
