Critical Perspectives On Christian Education

This book discusses the relationship between faith, formation and education. Rooted in a variety of discourses, the book offers original insights into the education and formation of the human person, both theoretical and practical. Issues are considered within a context of contemporary tensions generated by an increasingly pluralist society with antipathy to religious faith, and debated from interdenominational Christian perspectives. Including chapters by an international team of experts, the volume demonstrates how Christian faith holds significance for educational practice and human development. It argues against the common assumption that there can be a neutral approach to education, whilst at the same time advocating a critical dimension to faith education. It brings fresh thinking about faith and formation, which demands attention given the fast-changing political, educational and socio-cultural forces of today. It will appeal to students and researchers involved in Christian educational practice.

Religious Education and Critical Realism: Knowledge, Reality and Religious Literacy seeks to bring the enterprise of religious education in schools, colleges and universities into conversation with the philosophy of Critical Realism. This book addresses the problem, not of the substance of our primal beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality and our place in the ultimate order-of-things, but of the process through which we might attend to questions of substance in more attentive, reasonable, responsible and intelligent ways. This book unpacks the impact of modern and post-modern thought on key topics whilst also generating a new critically realistic vision. Offering an account of the relationship between Religious Education and Critical Realism, this book is essential reading for students, scholars and practitioners interested in philosophy, theology and education.

Centered around a reflective narrative recounting the experiences of a participatory action research project into leading online small groups for adults in the Church of Sweden Diocese of Stockholm during 2021 and 2022, the dissertation argues for the need to reconceptualize and reemphasize teaching as an important aspect in Christian religious education. Employing creative non-fiction methods, the dissertation aims to broaden the scope of the initial Online Small Groups project, by inviting readers to join into a "learning journey." The narrative account is complemented with more traditional forms of analysis that connect experiences from online small groups in the Church of Sweden to similar research from Anglo-Saxon countries, noting especially how notions of community diverge due to different ecclesiological understandings. Insights are then synthesized into eight teaching strategies aimed at communicating actionable knowledge to small group leaders, before noting how the study complements research on Christian religious education and, particularly, the current debate about learning and teaching in the Church of Sweden.

One of the prime issues that needs to be addressed in dialogical encounter between the three monotheistic faiths of the world is that concerning the authority and interpretation of Holy Writ, since Jews, Christians and Muslims alike consider their Scriptures to be divine revelation. It is incumbent upon each of these religions to apprise itself of the hermeneutical approach employed by the others in ascribing current meaning to ancient scriptural texts. This is not only important as a means for the enhancement of inter-religious understanding but is also of great interest to society at large. What role does the Jewish Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Qu'ran play in the thinking and the lives of contemporary Jews, Christians, and Muslims? How are these Holy Scriptures interpreted in terms of present-day circumstances? How much room do the three religions allow for bringing their basic messages and biblical-theological traditions into rapport with constantly changing social, political and economic conditions? Is the concept of hermeneutical space acceptable to these religions? If so, in what sense and at what level? Is it possible to identify the scopus of a text and then reconstitute it textually, as it were, in light of the social and ethical questions thrown up by new contextual developments? Can interpretive adjustments be made without jeopardizing the core message of the text involved? And do the three monotheistic religions stand open to one another for influence in this regard? Has one or another of them taken hermeneutical cues from the others? Is there room for mutual learning within the hermeneutical space mentioned above or is this a sacred space closed to all influence from other traditions? These are among the central questions raised and dealt with in this interreligious collection of essays, perhaps the only dialogical symposium to date to deal exclusively with the doctrine and hermeneutics of Holy Scripture in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.