Theological Approaches To Christian Education

This book provides pastors, professional teachers, students of religious education or Christian education, theological students and Sunday school teachers with methods of teaching the faith today and opportunities to reflect critically on the methods and approaches they use in the classroom in the changed cultural context of our postmodern world. The book is the result of years of practical experience in the field of Christian education as a Director of Religious Education and head of a team involved in providing religious education training and producing teaching materials and textbooks for Sunday school and professional teachers of Christian education. This book proposes the Herald model of church and model of Christian education as a very helpful model for postmodern culture.

A Theology for Christian Education, written by dedicated professors of Christian Explain and defend the rationale for the influence of theology in Christian educational theory; Describe the process of forming a theologically informed theory of Christian education; Provide educational insights from a theological rubric and Present the praxis approach (theology/theory informed practice) for teaching and Christian education.

This book is an arresting interdisciplinary publication on Christian education, comprising works by leading scholars, professionals and practitioners from around the globe. It focuses on the integrated approaches to Christian education that are both theoretically sound and practically beneficial, and identifies innovative pedagogical methods and tools that have been field-tested and practice-approved. It discusses topics such as exploring programmes and courses through different lenses; learning challenges and opportunities within organisational management; theology of business; Christian models of teaching in different contexts; job preparedness; developing different interpretive or meaning-making frameworks for working with social justice, people with disability, non-profit community organisations and in developing country contexts. It offers graduate students, teachers, school administrators, organisational leaders, theologians, researchers and education practitioners a fresh and inspiring reimagining of Christian education perspectives and practices and the ramifications of their application to life-long learning.

This sequel to Seymour and Miller's popular Contemporary Approaches to Christian Education offers new information and ideas regarding the major theological issues within Christian education today. In one volume, the world's leading Christian educators reflect on such issues as tradition in the church, religious pluralism, human development, spirituality, ecumenical learning, feminist and liberation theology, practical theology, and hermeneutics. Contributors include Charles R. Foster, Susanne Johnson, Fumitaka Matsuoka, Melanie A. May, David Merritt, Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore, Romney Moseley, Robert T. O'Gorman, Richard R. Osmer, Marianne Sawicki, and Choan-Seng Song.

Newspapers are filled with stories about poorly educated children, ineffective teachers, and cash-strapped school districts. In this greatly expanded treatment of a topic he first dealt with in Rediscovering the Lost Tools of Learning, Douglas Wilson proposes an alternative to government-operated school by advocating a return to classical Christian education with its discipline, hard work, and learning geared to child development stages. As an educator, Wilson is well-equipped to diagnose the cause of America's deteriorating school system and to propose remedies for those committed to their children's best interests in education. He maintains that education is essentially religious because it deals with the basic questions about life that require spiritual answers-reading and writing are simply the tools. Offering a review of classical education and the history of this movement, Wilson also reflects on his own involvement in the process of creating educational institutions that embrace that style of learning. He details elements needed in a useful curriculum, including a list of literary classics. Readers will see that classical education offers the best opportunity for academic achievement, character growth, and spiritual education, and that such quality cannot be duplicated in a religiously-neutral environment.

Seymour and Miller, with four other experts in the field, seek to clarify the agenda, resources, and hopes for Christian education in the twenty-first century. Gone are the days when Christian education was variously envisioned as a school, a home, an educational system, a mission agency, or a school for Christian living. These dreams revealed the conflicts Christian education was to face throughout much of the twentieth century; yet they also clarified its resources and motivated efforts on its behalf. Modern educators such as Seymour and Miller also dream of what Christian education is and what it can become. Here they investigate five approaches through which contemporary Christian educators can develop the theory and practice of Christian education: (1) religious instruction (2) faith community (3) development (4) liberation (5) interpretation. Although they explore these five vital approaches from psychological, philosophical, exegetical, and sociological viewpoints, the authors agree that the central theme is still the teaching of the Good News. It is there we will discover that we are delivered for dependency on the old ways and that we are free to move into new ways of living.

This book reformulates Christian education as an interdisciplinary and interdenominational vocation for professionals and practitioners. It speaks directly to a range of contemporary contexts with the aim of encouraging conceptual, empirical and practice-informed innovation to build the field of Christian education research. The book invites readers to probe questions concerning epistemologies, ethics, pedagogies and curricula, using multidisciplinary research approaches. By helping thinkers to believe and believers to think, the book seeks to stimulate constructive dialogue about what it means to innovate Christian education research today.Chapters are organised into three main sections. Following an introduction to the volume's guiding framework and intended contribution (Chapter 1), Part 1 features conceptual perspectives and comprises research that develops theological, philosophical and theoretical discussion of Christian education (Chapters 2-13). Part 2 encompasses empirical research that examines data to test theory, answer big questions and develop our understanding of Christian education (Chapters 14-18). Finally, Part 3 reflects on contemporary practice contexts and showcases examples of emerging research agendas in Christian education (Chapters 19-24).