Christian Faith, Formation and Education

Christian Faith, Formation and Education
Author: Ros Stuart-Buttle
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2017-11-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3319628038

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.

Analysing Religious Discourse

Analysing Religious Discourse
Author: Stephen Pihlaja
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2021-07-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1108836135

A comprehensive introduction to all the major research approaches to religious language, from a variety of linguistic perspectives.

Religion and Public Discourse in an Age of Transition

Religion and Public Discourse in an Age of Transition
Author: Geoffrey Cameron
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2018-01-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 177112332X

Technology, tourism, politics, and law have connected human beings around the world more closely than ever before, but this closeness has, paradoxically, given rise to fear, distrust, and misunderstanding between nation-states and religions. In light of the tensions and conflicts that arise from these complex relationships, many search for ways to find peace and understanding through a “global public sphere.” There citizens can deliberate on issues of worldwide concern. Their voices can be heard by institutions able to translate public opinion into public policy that embraces more than simply the interests and ideas of the wealthy and the empowered. Contributors to this volume address various aspects of this challenge within the context of Bahá’í thought and practice, whose goal is to lay the foundations for a new world civilization that harmonizes the spiritual and material aspects of human existence. Bahá’í teachings view religion as a source of enduring insight that can enable humanity to repair and transcend patterns of disunity, to foster justice within the structures of society, and to advance the cause of peace. Accordingly, religion can and ought to play a role in the broader project of creating a pattern of public discourse capable of supporting humanity’s transition to the next stage in its collective development. The essays in this book make novel contributions to the growing literature on post-secularism and on religion and the public sphere. The authors additionally present new areas of inquiry for future research on the Bahá’í faith.

Manufacturing Religion

Manufacturing Religion
Author: Russell T. McCutcheon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1997-06-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0195355687

In this new book, author Russell McCutcheon offers a powerful critique of traditional scholarship on religion, focusing on multiple interrelated targets. Most prominent among these are the History of Religions as a discipline; Mircea Eliade, one of the founders of the modern discipline; recent scholarship on Eliade's life and politics; contemporary textbooks on world religions; and the oft-repeated bromide that "religion" is a sui generis phenomenon. McCutcheon skillfully analyzes the ideological basis for and service of the sui generis argument, demonstrating that it has been used to constitute the field's object of study in a form that is ahistoric, apolitical, fetishized, and sacrosanct. As such, he charges, it has helped to create departments, jobs, and publication outlets for those who are comfortable with such a suspect construction, while establishing a disciplinary ethos of astounding theoretical naivete and a body of scholarship to match. Surveying the textbooks available for introductory courses in comparative religion, the author finds that they uniformly adopt the sui generis line and all that comes with it. As a result, he argues, they are not just uncritical (which helps keep them popular among the audiences for which they are intended, but badly disserve), but actively inhibit the emergence of critical perspectives and capacities. And on the geo-political scale, he contends, the study of religion as an ahistorical category participates in a larger system of political domination and economic and cultural imperialism.

Discourses of Religion and Secularism in Religious Education Classrooms

Discourses of Religion and Secularism in Religious Education Classrooms
Author: Karin Kittelmann Flensner
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2017-07-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319609491

This book answers the question on how students and teachers talk about religion when the mandatory and nonconfessional school subject of Religious Education is on the schedule in the “world’s most secular country” To do this, it analyses discourses of religion as they occur in the classroom practice. It is based on findings from participant observation of Religious Education lessons in several upper secondary schools in Sweden. The book discusses different aspects of the role and function of nonconfessional integrative Religious Education in an increasingly pluralistic, multireligious, yet also secularized society, at a general level. It looks at the religious landscape, different perspectives on school subjects, various models and the development of Religious Education, and discourses of religion of a secularist, spiritual and nationalistic nature. Religious Education is a school subject that manoeuvres in the midst of a field that on the one hand concerns crucial knowledge in a pluralistic society, and on the other hand deals with highly contested questions in a society characterized by diversity and secularity. In the mandatory, integrative and non-confessional school subject of Religious Education in Sweden, all students are taught together regardless of religious or secular affiliation. The subject deals with major world religions, important non-religious worldviews and ethics, from a non-confessional perspective. Thus, in the classroom, individuals who identify with diverse religious and non-religious worldviews, with a different understanding of what religion could be and what it might mean to be religious, are brought together. The book examines questions raised in this pluralistic context: What discourses of religion become hegemonic in the classroom? How do these discourses affect the possibility of reaching the aim of Religious Education which concerns understanding and respect for different ways of thinking and living in a society characterized by diversity?

Religious Education

Religious Education
Author: Robert Jackson
Publisher: Hodder Education
Total Pages: 156
Release: 1997
Genre: Religious education
ISBN: 9780340688700

This work examines fundamental issues for religious education, such as how far it is possible to understand someone else's religious position and how religions should be interpreted in the classroom. It gives an overview of some important developments in religious education since the 1970s and makes suggestions about how we should interpret religion.

The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies

The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies
Author: Anna De Fina
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 889
Release: 2020-10-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1108560164

Aimed at equipping a new generation of scholars and students with the essential tools for analyzing discourse, this handbook provides an overview of key research fields and an introduction to the various methodologies, concepts and areas of investigation in discourse.

Religious Education in a Global-Local World

Religious Education in a Global-Local World
Author: Jenny Berglund
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2016-07-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3319322893

This book examines Religious Education (RE) in over ten countries, including Australia, Indonesia, Mali, Russia, UK, Ireland, USA, and Canada. Investigating RE from a global and multi-interdisciplinary perspective, it presents research on the diverse past, present, and possible future forms of RE. In doing so, it enhances public and professional understanding of the complex issues and debates surrounding RE in the wider world. The volume emphasizes a student-centred approach, viewing any kind of ‘RE’, or its absence, as a formative lived experience for pupils. It stresses a bottom-up, sociological and ethnographic/anthropological research-based approach to the study of RE, rather than the ‘top down’ approaches which often start from prescriptive legal, ideological or religious standpoints. The twelve chapters in this volume regard RE as an entity that has multiple and contested meanings and interpretations that are constantly negotiated. For some, ‘RE’ means religious nurturing, either tailored to parental views or meant to inculcate a uniform religiosity. For others, RE means learning about the many religious and non-religious world-views and secular ethics that exist, not promoting one religion or another. Some seek to avoid the ambiguous term ‘religious education’, replacing it with terms such as ‘education about religions and beliefs’ or ‘the religious dimension of intercultural education’.

Religious Talk Online

Religious Talk Online
Author: Stephen Pihlaja
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2018-03
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1107157412

Original research that explains how religious conflict is played out on social media.