Previous research has demonstrated that Christians living in Korea and Christians living in the US differ in their perceptions of Jesus, in a manner that is aligned with cultural values. The present study examined differences in the perception of Jesus within the US, examining agnostics, atheists, Catholics and nondenominational Christians,…

This article emulates the new stance of Professor Michael Hand on faith schools. He illustrates how theological criteria could be used to inform and guide curriculum aims in a way that avoids indoctrination and the perils of faith-based education. This approach is adopted vis-à-vis Catholic education in order to sketch out what a non-confessional…

Sectarianism is perceived as a serious issue in Scotland despite a lack of concrete evidence, according to the Advisory Group on Tackling Sectarianism. This paper addresses one of the gaps in knowledge, the attitudes of Catholic school pupils. Our research was designed to profile sectarian attitudes among a sample of Catholic school pupils in…

In this article we offer reflections on the final report of the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) that was published in England in 2018. We expose and problematise the prominent place of understanding in the report, not only as an educational method, but also the underlying world view of the report itself, a world view which we characterise…

The article explores some of the congruencies of thought and resonances in phrasing in the work of Janet Erskine Stuart, John Henry Newman and Ludwig Wittgenstein. These three writers have in common their resistance to philosophers of religion who are preoccupied with proposing arguments for the existence of God and grounds for believing in God.…

This study examines what kind of expectations religious education (RE) student teachers have about their professional development during their academic studies. The study focuses on eight RE student teachers in teacher education in Finland. The students were studied in light of the twenty-first-century skills framework. The analysis was deductive…

Some debate exists about the degree to which one should merge one's identities, particularly those with important normative content, with one's teaching practices. This issue becomes particularly important for those with a religious identity who purposefully merge their identity with classroom practices. This article examines the qualitative…

In this article the method of Scriptural Reasoning (SR), a text-based approach to interreligious dialogue between participants of the three Abrahamic religions, was implemented for a teacher education setting at a German university. Not only students with an outspoken religious conviction but also agnostic and atheist students, preparing…

Is theology dead or dying? Or can we confidently do theology? Since the 1990s Ulrich Beck, one of the best known living sociologists both in Europe and beyond, has promoted the critical reading of the contemporary discourse as "reflexive modernization". He has recently looked into the "fascinating byways" of religion. Based on Beck's re-assessment…

This article presents the author's review of "Revisiting Christianity: theological reflections," by Marius C. Felderhof. This volume by a dedicated teacher and theologian is rooted in, and emerged from, the context of teaching Christian theology to young students of very diverse backgrounds and contexts of life. The commitment to engage in…

Post-secularism seems to follow in the wake of other (what are here called) "postal" perspectives--post-structuralism, postmodernism, post-empiricism, post-positivism, post-analytical philosophy, post-foundationalism and so on--in questioning or repudiating what it takes to be the epistemic assumptions of "modernism." To be sure, post-secularism…

Might there be education-in-wisdom? Firstly we need to identify and characterise what this "wisdom" would be. Towards this end comparisons and contrasts are attempted here between this wisdom, on the one hand, and intelligence, cleverness, knowledge, common sense, and trivial wisdom on the other. An Aristotelian account of wisdom emerges; and we…

Recent scholarship claims that American colleges and universities give less and less attention to the meaning of life. In this article we critically evaluate the historical arguments for this claim, focusing primarily on the account given by Anthony Kronman. We argue that Kronman's history proves particularly problematic if one wants to…

Astley's construct of ordinary theology takes seriously listening to the religious expression and experience of ordinary people, both churched and unchurched. One method by which this has already been achieved is through the empirical analysis of the content of ordinary people's intercessory prayer requests left in hospitals and churches. Building…

In this article I hope to cast some light on the relationship between religious faith and education by a preliminary mapping of the field. There are three parts to the article. First, I lay out the assumptions from which the rest of the article builds. Second, I seek to identify possible links between religion and education. As a sub-set of this,…