This piece is about the value of decolonization for teaching and doing science-engaged theology. I argue that decolonization should be seen as a useful tool that helps students, teachers, and scholars to re-imagine the modern distinction between science and theology/religion.

This paper studied a new dimension of international students, who are citizens of another country but came back to Turkey for religious education where their parents or grandparents are citizens. Did a five-year religious education process based on the main sources of Islam lead to a change in these students' religious attitudes and behaviors, and…

Narratives have a unique capacity to hold attention, challenge assumptions, and create transformative experiences. In this paper, I will draw upon narrative homiletics to show how educators who teach theology or scriptural texts can create learning experiences that follow narrative structure. First, I will discuss the advantages of teaching in a…

This article reflects on the process, challenges, and opportunities of conducting a graduate-level class in environmental philosophy for Catholic priests who were seminary formators in the time of pandemic in the Philippines. The final output of the course is a participatory action research project. I developed an engaged pedagogical framework,…

This paper introduces the reader to the "Periodic Table of the World's Religious and Philosophical Traditions" (PTWRPT). It summarizes its background history, the conceptual thinking that underlies it, and explains why and how it was created. Using the same thinking that underlies Mendeleyev's Periodic Table of the Elements, it sets out…

What does feminist pedagogy look like online? Is it even possible? This article describes intentionally incorporated many aspects of embodied feminist pedagogy into the Women's Studies in Religion online learning community during the semester when the seminar was taught online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay shares techniques for and…

Created during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Shelter Project brought together a denominational seminary, a leading state research university, a community arts organization, and a housing non-profit serving unhoused and vulnerable neighbors. As the pandemic revealed and intensified the ongoing crisis of houselessness in central New…

This article argues that there is an identifiable scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion that, though varied in its entry points and forms, exhibits standards of excellence recognizable in other forms of scholarship. Engaging in this scholarship enhances a professor's possession of practice and often reveals insights into…

Patricia Killen and Eugene Gallagher make a strong case for "constructive possibilities" in the scholarship of teaching and learning theology and religion. They clarify its relationship and hence its contributions to the larger discussion of the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education, identify operative standards and procedures…

The issue of comparison is a vexing one in religious and theological studies, not least for teachers of comparative religion in study abroad settings. We try to make familiar ideas fresh and strange, in settings where students may find it hard not to take "fresh" and "strange" as signs of existential threat. The author explores…

Increasing numbers of college students enrolling in religion courses in recent years are looking to develop their religious faith or spirituality, while professors of religion want students to use and appreciate scholarly tools to study religion from an academic perspective. Some scholars argue that it is not possible to satisfy both goals in the…

In their essay, Patricia O'Connell Killen and Eugene Gallagher focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion, which, they say, is "identifiable" though "varied," and "exhibits standards of excellence recognizable in other forms of scholarship." Their purpose is descriptive, in large part, to share what they have…

Religious studies classrooms are microcosms of the public square in bringing together individuals of diverse identities and ideological commitments. As such, these classrooms create the necessity and opportunity to foster effective modes of conversation. In this essay, I argue that communication attuned to shared human needs--among them needs for…

This article describes the use of "Writing to Learn" assignments in a course on the Theology of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations. These short, informal assignments promote active learning by focusing on writing as a process for critical thinking and as a way to learn the content of the course. They help students creatively engage…

Order and organization are valued in the classroom, and there is a prevailing understanding that chaos should be avoided. Yet chaos can also be potent space or a source from which new things spring forth. This article investigates biblical, scientific, and cultural understandings of chaos to discover how these contribute to a revelatory metaphor…