What is religious education? In my faith tradition, the notion that human beings are created to know and be known by God and neighbor is a springboard from which we leap toward the Good Life. Religious education is a life-long process whereby individuals learn what it means to know and be known as they live into a vision of the Good Life. The goal of religious education is to foster spiritual intelligence (related to emotional intelligence) among individuals and societies so that they might be grounded in their own traditions and open to learning with, from and about others.
Why do we need religious education? We human beings are a puzzle to ourselves. We are creatures among all the rest, yet endowed with something unique: the ability to recognize ourselves and others as creatures. We are instinctively drawn toward community, yet pulled toward individual expression. We are aware of our limitations, yet ignorant of our ignorance. We are created equal, yet we build institutions and systems that make some more equal than others. Much of what we need to live well in society is contained within the genome of our species. Yet, no generation of human beings can hope to live well together without the wisdom, memories, and insights of their forebears. We need religious education because you and I have to know where the uniquely shaped piece that is me fits into the puzzle that is us—the one into the all.
Who participates in the process of religious education? Four characters take center-stage in the educational act; the teacher, the learner, the community, and the subject. While each character in the didactic drama has a distinct function, the cast switches roles periodically throughout each scene. So, who participates in the educational process? Everyone; Each individual is part of the cast and is therefore expected to be a teacher, educator, social creature, and self-actualizing subject amongst other subjects. The formative moments of my teaching career have been when a student asked a question, challenged an assumption or cracked a joke that forced me to rethink or expand my own convictions. What, then, is my role in the learning space? I prefer to think of myself as a moderator, in the sense that the term is used in my faith tradition (Christian, Presbyterian). To be a good moderator, one must be aware that the discursive process begins before anyone enters the classroom; Each participant in the drama brings a treasury of knowledge and experience that must be acknowledged and received in the educational space. Good moderators are usually ‘experts’ in the course material, but they see their role as one of ensuring that all participants in the gathering are empowered to share as experts in their own experiences. Finally, a good moderator sets a clear but flexible agenda, casts a vision for the discussion, and maintains a balance between order and ardor in the space (whether physical or virtual).
Where does religious education happen?
Human beings were created to know. The act of knowing requires courage because we cannot act in the world without taking responsibility for our decisions. When we open ourselves to the possibility of new knowledge or wisdom, we take a bold step into the next frontier of our own understanding. Learning is stepping out into a space that is known better by others than by ourselves; It is, therefore, an active process. While it is the professional educator’s job is to provide a safe space for learning, the process of meaning-making out of divergent experiences is a painful one. Students who embrace ideas that are new to them must shun false security and prepare for epistemological frustration. In the beginning, and maybe for a while, spiritual frontiers can be spaces where one lives in limbo between confessed beliefs and comfort with received affirmations. Spiritual frontiers are uneven places of fear, pain, loss and inexplicable encounter; they also contain plain paths toward concrete hope, healing and wholeness. No one who earnestly opens themselves to the other in an educational space returns home the same… Many will not return ‘home’ at all. Perhaps they will stay for a while, or forever, in their new spiritual abode.
Human beings were created to be known. In the act of knowing another being, we open ourselves to the possibility of being known. The dialectical feedback loop created by an encounter with new knowledge is centrifugal; It can leave people dizzy, confused and scared. Fear of shared knowledge can even push individuals and communities back into their hiding places (see Adam & Eve in the Hebrew Bible). To genuinely know the other, we must open ourselves to the possibility that they, too, might come to know us. Therefore, religious education is both an active and a receptive process. The desire to receive from the other implies a mutuality and interchangeability between subject locations which carves out space for the offering of self, story and life-giving knowledge. We long to be what we were created to be. The impulse to know and be known cannot be quenched by the mere acquisition of knowledge. To know something is not to possess it, but to receive it as a gift. To know someone and their religious tradition is not to gain new property but to embrace a fellow sojourner at a crossroads along our pilgrimage to the Good Life.
Religious education takes place on the frontiers between human understanding and received wisdom. The educational space is an epistemological border-zone, where competing conceptions of the Good Life take on hybrid identities that are (can be?) generative of subjective meaning and collective action. Since one subject’s border-zones, whether physical, social, mental, or spiritual, are almost always someone else’s home, religious pedagogies must be committed to mutual (active/receptive) embrace. For this reason, I am convinced that all educational sub-disciplines must take place alongside the experience of the poor, despised, excluded and rejected. Special attention to previously silenced narratives provides space for all students, regardless of their background, to critique the dominant thought patterns and behaviors that undergird repressive worldviews. At this stage in my career, I am not always involved in the construction of course outlines and syllabi for the classes I teach. When I do contribute to the preparation process, I work hard to ensure that all voices, especially those which have been long-silenced, are heard in the classroom.
So, again, where are the unclaimed spaces in which religious education takes place? They are everywhere within and beyond us. The religious education process has failed if it does not spill out of the classroom and into the world.
When does religious education happen? Religious Education is a life-long endeavor. Along life’s journey, each learning opportunity (i.e., class, lecture period, excursion, research project, exam, conversation, coffee break, road-trip) must be understood as one step along the path toward that deeper knowledge of self and others, which leads to a simultaneously empowering and self-critical vision of the Good Life. While I moderate classroom spaces that are, at times, creatively unpredictable, students will not leave without hearing a ‘take-home point’ that is connected to the overarching impulse of the course and of the academic program’s learning goals. I hope that, in following this elementarizing method, students will take key principles, apply them, and continue the process of religious learning throughout their lives.
How do I go about religious education? I thrive as a participant in the didactic drama when goals and expectations are clearly established at the outset, & freedom is given for students to step into the border-lands between the syllabus and the side-notes. I understand my role as the professional educator to be that of an active and receptive participant in the learning process. When I lead a class, I rarely give a lecture from a manuscript. Nevertheless, I believe that a clearly articulated overview of course material is an essential component of the learning process. Whatever pedagogical tools I employ, my aim is always to help students build a mental map of the terrain over which each class is traveling. Hopefully, this will set students on a path toward their spiritual home, and empower them to make the world a better place along the way. I am most at home in an intercultural and pluralistic learning environment in which competing conceptions of the Good Life are respected, explored, and allowed to edify one another. My friends and colleagues would likely say that I am passionate and do not hesitate to share my convictions in group settings, but I love working and learning on teams of dedicated and competent people. I am open to new approaches, practices, and methods of engagement. Sometimes this means that my preferred tools for teaching and learning are set aside so that I might best address the needs and concerns of a specific context.
This is a working document. Last revised on 18 November 2020.
Any Frontier 