(Inadvertently) Instructing Missionaries in (Public University) World Religions Courses: Examining a Pedagogical Dilemma,its Dimensions,and a Course Section Solution

In this article, I explore an ethical and pedagogical dilemma that I encounter each semester in my world religions courses: namely, that a great number of students enroll in the courses as part of their missionary training programs, and come to class understanding successful learning to mean gathering enough information about the world's religious “traditions” so as to effectively seduce people out of them. How should we teach world religions – in public university religious studies courses – with this student constituency? What are/ought to be our student learning goals? What can and should we expect to accomplish? How can we maximize student learning, while also maintaining our disciplinary integrity? In response to these questions, I propose a world religions course module, the goal of which is for students to examine – as objects of inquiry – the lenses through which they understand religion(s). With a recognition of their own lenses, I argue, missionary students become more aware of the biases and presumptions about others that they bring to the table, and they learn to see the ways in which these presumptions inform what they see and know about others, and also what they do not so easily see.     

“But Aren't Cults Bad?”: Active Learning,Productive Chaos,and Teaching New Religious Movements

This article considers the challenges inherent when teaching about new religious movements (“cults”), how successful instructors have surmounted them, and how teacher‐scholars in other fields of religious studies can benefit from a discussion of the successful teaching of new religions. I note that student‐centered pedagogies are crucial to teaching new religions, particularly if students disrupt and defamiliarize the assumed and reified categories of “cult” and “religion.” I argue that what works in a classroom focusing on new religious movements will work more broadly in religious studies classrooms, since the challenges of the former are reproduced in the latter.     

Becoming Pilgrims: Engaging Theory Through Practice in the Introductory World Religions Course

Abstract. This paper explores the use of the educational pilgrimage as an active learning strategy in the introductory world religions course. As we study pilgrimages from different religious traditions throughout the semester using Victor Turner as our theoretical guide, students also plan their own campus pilgrimage, paying homage to sites that help them reach their educational goals. Using student comments and my own observations, I highlight the ways in which the educational pilgrimage both affirms and raises critical questions about Turner's theory of pilgrimage. In this way, the educational pilgrimage is an opportunity for students to enhance and clarify their understanding of theory through practice.     

Home is My Area Code: Thinking About,Teaching, and Learning Globalization in Introductory World Religions Classes

There has been significant and growing interest in teaching religious studies, and specifically world religions, in a “global” context. Bringing globalization into the classroom as a specific theoretical and pedagogical tool, however, requires not just an awareness that religions exist in an ever‐globalizing environment, but a willingness to engage with globalization as a cultural, spatial, and theoretical arena within which religions interact. This article is concerned with the ways that those of us interested in religion employ globalization in the classroom conceptually and pedagogically, and argues that “lived religion” provides a useful model for incorporating globalization into religious studies settings.     

Analogous activities: Tools for thinking comparatively in religious studies courses

This article discusses an experiential teaching method that uses secular activities that are simple, accessible, and analogous to religious practice in order to facilitate comparative religious study. These “analogous activities” – for example, social rituals, stillness, yoga, a social media fast, singing, nonviolent communication, and mindfulness meditation – provide a third point of reference that allows students to pivot between their understanding of religion and those of practitioners and scholars of religion. Experiential learning can be quite successful if deliberately sequenced to allow students to encounter a series of interpretive frameworks and structured with prompts and parameters that encourage reflection and critical analysis of their experience. In my course engaging in analogous activities not only impacted students' understanding of Asian religions, but also led them to question two previous assumptions: first, that religious beliefs were more important than religious practices, which is particularly problematic in regards to Asian religious traditions that place more emphasis on orthopraxy than orthodoxy, and second, that religion was something separate from one's everyday or lived reality.     

World Religions and the Northern Ireland Curriculum

The aim of this article is to assess the arguments for and against the inclusion of a study of world religions within the religious education provision of schools in Northern Ireland. The point of departure for our discussion is the Inter-Faith Forum's recent claim that exclusively Christian content may be in breach of equality and human rights legislation. It is concluded that there should be teaching about world religions but that multi-faith religious education of the form espoused in England and Wales, whereby a wide range of religions is covered, is inappropriate to the Northern Irish educational and cultural context.     

Teaching for Transformation: Insights from Fiji,India, South Africa,and Jamaica

Abstract. How can teaching and living abroad impact our teaching in North America? This article explores how what I do teaching religion and ethics to undergraduates at Texas Christian University has been influenced by twelve years of teaching in the two‐thirds world. It is structured in terms of three insights that correlate with what I call the past, present, and future dimensions of ethics, respectively. First, we need to begin where our students are – taking their contexts seriously. Second, we should expose them to the moral and religious experience of others, so that they might be pulled by those others toward broader perspectives. Third, we should challenge them to envision new ways of living, including new self‐understandings and images of society. Drawing on examples of how I use these insights in courses at TCU, I contend that we can best promote transformation in our students by holding these three insights in creative tension.     

Toward Theological Inclusivism: The Effects of a World Religions Course in a Mormon University

Inclusivist, exclusivist, and pluralist attitudes toward other religions interact in complex ways within the Mormon faith. Hence, a course on the world’s religions at LDS-sponsored Brigham Young University presents an interesting case study in this context. Through survey data and statistical analysis this article attempts to examine the effect of this course over students’ convictions in their own faith, particularly in relation to the inclusivist vs. exclusivist spectrum. Findings suggest that the sympathetic exposure to other religions in this course did not decrease students’ confessional commitment to Mormonism although it reshaped it in a more inclusivist direction. The religious make-up of students’ families and communities of upbringing is also shown to play a role in this conclusion.     

Mahatma Gandhi and Character Education in Non‐Violence: Its Relevance in Religious Studies Today

This essay presents educational principles of Mahatma Gandhi, specifically principles of character education, as a model for strengthening non‐violence in students. Its major concern is to show that Gandhi's ideal of non‐violent character education is important for university teaching in disciplines including religious studies, and that Gandhi offers methods for fostering non‐violent character, namely the teaching of world religions, service learning, and setting an example. The effectiveness of Gandhi's views, moreover, finds some support in contemporary teaching practices, including my own experiences in the classroom.     

The Baltimore Mural Project: An approach to threshold concepts in religious studies

The Baltimore Mural Project (BMP) seeks to connect religious studies education to the growing literature on threshold concepts in order to address bottleneck areas in student learning. The project is designed for undergraduate service courses comprised of mostly non‐majors: for example, world religions. Students in these courses often struggle to understand and apply the discipline's unique approaches to the study of religion (i.e. its threshold concepts). Rather than merely memorize certain facts about a religious tradition's myths [or world forming stories], rituals [or embodied disclosures], materials, and so on... students are asked to apply threshold concepts related to religion, art, and the social good to the study of murals in Baltimore. Through a series of project elements (including: field work, photography, digital geomapping, and quantitative, qualitative, and archival research) the BMP helps students who struggle with threshold concepts in religious studies by creatively connecting the more conventional aspects of world religions courses to social justice issues related to mural art in Baltimore. By experientially helping students to make these connections, they are able to find creative routes through otherwise hindering barriers to their learning in religious studies.     

Should World Religions be Taught to Primary School Children in Predominantly White,Traditionally Christian Areas? A survey of headteacher attitudes in West Wales

The 1988 Education Reform Act stipulated that the character of RE should ‘reflect the fact that the religious traditions of Great Britain are in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of other principal religions represented in Great Britain’. The Act did not, however, ask whether multifaith RE was relevant to primary school children in predominantly white, traditionally Christian areas. This article explores headteachers’ perceptions of the relevance of multifaith RE. Attention is given to the views of headteachers in South West Wales about possible reasons for and against teaching world religions. It also looks at their views about which religions are most relevant to the primary curriculum and about the balance of time which they believe should be allocated between Christianity and the other world religions. The article concludes that, although some headteachers in predominantly white areas are aware of difficulties inherent in this multifaith RE, it is seen by the majority as being both educational and relevant to the needs of primary school children in a modem western society, whatever cultural mix or lack of it exists in the school.     

World Religions Paradigm,legal system and education. The case of the Czech Republic

The article deals with the concept of religion in the laws which regulate access of religious organisations to public education in the Czech Republic. The analysis of the laws reveals that the World Religions Paradigm (WRP) is applied here. Religious organisations representing ‘important world religions’ have a privileged position in accessing public education. Mostly Christianity-based churches have access to public education through the legal notion of ‘special rights’ granted by the state. The article provides a concise review of the key points of criticism of the WRP. The paradigm is criticised as ethnocentric, inherently theological, developed with colonialism, undefinable in practice, highly abstract, essentialist and ahistorical. Its historical development is related to the process of reification as defined by W.C. Smith. The concluding part relates the criticism of the WRP to the concept of religion in the laws regulating the access of religious organisations to public education in the Czech Republic. The application of the WRP leads to restrictions of religious pluralism.     

Forum on teaching Asian religions in the American South

This series of three essays by educators from Georgia, Texas, and Alabama examines teaching Asian Religions in the American South. Through reflection on individual experience, each essay offers concrete strategies for the classroom that can be utilized by fellow educators working in the American South, but can also inform pedagogy in other North American regions. Introducing the idea of the “imagined student,” Esaki discusses teaching African American students and tailoring Asian religions courses towards their interests by producing positive buy‐in, while also acknowledging their potential isolation from White peers interested in similar topics. Mikles builds on Esaki's idea of the imagined student to discuss her own experience teaching Mexican and Vietnamese American students in Texas, while presenting specific strategies to overcome preconceived educator bias about students in Southern classrooms. Battaglia closes out the series by suggesting the use of a phenomenological approach for students to sympathetically enter into an Asian religious worldview. She offers specific exercises that can help students unpack their own assumptions – their “invisible backpack” – and approach Asian religions on their own terms.     

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: A Critical Reflection on the Trinitarian Theologies of Religion of S. Mark Heim and Gavin D'Costa

Abstract:  S. Mark Heim and Gavin D'Costa are two significant contemporary authors grounding a theology of religions in the doctrine of the Trinity. This article critically examines their respective interpretations of the doctrine of the Trinity, and their deployment of this doctrine in appreciation of religious difference. Heim, in his attempt to provide a theological validation for the world religions, departs from more traditional formulations of the Trinity. Ironically, this departure means that he fails to describe the world religions in their own particularity, that is, as they would describe themselves. D'Costa, by contrast, maintains a sound trinitarian position, and raises the question of Christian responsibility toward the world religions from precisely this theological grounding. He does not conceptualize the religions within a theological framework, but does demonstrate that engagement with the religions constitutes an obedient ecclesial response to the Trinity.     

What should religious education in Germany be about and how does religiosity fit into this picture? An empirical study of pre-service religious education teachers’ beliefs on the aims of RE

In secularising Germany the aim of religious education (RE) is under discussion. The churches opt for denominational education familiarising the students with their own religious tradition. Humanists claim an ethical education, giving students objective information about different religions. Which perspective do students who will become RE teachers take in this discussion? Does their religiosity affect this perspective? All over Germany 1828 first-year students (with an average age of 21; 81% females; 72% Catholic and 28% Protestant) completed a relevant questionnaire. The respondents favour a RE which offers objective information. Most of them are pluralist thinkers in religious terms and show a moderate religious practice. The more relativist the students are thinking in religious terms, the more they tend to favour objective information. These findings challenge the churches’ perspective on RE, because even future RE teachers do not agree with the churches’ ideal on RE. A reformulation of this approach on cognitive level will be discussed.     

Paradigm shift in religious education? A reply to Gearon,or when is a paradigm not a paradigm?

This article responds to Liam Gearon’s reply to my article Misrepresenting Religious Education’s Past and Present in Looking Forward: Gearon Using Kuhn’s Concepts of Paradigm, Paradigm Shift and Incommensurability. In maintaining my critique of Gearon’s use of Kuhn’s terminology, I question his claim that ‘incommensurability’ does not necessarily imply ‘incompatibility’, and challenge his view that ‘faith-based’ approaches to religious education and ‘inclusive’ approaches are incommensurable and deeply incompatible. I also question Gearon’s placement of particular scholars within his constructed paradigms, noting that those identified by Gearon with specific paradigms do not necessarily share the same views concerning the nature of religious education and its pedagogy, and that various scholars, associated by Gearon with particular paradigms, draw on a variety of disciplines in their work. I argue that Gearon’s construction of paradigms is a device he uses for ‘separation’, leading to his misrepresentation of the work of researchers. I argue for the benefits of collaboration, in research, teaching and policy development. Finally, I give reasons for writing the article, which do not result from any engagement in ‘paradigm wars’, and I draw attention to pressing issues relating to the future of ‘inclusive’ religious education which are not addressed by Gearon.     

Ecumenism between the world religions

Conclusion We seem then to be left with the fourth position outlined above as the best solution we have to the problem of religious diversity. No doubt this will be far too radical for some religious believers in that, while it allows a believer to hold that his or her religion has some kind of paradigmatic status it also admits that genuine religious developments may take place in other religions. On the other hand it will not be radical enough for other people who will see it as denying the integrity and autonomy of other religious ways and sanctioning some degree of religious exclusivity and intolerance in that, by seeing Christianity as having some essential core of truth that Buddhism lacks, I am claiming superiority for Christianity. And vice versa, if I claim that Buddhism is the privileged way of enlightenment, I am claiming superiority for Buddhismvisà-vis Christianity. Nevertheless, even if this position does notsolve the problem of religious diversity it does at least show which of the alternative solutions are finally untenable, both on religious and philosophical grounds. And it does provide a basis for genuine ecumenical dialogue between the world religions. Indeed, by recognising that a religious believer can hold that genuine developments of religious values may take place in other religions, it makes such dialogue absolutely necessary in much the same way as the Christian Churches have been led to see ecumenical dialogue as not merely an option but a necessity.     

Learning to Teach Islam as a Non‐Muslim in the Twin Cities

Abstract. In this essay I reflect on my experience thus far of teaching Islam as a non‐Muslim at Metropolitan State University and at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. I begin by narrating a conversation about conversion that I had with one of my Muslim students. Then I introduce the theme of multiplicity as a way of being, teaching, and learning. The third section illustrates the theme of multiplicity pedagogically with reference to institutional identity, choice of textbooks, topical organization of the course, the “mosque visit” assignment, and class composition and student roles in the classroom. I conclude in the fourth section with personal reflections on multiplicity in relation to credibility and identity, politics and transformation. The essay was inspired by my realization that I embody multiple religious identities, and that one of my purposes is to build community inside and outside the classroom in an effort not only to transcend the tendency of our culture to adopt an essentialist view of Islam as suspect and alien, but also to recover Islam as a universal religion and to consider its agenda for world transformation alongside those of other religions.     

Religion,Politics and Ethics: Towards a Global Theory of Social Transformation

In this paper I set out a phenomenology of social transformation, based on an analysis of the distinctively religious form of communication which underlies the trans-generational and trans-cultural transmission of world traditions, taking Confucianism and Christianity as their representatives. A phenomenological analysis of their communicative structure allows the possibility of a better understanding of what can be learnt from them in the context of contemporary debates in both China and the West on the relations between religion, ethics and politics. This analysis suggests that the ethical consistency of belief and act, which is the necessary condition for the engendering of long-term solidarity in religious community, has significant implications for ethics in politics, and especially for the legitimacy of representational leadership as a focal point for change in society. The paper concludes that the historical experience of world religions can offer new insights into the nature of political leadership and representation in today’s globalised world and that the appropriate locus for this inquiry is the present negotiation and re-negotiation of relations between China and the West.