This paper aims to offer a "liveable" theology for the Christian teacher; that is, it seeks to articulate a theology of teaching in contemporary contexts which can serve the spiritual and faith development of Christian teachers in their vocation. A first section gives some brief account of "teaching" in the Christian theological tradition,…

Discourse concerning the teaching of beliefs and values is often muddied because the two terms tend to be used interchangeably. It is argued that a preliminary stipulation of these and other terms which described various key moments in the process of teaching values, taking into account the interplay of psychological and ethical variables, will…

David Purpel, Professor Emeritus in the School of Education of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, delivered the keynote address at a conference hosted by the Kuyers Institute in October 2007. Entitled "Reimagining Educational Excellence," the conference explored how the call of Micah 6:8 can reframe our visions of educational…

The current quest for educational excellence in the United States is characterized by numerous well-intentioned caveats accompanied by several challenging barriers. In the present paradigm, the curriculum is preeminent; norms of excellence are predetermined; and an individualistic, competitive, "one-size-fits-all" approach prevails. In a…

Desiring to fulfill heir institution's mission to integrate faith and learning, faculty members at Christian colleges and universities often face a special challenge. While they attempt to jettison the anti-intellectual label often associated with evangelicals through their scholarship, they are also pursuing excellence in their roles as spiritual…

Bonhoeffer's "Life Together" describes disciplines for Christian formation. Based on communal life, these disciplines assist Christians to take seriously Christ's call to discipleship. This article describes the disciplines of dispersion and community, reading Scripture, prayer, solitude, discernment, service and confession. Disconnected from…

Faithful Christian engagement in education means both being at home and at odds with dominant culture. This stance of critical participation should produce an unbearable tension: can one both live in solidarity and dissent? Yet this unbearable tension is often not present in Christian experience--why? This article suggests four reasons: the…

Passionate religious commitment is often viewed as a problem in education because believers are thought to impose their views on others in the belief that they are public truth. This article examines two case studies and concludes that this concern is real. An influential response is to argue that religious commitment should therefore be a private…

A localized ethnography of African Christian students revealed consistently robust Christian faith across all respondents, the core elements of which were rooted in an explicit Afrocentric worldview. These findings support multicultural critiques of classic student spiritual development theory, and point toward further research from a…

This article reviews and explores the links between Chet Bowers' recent book on constructivist theories of learning and the paper by Gormas, Koole, and Vryhof on learning for reconciliation published in this journal (Spring 2006). The reviewer holds that Bowers' critique of constructivism has merit, but that his emphasis on eco-justice leaves gaps…

In earlier work on the hermeneutics of charity, the author explored the relevance of Augustine's insistence on charity in reading Scripture for interpreters of non-biblical texts. This article shows how one might bring such charitable reading into the classroom and reframe the teacher's task in its light. The article discusses some implications…

I suggest that, in universities, we often use the word "understanding" when we mean "overstanding". This is connected to relying on limited approaches to reading, ones that are forgetful of religious ways of reading. I offer a critical retrieval of religious ways of reading, practised in the past, and suggest how they might be included in the…

The confessions of Augustine of Hippo can be read as a lesson in reading, one in which Augustine teaches by example as well as precept. Throughout this work, the relationship between faith and reading is clearly on Augustine's mind, as is his desire to teach others what he has learned. As we consider our own approaches to the confluence of faith,…

This article explores some instances of students offering eccentric interpretations of literary texts under the apparent influence of elements of their Christian assumptions and identities. It suggests that rather than viewing such incidents in terms of either error or self-expression, it might be more fruitful to regard them as representing a…

World literature courses reflect both the academy's and the Christian community's interest in a global education, but what theoretical assumptions inform the teaching of world literature? The oft-cited rationale for cultural diversity may prove insufficient if it leads merely to the assertion of difference as a self-justifying good. This essay…