The author believes that a deep sense of spirituality together with effective Christian education can be a powerful resource for equipping individuals and communities to play an active role in transforming their lives as well as oppressive systems that have impacted their communities. In her discussion of spirituality, womanist ethicist Emilie…

Recognition is the main word attached to multicultural perspectives. The multicultural call for recognition, the one calling for the recognition of cultural minorities and identities, the one now voiced by liberal states all over and also in Israel was a more difficult one. It took the author some time to realize that calling for the recognition…

True freedom and true peace are cousins, but they can only work together if the freedom of one people is seen in relation to the freedom of another. Struggles for freedom and peace can only enhance each other if the peace people seek is a robust harmony in which conflict is embraced and people are encouraged to imagine a far stronger freedom and…

In this article, the author begins by talking about power and his early vocational discernment. He continues by sharing his ongoing vocational discernment and religious education for liberation. Over the past twenty years the author has worked for a Catholic diocese and two Catholic universities. He has also done significant volunteer work in…

Historian of religions Charles Long uses the term "American cultural language" to identify discursive challenges to democracy and social justice in the Unites States. The American cultural language, Long says, is the "misinterpretation" of humanness and freedom conveyed when the term "American"--used to signify citizens of the United States--is…

The very complicated nature of interpretation, in general, and ambiguities involved in Derrida's writings, in particular, makes it very difficult to hold what Derrida means by deconstruction. As Biesta and Miedema (2011, 105) state: "One of the main challenges here is to get the interpretation of Derrida's writings 'right.'" Surely, by putting…

Reflective engagement in reciprocal community partnerships holds tremendous potential for guiding members of congregations through the process of "re-acculturation." One of the "best practices" named in research about community-engaged learning for undergraduates is "re-acculturation"--an ongoing process of critical reflection about one's own…

In the secular age religious education and citizenship education could and should be fruitfully combined. That is the present authors' view on current developments in schools aiming at the strengthening and the flourishing of students' personal religious identity. Presupposition is that religious identity needs to be interpreted as an integral…

The question whether the writings of Jacques Derrida have anything to offer for religious education is, in the authors' opinion, a very important one. In their attempts at answering the question, the authors have tried to argue that the writings of Derrida provide openings that speak to both theology and education in a way that is not only…

"Saved!" is the first Hollywood movie to focus on private religious education and is therefore a significant milestone in popular culture. The movie is critical of the school along the very dimensions of concern to Brighouse (2006): undermining personal autonomy, fostering social divisiveness, and promoting anti-democratic values. This article is…

The article argues that even though deconstruction has indications for action in religious education, the action should be subordinated to the notion of deconstruction as event. Three strategies can be used in the curriculum of religious education inspired by deconstruction. The first strategy is to emphasize the spirit of religion as different…

The argument of this article is that the recent writing of Jurgen Habermas concerning the boundary of public reason offers the following advantages over the classic "liberal proviso": (1) It releases religious citizens from an undue cognitive burden; (2) It distributes the cognitive burden of justification symmetrically across the citizenry; and…

This article offers a response to two provocative questions about the relationship of theology to religious education posed by Norma Thompson in her Presidential address given at the annual meeting of APRRE in 1978. I offer contemporary answers to these questions from the perspective of a theological educator. First, I show how feminist theory and…

A key concept in contemporary Catholic educational discourse makes a distinction between religious education and catechesis. This distinction is based on the assumptions of faith commitment on the part of catechesis and the focus on cognitive outcomes on the part of religious education. Many official documents on Canadian Catholic school…

This article responds to sociologist Christian Smith's claim that many teenagers today have lost traditional religious faith and instead espouse a new and erroneous faith in God the "Cosmic Therapist." The author challenges this claim by comparing two of Smith's chief complaints vis-a-vis teen faith to established portraits of adolescent faith.…