One of the primary aims of pastoral leadership education is to offer reflective processes that enable learners to surface, critique, and construct different epistemological conceptions of reality leading to more effective pastoral practice. In many pastoral leadership education programs, this type of intentional reflection usually takes place in a…

The Iliff School of Theology established a justice and peace concentration within its curriculum to respond to the challenges of racism, class and economic exploitation, sexism, and militarism by fostering social analysis and attending to the contributions of religious thought and resources to the struggles of social change. Within an institution…

Teaching theories and methods for the academic study of religion poses certain challenges, especially when first-year students are the primary targeted audience. In the following note from the classroom, the author describes a model for successfully employing the film "Fight Club" as a case study for exploring some of the theoretical concepts of…

Can one uphold a call from an ecclesiastical body while teaching in a college classroom? This paper will argue that the dual roles of pastor and professor can be integrated by the adoption of faith development as a learning goal. This goal seems to stand at odds with three important aspects of academic teaching: the demographic reality of…

With advances in information technology, the velocity of information production on the global level has expanded as well. This acceleration has led to the delegitimizing of knowledge, the equating of information with knowledge, and the giving of predominance to information rather than knowledge. This advance has created epistemological challenges…

Because religions discipline and interpret bodies; create and define sacred spaces; generate, adore and study images in all media; regulate the intake of food; structure temporal experience; and in general interpenetrate and are permeated by the cultural landscapes in which they exist, religious studies must engage material religion and religious…

Reformed Theological Seminary's Virtual Campus has successfully taught the biblical languages online since 1999. This article describes the theoretical principles that underlie the design and asynchronous delivery of online Greek and Hebrew to part-time adult distance students. The structure and administration of the courses is discussed, as well…

Students from different cultural backgrounds respond in a variety of ways to my teaching of biblical studies. Some sermonize or plagiarize quite unselfconsciously in their written assignments, while others consistently hand in work late or are silent members of the class. As I struggled with what these behaviors were saying about my teaching, I…

Adult-learning theory challenges faculty to adapt their teaching to certain characteristics of adult learners, including self-direction: if adults direct the bulk of their lives outside of school, they should be permitted to direct their own educational experiences. To what extent is self-directed learning an optimal, or even realistic,…

Over the past fifteen years in New Zealand, theology has come in from the tertiary educational cold in various ways. One of the results or reasons for this has been willingness on the part of the state to accredit and provide funding for theological education and research. This has taken place largely through a compliance system of accreditation…

This paper originated in a Wabash-funded colloquium organized by Richard Ascough and Leif Vaage, on the theme: "Teaching the Bible for Leadership in the United Church of Canada." Professors teaching biblical studies at United Church seminaries and theological schools met over three years to share pedagogy, things that have worked and not worked in…

Emerging from the particular experiences of the marginalized, postmodern pedagogies (bell hooks, Paolo Freire, feminist pedagogies) argue that education is more than conveying information from teacher to student. Rather education should encompass the transformative process of shaping character, values, and politics through the dynamic interaction…

The article begins with two brief theoretical descriptions of a pedagogy of desire vis-a-vis the Christian Bible. The first of these is a poem; the second summarizes the conversation constituted by four quite different books: the "Confessions" by Augustine of Hippo, "Freud & Philosophy" by Paul Ricoeur, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire,…

The authors discuss the complexities and responsibilities of teaching about Daoism in contemporary North American colleges and universities. Expanding and revising the findings of Kirkland (1998), they argue that enough has changed in educational and cultural contexts to warrant new strategies for teaching about Daoism. Textbooks are now available…

A discussion about how instructors can host a hospitable online learning environment can address one of the fundamental philosophical and theological concerns frequently expressed about online learning--the loss of face-to-face interaction and, with it, the loss of community building (cf. Delamarter 2005, 138). This perceived link between physical…