Hermeneutical religious positions among Muslim educators vary in flexibility and openness to critical thought. Those within a school community may disagree on how Islam should be interpreted and practiced. In the light of this, who determines which expressions of the faith are acceptable in particular locations, and how? And what messages do these…

According to literature, the classic "paideia" ideal, that is, the ideal of the well-rounded, fully educated, rational human being, has survived to this day, despite many historical and socio-cultural influences that impacted on it through the millennia. In the process, it has to a considerable extent retained its rationalistic bias, but…

Should the state provide religious education in public schools; if yes, what form should it take? I argue that alertness to epistemic injustices that religious persons can suffer can help us answer those questions and can provide grounds for fostering religious literacy. I argue that, if religious persons can suffer testimonial injustice, we…

A hermeneutic-communicative model of religious education is proposed which is grounded in a Christian anthropology. The human person is presented as a 'fragile hermeneutical space'--consisting of a radical openness to reality, an essential indeterminateness and an ability to transcend his or her own reality. This means that people have an inbuilt…

Women are born to be leaders, yet there still have been many disputations which grounding their arguments based on Al-Qur'an and Sunnah. However, the study on women's leadership needs to be reconstructed arguing that the traditional interpretations are no longer suitable in this changing times. Hence, this paper aims at advocating women position…

This study is about Jerusalem in the Bible and Al Quran based on eschatological paradigm (theology/philosophy), which uses two approaches: sociology (geographical and anthropological history analysis) and interpretation (hermeneutical analysis and bil ma'tsur interpretation). Jerusalem is the name of the Holy City of the Abrahamic Religions. This…

A key epistemological assumption in the ideologies of many of the groups termed extremist is that there is an unmediated access to a Divine Will. Driven by this assumption, and facilitated by several other factors, a range of coercive actions (including violence) to force others into submission to the perceived Will of God are seen as justified by…

Each nation has its motto, "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" is the motto of the Indonesian nation which first appeared in the Sutasoma Text written by Mpu Tantular. The purpose of this study is to find the character values that exist in the motto. This study uses a hermeneutic approach and follows the research steps of Paul Ricoeur. The primary…

Thomas Groome suggests good teaching begins with experience in particular times and places. His work focuses on a community that is "losing" many of its members at this particular time and in places like the United States. This article suggests the hermeneutic central to shared praxis provides a helpful lens through which to understand…

This theoretical essay outlines the hermeneutic of Divine relationship, a theological lens through which Christians can develop a deeper appreciation for God's inherently relational nature and desire to be in relationship with all of humanity. In addition to the nature of God, this hermeneutic highlights the nature of human persons, sin and…

This paper addresses the tensions animating Alice Walker's fame and infamy as it pertains to Christianity and Black feminists who identify as womanists--a term originated by Walker and adopted by Black Feminist Theologians almost immediately. It asks: who is God in the womanist discourse of Alice Walker? The essay claims Walker's oeuvre offers a…

This qualitative study investigates the knowledge about the Bible and the skills required for biblical interpretation as imparted by three textbooks for Norwegian upper secondary religious education (RE). The multidimensional theoretical framework combines models from biblical hermeneutics and RE. One model distinguishes between the worlds behind,…

"Study" is recently re-invoked as an alternative educational formation to disrupt the learning trap and trope. This paper calibrates "study" and "learning" as two hermeneutic principles and correlates them with "seeing," "hearing," and "observing" as three onto-epistemic modes that…

The argument of this article assumes that religious literacy is urgently needed in the present geopolitical context. Its urgency increases the more religion is viewed in opposition to criticality, as though religion entails an irrational and inviolable commitment, or leap of faith. This narrow view of religion is reinforced by certain rather…

Though personhood formation is often perceived as an important aim of Christian education, there is little clarity about how the concept can be understood from a Christian perspective. Furthermore, teachers lack the tools to nourish the development of students' personhood. In this article, we develop a framework that aims to fill these gaps. The…