Abstract: Islam, as one of the most important religions of the world, has particular and significant educational views. The purpose of this article is to extract and interpret Islam's view of education. Using classic texts and the author's scholarship, Islamic education is defined as a form of religious education drawing humans near to God and God's purposes. In particular, the educational values that are central to Islamic education are clarified. In this way, the author hopes to advance Islamic education as an important element in the conversation about religious education.

Abstract: This article identifies different types of religious education, as different countries and cultures provide different rationales for the appearance or non-appearance of religion in the curriculum of their public schools. It examines the nature of indoctrination and four principal ways in which indoctrination operates. The possibility of secular indoctrination is identified, along with the extent to which one type of religious education might be conceived as an antidote against it. It concludes that education about religion(s), as one type of religious education, is entirely consistent with democratic education in the public square.

Abstract: The last decade identity is often and very fruitfully conceptualized as “narrative identity.” Neither for individuals nor for groups is identity a given beforehand anymore. On the contrary, identity has to be constructed in an inductive way continuously. Three qualitative research methods are applied to explore in an inductive way the school's narrative identity, combining the individual and the group processes of narrative identity construction. Our data reveal a close relationship between autobiographical critical incidents in teachers' and principals' commitment to the school's identity.

Abstract: Learning is both experiential and existential and a theory of learning is examined here in considerable detail to show how we interpret religious experiences. This learning provides the basis of theological systems although it is argued here that we cannot learn religious experience, only interpretations that provide us with mediated religious experience. These interpretations usually come from within a culture or a faith community. The interpretations, when they are shared, are secondary experiences: they constitute the basis of theological explanations, which are then taught. But teaching religion academically creates a tension between approaches to study, faith, and experience that has to be resolved in a satisfactory manner.

Abstract: This article presents a rationale as well as a proposal for a religious literacy curriculum in U.S. public high schools. Relying on the Religious Education curriculum currently in use in the United Kingdom, the authors sketch a religious literacy curriculum designed to help students thrive in a pluralistic and democratic society. In order to help young citizens develop the skills, dispositions, and knowledge to thrive in an increasingly global, pluralistic, and democratic society, they need to become religiously literate. For students to be religiously literate they must learn to respect the religious other as well as understand the role of religions in contributing to civic life.

Abstract: Religious Education (RE) is an entitlement for all pupils in state-funded schools in England and Wales. The parental right of withdrawal is rarely invoked. Given the multi-faith nature of British s...

Abstract: A research study surveyed 946 volunteers from congregations who were actively involved in community service, as well as 3,959 other congregational attenders who were not involved in volunteer service, to understand the relationship between service learning and faith development. Findings show that service-learning is powerfully related to a mature faith and to other faith practices such as prayer, Bible study, and worship. Authors explore the characteristics of service-learning that strengthen its contribution to the faith life of volunteers. These findings have important implications for how religious educators and community leaders structure service-learning experiences. The authors conclude that leaders who want to nurture the life of faith need to consider service-learning to be at the core rather than elective in congregational life. 1 1We are grateful to our colleagues Beryl Hugen, Paula Sheridan, Michael Sherr, and David Sherwood who were our partners in this project. This project was fund...

Abstract: My Christian colleagues in Religious Education and practical theology may well wonder why I have seemingly wandered into another academic arena. True, my last four books have concerned Christian–Je...

Abstract: My Lincoln high school lunch table was a bit unusual. On most days, the table included an ethnically diverse group of African Americans, Latinos, Anglos, and Asian Americans, but this was not unusual for my inner city Seattle school. Religiously, the table included Christians (both Protestant and Roman Catholic), Jews, Buddhists, an avowed atheist, a Mormon, and a Hindu that, truth be told, was not all that unusual for my school either. What was unusual was that on many days our conversations focused on our various religious belief systems. We would often have heated and passionate discussions about our differences and similarities. Indeed, all of us were somewhat “theological nerds” both fascinated by others’ beliefs and practices and equally convicted that our own was truly the best. In this way, while we engaged one another in conversation about our different faiths, we really were trying to be persuasive in hopes of convincing the others that our way of seeing God was the right one. Interfaith conversation was certainly taking place but interfaith dialogue? Not really. This distinction is critical in a reading of Building the Interfaith Youth Movement edited by Eboo Patel and Patrice Brodeur. In their introduction to the book, the two editors/writers draw on Harvard professor Diana Eck’s claim of a new religious landscape in the United States. Together, they highlight four possible responses to this new religious landscape. One response is religious extremism characterized by bigotry and bias. A second response is to view religion as a private matter and therefore to not engage it. A third response is to engage religion as each individual’s choice without critical reflection and without seeing how one’s religious views relate to and affect others. Finally, a fourth response is to recognize the importance religion plays in all facets of the individual and the society and therefore to approach this new religious landscape with intention and thoughtful engagement seeking understanding and even cooperation. The two editors/writers and the other authors of the 24 chapters favor this last approach and illustrate it as they describe contexts of interfaith youth work, the history of international interfaith organizations, interfaith

Abstract: Reflecting from the Philippine experience, this article explores an emerging picture that characterizes contemporary Bible reading attitudes of college students. Six new attitude factor definitions are developed following the development of the Bible Reading (BR) attitude scale for college students constructed by this author in a separate study. Through empirical procedures, the pre-tested scale produced six new attitude factor definitions that displaced the nine original pre-test attitude sub-factors. Their Bible reading attitudes are described in terms of motivation, reading preference, and acquaintance. This research provides practitioners with useful attitudinal dimensions for youth formation particularly in biblical formation and religious education.

Abstract: Culture and tradition are two highly contested concepts in religious education. Grounding their theoretical contribution in concrete practice, the authors begin with a report on a summer camp with young adults and analyze that experience in light of concepts of culture and tradition, focusing on participation and transformation as two core characteristics. Finally, the relationship of culture and tradition and religious education is dealt with using a Peircean, abductive line of interpretation as an alternative way of understanding the dynamic relationship of culture and tradition.

Abstract: During my academic career I have tried to answer the question, “What should the appropriate place be for religion in the public schools of a liberal, pluralistic, democratic state?” As a way of cha...

Abstract: This article examines currere (a method for autobiographical reflection proposed by William Pinar) as a helpful framework for reflecting on religious educational experiences from a subjective and narrative perspective. The author suggests that this process is important for contemporary religious education as it provokes reflection on the relationships between academic knowledge, a person's life of faith, and the ways these overlap with church and society. Using thick description as a form of story telling, the author models this method as a practice of critical analysis that provides transformative insights for theory and practice in religious education.

Abstract: This article explores the interaction between the work and lives of five religious qualitative researchers whose research studies investigate both culture and religion. The ways their personal backgrounds, experiences, and values affect their choice of research topics and their relationships with research participants and with data, are revealed through the stories they tell about their work. Implications are drawn both for the conduct of qualitative, cultural study and for religious education.

Abstract: He who knows himself knows his Lord. The teachers' task is not to convey their knowledge but to kindle their pupils' minds. That has always been my view. Can there be greater education than making ...

Abstract: This article describes the inter-cultural education movement in the United States in the years 1940 to 1960. Drawing on material found in Religious Education and other sources, it focuses in a special way on the contribution that religious educators made to this movement. The article presents the social analyses made by religious educators, the stated theoretical bases for their engagement, and a description of noteworthy practices in inter-cultural education and religious education. The article concludes that this movement paved the way for the somewhat broader movement that began in the 1960s and continues to this day.

Abstract: This book review will examine and evaluate a number of books with regards to Muslim Education in the contemporary Western world. It will look at how the various books highlight and deal with (1) the growing awareness of the impact of Islamic education as an integral part of a young European Muslim's identity and its affect on the local and the larger community and (2) the necessity to try to engage with a new definition of Islamic education and its practice outside the traditional Muslim world.

Abstract: This article investigates the joint losses of food and religious culture in the African-American community, which has had a significant impact on the African-American community. Beginning with a historical perspective on the role of food in both a religious and cultural context, the article offers an analysis of why the dual losses have occurred, identifies the consequences of the losses, and suggests strategies for redressing the problem.

Abstract: This article examines the Rev. Dr. Letty M. Russell's feminist liberation approach to educating for justice by reviewing the major themes in her writings. Educating for justice was rooted in Russell's life and ministry, namely, a sense of God's mission to reconcile and mend the world; partnership as sharing in God's mission to effect justice; and hospitality as a means of welcoming all to the table of fellowship and of life. Russell used an action/reflection model that is based in experience, draws on Scripture and theology, and works toward transformation. Her experience of being marginalized—as a Christian educator and then as a woman pastor in East Harlem where she learned firsthand how injustice and oppression marginalized her parishioners—developed into a concern for and solidarity with those on the margins of society. Letty Russell dedicated her life to achieving justice and celebrating the reign of God in our midst. In effect, educating for justice was at the core of Letty Russell's life a...

Abstract: Ego identity and intimacy are two sequential stages, according to Erikson's theory. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between ego identity and intimacy, as two continuous multidimensional variables among religious and non-religious individuals. Eight sample groups (age × gender × religious observance) comprising 308 subjects responded to The Adolescent's Ego Identity Scale (AEIS) (Tzuriel 1974; 1984; 1992a) and to The Sharabany Intimacy Scale (1974). There was a difference in the ego identity variables' predictive profile for the various intimacy dimensions and the general intimacy score among the religious groups and among the non-religious groups, both for the two age groups (adolescents and adults) and for the two genders. A characterization of each group results from understanding these differential relationships. This research was conducted under the auspices of Orot Israel College.

Abstract: Creative engagement is a vital component of the courses I teach. Along with a critical reading of the required texts and other related sources, I encourage students to share from their personal exp...

Abstract: Mary Perkins Ryan remains one of the least recognized of the twentieth-century figures in the modern renewal of Catholic education in the United States. The reasons are many but none satisfactory. Ryan was an intellectual without a scholarly credential. She was an educator without an affiliation to an academic institution. She was a leading voice for professional standards in church religious education without ever serving in either a parish or diocesan role. Ryan worked alongside the giants of twentieth-century Catholic educational history—Gerard Sloyan, Johannes Hofinger, Gabriel Moran, Berard Marthaler, Maria Harris, Gloria Durka, and Thomas Groome. Their shadow cast long and may be the reason why despite her leadership in the American liturgical movement and her visionary stance on adult religious education, Ryan still remains on the margins of Catholic educational history. The purpose of this article is to illustrate how Ryan's intellectual corpus, which includes twenty-four authored works a...

Abstract: With high rates of out-marriage and dwindling need for bilingual worship, Japanese-American churches face a critical question: “Why retain the Japanese part of our identity?” This article explores how one layperson (Naomi Takahashi Goto) draws from her experience as an artist, teacher, and mother to help her congregation answer this question. Through play and Japanese artifacts, she equips church members to construct a theology that reaffirms their identity as Japanese-American Christians. By engaging in artistic play, the congregation experiences true selves that can gracefully hold in tension Christian faith, Japanese ancestry, and American culture.

Abstract: The transformational perspective of religious education compels its practitioners with the collective hope that in passing on the faith, from one generation to the other and among contemporaries, another possible world may be forged. As religious educators we have chosen to participate of this task of faith sharing and human transformation with a form of scholarship and practice that is conceptually paradoxical. As educators, rightly concerned with objectives, the handling of the resources of time and space, developmentally appropriate experiences, and evaluative frameworks, we are the crafters of what is possible. Nevertheless, as religious people we strive to immerse learners’ imaginations in the transcendental reflection of things that are not yet, but are worth pursuing because of their value, because of what they evoke in us, because they irradiate beauty and provide meaning, because they point to the existence of an un-masterable “Other” that escapes our grasp, holding us in continuous wonder. For these reasons we may also be considered the inciters of the impossible. Whenever we explore grand themes like justice, liberation, peace, egalitarian relations, faithful community, or responsible co-existence with creation, we are about conveying the possibility of the impossible. The more I ponder about this paradox, the more I am convinced that the ideal location where the possible and impossible can co-exist is in the realm of the oneiric. Consequently, as religious educators we may be rightly considered dreamers, and everything we communicate is a mere narrative representation of what we dream for. Therefore, it may be fundamental to our practice not only to share the stories that surface naturally into our consciousness when we speak about faith, but also our more recurrent dreams. Religious educators may be responsible, like many seers in sacred texts, of holding up in memory the buried images of those subconscious visions we call dreams that, while sleeping, keep us awake. One of my most vivid and recurrent dreams projects a large empty theatrical stage. Outside the stage I can hear the undistinguishable

Abstract: This article sets Dorothy Bass' Christian practices movement in critical dialogue with U.S. Latina/o popular religion in order to explore ways that these distinctive sets of practices could enrich one another. Then, it focuses on shaping communities as a Christian practice and correlates it with the U.S. Latina/o popular religious practices enacted by a predominantly Mexican-American congregation in East Los Angeles, California. It concludes by examining the implications for U.S. Latina/o religious education in light of Jose Irizarry-Mercado's concepts of bilingual aesthetic and inter-cultural experience.

Abstract: Christian Religious Education recognizes the crisis in perception caused by eroding cosmologies and engages persons in the reformulating of Christian stories that negate a limiting materialism perpetuating consumerism destructive to life. A course is developed for theological students in which they may become aware of cosmology and its New Story, discern how it may be intentionally incorporated into the education of faith communities, use tools for creating curriculum, and generate methodologies for transformative learning. The course embodies the implications of current cosmology activating a partnership of learning through embodied knowing, conceptual imaging, visceral experience, and somatic learning.

Abstract: This article considers Christian Education in parishes from a learning community perspective, outlines some of the leadership requirements, and offers two practical exercises for workshop use.

Abstract: This article describes the impact of sustained professional development programs in two Jewish congregational schools. This research suggests that contrary to common assumptions, part-time teachers in Jewish congregational schools will invest time in professional development when it is of high quality, interactive and engaging and based at their school. These programs have significantly affected teacher collegiality, knowledge of pedagogy and Jewish content, and reflection about teachers' own teaching practices and practice of Judaism. The role of the educational leader is a salient feature of the program success.

Abstract: Women's stories often have unplanned vocational twists. In oral histories with thirty-four women from diverse contexts, Moore discovers the power of narration to reveal and shape women's vocational journeys. Analysis uncovers qualities of the women's journeys: facing unexpected turns; trusting spiritual-intuitive knowing; analyzing and responding to social contexts; standing for justice; committing to make a difference; helping others be who they can be; building bridges; practicing hospitality; valuing women's communities; caring for self; and practicing humor. By clustering these qualities, five narrative processes emerge. The corresponding educational practices are valuable for religious educators who engage with people in vocational discernment.