Text and Context: the Passion of the Christ and Other Jesus Films

Looking back on his vocational journey, the author explores three “conversations” among academic and local church religious educators originating in teaching practice that culminate in a discussion of religious education as a field of study. These conversations focus attention on teaching in the transformation of persons and communities, on community as context and agency of teaching, and on public life as the setting for teaching to live responsibly into the providential intent of God. From this perspective religious education is described as an inherently theological practice emerging from the engagement of teachers and students in faith communities at the edges of our collective ignorance of the “intent of God” and at the intersection of our various religious traditions.     

CHURCH WORKERS IN STATE UNIVERSITIES

This paper presents a theological base identified as a Christ‐with‐culture stance and its implications for religious education in Japan as a multireligious society. Affirming multiple revelations of God in various religious traditions, a Christ‐with‐culture stance recognizes Christ as the “Christian criterial revelation” to discern truths of God. Japanese Christians can employ Buddhist and Shinto traditions in the Christian worship service as a part of their own religious traditions and participate in different religious ceremonies to share a common life with non‐Christians, thus integrating their identity as religious multilingual persons who can be bridges between people of diverse religions.     

论犹太民族崇智主义读书传统的形成与演变

犹太人的读书传统是犹太文化的重要组成部分。犹太人在漫长的历史中形成了一种宗教崇智主义读书传统,其实质是为上帝而读书,而宗教律法中对于教育义务的规定以及犹太教社会采取的其他种种措施保证了该读书传统得以形成和延续。在启蒙运动后,他们的读书由为上帝读书变成了为个人自己、为民族而读书,宗教崇智主义传统变成世俗崇智主义传统,在精神上读书成为一种世俗意义上的信仰,在实际中成为“走出去”“融入主流”“往上走”的途径。从犹太民族发展史来看,大体而言,犹太人的读书、教育热情与他们所在地的城镇化、产业转型以及他们自身职业的转变构成一种正向促进的互动关系。分析犹太崇智主义读书传统的形成与演变,能带给我们许多有益的启示。     

论伊甸神话对卡夫卡创作的影响

《圣经》中的伊甸神话对犹太作家卡夫卡有着深刻影响．其小说即是对亚当夏娃被逐出伊甸因后人类命运的思考。这可从人物的违禁、罪感及受到的驱逐、死亡等惩罚中得到印证。上帝与人的关系是卡夫卡思考的重心。在二者间存有鸿沟的情况下，他推崇信仰方式的个性化，即走向上帝的救赎之路。卡夫卡有着较强的宗教意识。不从宗教角度出发我们将难以读懂其作品。     

Religious Education: The Depth of the Field

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-à-vis teen faith to established portraits of adolescent faith. The comparison reveals that despite differences significant continuities exist between adolescent faith “then” and “now,” a finding that underscores the inherently (but not exclusively) developmental nature of religious faith. The article concludes by affirming Christian Religious Education as a dynamic process of bringing “life to faith and faith to life” with humility, compassion, and hope.     

教师道德发展的身体沉沦与救赎

身体在教师道德发展中的迷失主要体现为圣化的身体、规训的身体和殉道的身体。身体作为教师道德发展存在和发生的基础,可从身体主体、身体认知、身体体验等方面彰显丰富的道德意蕴。实现身体救赎的教师道德发展要注重从"离身"到"具身"的转变,要注重从"成神"到"成身"的转变,要注重从"蔽身"到"显身"的转变。     

Research in Religious Education: Content and Methods for the Postmodern and Global Era

This article presents an overview of how “Christian religious education” as a “polydoxical” discipline is being taught, based on a survey of 24 syllabi of graduate courses offered by scholars teaching in Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, and Catholic theological schools. The review offers an account of how the scholars frame the discipline in four dimensions: (1) how they define the nature and purpose of CRE; (2) how they describe and interpret the environment(s) for teaching and learning; (3) how they frame the “canon” of the discipline through texts and topics; and (4) the methods of teaching and learning employed.     

The Service of the Association∗

This article begins with an acknowledgment of the complexities of religion's position in the English school system that open it to diverse interpretations. It uses research in a variety of schools to illustrate three different approaches to religion: doxological, sacramental, and instrumental, founded, respectively, on certain faith in God, on openness to the possibility of God, and on a default scepticism. The contested nature of religion's place in schooling is acknowledged and, in response, both secular and religious reasons are given for hearing religious voices in the educational sphere. The argument is made that an equitable religious-and-secular settlement is dependent on “religiously understood” religion being allowed into the conversation. The relationship between penultimate and ultimate is used to analyze each of the three approaches for their engagement with “religiously understood” religion and their contributions to religious and secular understanding.     

《红字》中阿瑟·丁梅斯代尔的赎罪历程

阿瑟·丁梅斯代尔是《红字》中一个非常重要的角色,是作品“救赎”主旨的集中体现者。面对罪孽,丁梅斯代尔挣扎于人性与神性的冲突中,最终在上帝恩典的感召下认罪悔过,以生命的代价获得了灵魂的救赎。本文将丁梅斯代尔推向前台,通过剖析其赎罪历程来阐释作品的主题思想。     

Vision and Optimism: Empowering New Educators

Abstract

When people of faith participate in movements for social change, how are their religious and moral identities formed, challenged, and transformed? Although they have explicit and tangible goals as they participate in advocacy, protest, and boycotts, religious social activists also, James Jasper argues, craft “lives worth living” (1997). This article examines the identity-shaping power of religious participation in social movements, in conversation with scholarship in religious education and social movement theory; describes the relationship between social activism and theological imagination; and proposes some explicit practices for nurturing religious and moral formation.     

CONGREGATION AS EDUCATOR: PROBLEM AND POSSIBILITY FOR THE PROFESSIONAL CHURCH EDUCATOR

This essay examines movements in history that have shaped the field of religious education and the contextual realities of Asia. The plurality of influences also means a plurality of forms in which the field can and should take shape—in terms of contents, approaches and methodologies. The author argues for reclaiming a “more holistic approach” to religious and theological education that explicitly embraces the plurality of faiths in contemporary Asia.     

President's Introduction: Religious Education for Peace and Justice

This article gives an overview of “practical theology” as an emerging paradigm, and discusses problems and possibilities in using the paradigm for religious education of “Generation X” in a postmodern context. The article posits that a postmodern sensibility does not imply the cognitive capacity for a truly postmodern style of meaning‐making. Drawing on Robert Kegan and the author's teaching experience with young adults, the article raises the caution that Generation X may not be prepared developmentally for postmodern educational approaches. Possibilities for using practical theological elements such as story, playfulness, and making connections are raised in relation to this age‐group.     

Cowboys,Angels, and Demons: American Exceptionalism and the Frontier Myth in the CW's Supernatural

The CW network series Supernatural (2005–) draws its text from the horror and fantasy genres as well as religious mythology. Concurrently, it transmits a core “American” mythos. As its protagonists keep watch along a supernatural frontier and eradicate threats to the American way of life, this program both reinforces and alters aspects of the frontier myth and the myth of American exceptionalism by depicting its main characters as representations of America writ large whose mission has grown from an appointment by God to being equals to God. In this manner, Supernatural forwards a new American exceptionalism through the notion that America is exceptional because it is not just divinely appointed by God, but is divine itself.     

MUSIC IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL∗

One task facing adult religious education is to become more intentional in understanding homosexuality and homosexual persons, to the end that these persons might find religious groups to be more open and accepting and that religious persons of good will might become more articulate allies of homosexual persons in the larger society. The paper proposes a curricular design built upon Maria Harris's model for “fashioning a people.” The proposal is intended to be a framework by which professional religious educators are enabled to evaluate existing resources and to plan curricular strategies in light of their own theological understandings.

     

Moving Bodies: Kenneth Burke at the Edges of Language

In 1923 the emerging Chinese advocates for the development of science successfully launched a war against the so‐called “metaphysical ghosts,” who believed that science was inadequate to address the fundamental questions of human life. An important and far‐reaching spiritual effect of this “holy war” was to give rise to an attitude of religious zealotry toward the worship of science in China, a nation that had not yet experienced the baptism of science in the early twentieth century. This essay explores one profound source of this spiritual appeal by examining the campaign for science in the context of the Chinese tradition of Dao‐discourse and by viewing this campaign as an estimable effort to maintain this sacred form of discourse. This approach has implications for an ignored study of the rhetoric of scientific popularization in a cross‐cultural context.     

Children's Theory of God's Mind: Theory-of-Mind Studies and Why They Matter to Religious Education

Theory-of-mind research has been carried out for over three decades, examining the ways children understand the minds of others—their perspectives, intentions, desires, and knowledge. Since the early 21st century, theory-of-mind studies have begun exploring the ways in which children think and reason about the minds—not only of ordinary, visible figures such as humans or animals—but of invisible figures such as spirits, angels, imaginary friends, and God. This growing body of research provides insight into children's cognitive development generally, but also into what could be called a “theory of religious mind.”     

THE CHURCH AND THE CITY

Abstract

This article mingles stories and concepts of young Jewish Israeli children about God, with reflections on the roles of faith, memory, imagination, and cognitive development in children's Religious Education. The stories are meant to illustrate, among other things, the purity and innocence of young children's faith, which is largely untroubled by fact. Then, using Vygotsky's notions of children's spontaneous concepts and the development of more mature and accurate conceptions in the “zone of proximal development,” a central dilemma in Religious Education will be explored. How can religious educators help young people acquire accurate historical information, textual skills, and theological methods of inquiry, while at the same time nurturing the precious flame of faith? Can we do better at combining systematic learning with pure faith? Toward this purpose, three complementary goals of Religious Education will be suggested: cognitive, practical/moral, and spiritual.     

Christian religious education and the development of moral virtues: a neo-Thomistic approach

ABSTRACT

This article explores the implications for Christian religious education of the theory of moral virtues formulated by Thomas Aquinas and developed by the contemporary Neo-Thomists. The analysis is divided into two parts. The first part introduces Thomistic virtue theory and presents cardinal virtues crucial for Thomistic ethics: prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, as the reference points for moral education. This part also includes analysis of the relationship between cardinal and theological virtues, leading to the conclusion that Christian religious education also requires the development of theological virtues. The second part explores, through Thomistic theory, what factors condition the development of a person’s moral character (i.e. his/her moral virtues) and what those factors mean for supporting moral education within Christian religious education, initially within the context of Polish schooling. Particular attention is given to three issues: introducing the concept of responsibility for community members, introducing knowledge of moral virtues, and building a relationship with God.