Christian Higher Education: An Education that Liberates

In this wide-ranging review essay, the author engages Christian Higher Education: A Global Reconnaissance, a book edited by J. Carpenter, P. L. Glanzer, and N. S. Lantinga (2014). His remarks focus especially on the five chapters of the book that survey Christian higher education in nations where he has direct experience: Brazil, Kenya, India, South Korea, and the United States. An extended reflection, both philosophical and practical, is then offered on a common task of Christian higher education across many cultures: how to develop and sustain a holistic education that promotes Kingdom prospering, above and beyond national and commercial purposes. He makes the case for a liberating education that seeks to instill a dynamic combination of integrative thinking and character formation. The essay ends with practical advice as the author encourages fellow educators to focus their efforts on faculty development, general education, and cross-cultural partnerships as the keys to building and sustaining a liberating education.     

基督教的教育思想探析

在坚持人性本恶的前提下,基督教发展出一整套教育思想体系,这种教育思想在现代西方社会乃至世界范围都有深远影响。介绍并剖析基督教教育思想,揭示这一教育思想体系中的内在精神,肯定这种人类古老教育思想中对现代教育具有启示作用的合理部分,在父母针对孩子道德教育的方面具有一定的实际意义。     

基督教人文主义教育和利玛窦的基督教人文主义思想

耶稣会基督教人文主义教育的特点是神学和科学的结合 ,它使利玛窦成为具有人文主义思想和理性主义思想、具备了丰富的知识和良好的文化素养的传教士。利玛窦的基督教人文主义思想 ,集中地体现在他对异族文化的充分尊重和超越宗教神学领域的宽阔的文化视野———理解、尊重和赞美中华文明的“中国观”。     

Christian Education and the Image of the Pharisees

In this article the author presents ways in which one problem in intergroup relations may be handled by writers of Protestant church school materials. This is based on his intensive analysis of curriculum materials for their intergroup content in the Yale Intergroup Research Project.     

Effective Antenatal Education: Strategies Recommended by Expectant and New Parents

Antenatal education is a crucial component of antenatal care, yet practice and research demonstrate that women and men now seek far more than the traditional approach of a birth and parenting program attended in the final weeks of pregnancy. Indeed, women and men participating in this study recommended a range of strategies to be provided during the childbearing year, comparable to a “menu in a restaurant.” Their strategies included three program types: “Hearing Detail and Asking Questions,” “Learning and Discussing,” and “Sharing and Supporting Each Other.” The characteristics of each type of program are identified in this article. The actual learning methods the study participants recommended to be incorporated into the programs were “Time to Catch Up and Focus,” “Seeing and Hearing the Real Experience,” “Practicing,” and “Discovering.”     

The Table: Christian Education as Performative Art

Children and young people have the inalienable right to be part of a learning community. Nobody can learn on his/her own. Education is always a communal enterprise. In this article the concept of the “spiritual learning community” is developed as a contemporary answer to the socioeducational issues raised by Martin Buber and John Dewey in the 1930s. Cultural and religious diversity today stimulate education and schooling more than ever before to reconsider the narrative-communicative and spiritual dimension of every learning process. The spiritual dimension of the learning community relates to a specific habitus, namely of de-centration from the self and dedication to the other, and to a specific focus, namely on existential questions as content of the learning process. Insights from philosophy of education and from European religious education theory and concrete experiences of teacher education at the universities of Dortmund (Germany) and Wien (Austria) form the horizon for this reflection.