CHRISTIAN EDUCATION AND OPENNESS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES

A sample of 334 undergraduates completed the Francis Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity and the Astley-Francis Open Worldview Scale, together with the short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data provide no support for the view that a positive attitude toward Christianity inhibits openness to other worldviews, although both attitude toward Christianity and the adoption of an open worldview are significantly related to individual differences in personality.     

MARGINALIZATION AND RENEWAL: EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN EDUCATION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Abstract This article addresses three periods of evangelical Christian education development in the twentieth century. The early part of the century was a time of loss of influence and marginalization within the broader religious education movement. The middle part of the century saw an explosion of parachurch educational ministry efforts to assist the evangelical movement and renewed efforts to develop professional organizations and curricular resources for the church. The last part of the century has seen a growth of influence of evangelical educational writers, publishers, schools, and megachurches on the shape of Christian education today. Current assessment, hopes for the future, and gifts to the broader religious education community are reviewed.     

THE CLUE TO CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: UNITING THEOLOGY AND EDUCATION, 1950 TO THE PRESENT

Christian religious educators in the Religious Education Association are challenged to reclaim their theological nerve and their partnership in public conversations about the educational practices of U.S. society. Beginning with the work of Randolph Crump Miller in the 1950s, this essay traces through the pages of Religious Education the dialogue about the partnership of education and theology. A practical theology of education is offered where the teaching and forming of Christian identity is complemented with a public theological examination of educational practices and meanings in the wider culture.     

HOLDING ONTO HOPE: ADDRESSING THEOLOGICAL CONFLICT THROUGH CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Today deep theological differences threaten to divide Protestant denominations. In turn, these differences often mute church education and block mission. This article seeks to offer glimpses for addressing that theological controversy. It is an exercise in historical retrieval examining a generative period in the history of Christian religious education, that is, the theological conflict between the liberal religious education movement and neo-orthodoxy in the 1930s through 1950s. As Christian educators moved through this earlier conflict, underlying theological commitments and theological practices emerged that offered a faithful politics of hope calling the church to mission.     

DEVELOPING A BLACK CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF LIBERATION FOR THE BRITISH CONTEXT

This article details the work of the Birmingham Initiative, a Methodist inspired, ecumenical research project that operated in Birmingham, in the West Midlands of the United Kingdom between 1995 and 1999. As the Christian Education Development Officer employed by this project, the author undertook doctoral research among twenty-six inner-city, Black majority churches from Methodist, Baptist Anglican, and Reformed Church traditions. One of the central aims of the research was to create the first African-centered Black Christian Education of Liberation for the British context. The major outcome of this research was the creation of the first practical Black Christian education curriculum in Britain, entitled Growing into Hope.     

THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN AN ERA OF SHRINKING TRANSCENDENCE

This article seeks to understand religious education as a process of communal endeavor that prioritizes and considers the learning experience intrinsically connected to its social and cultural contexts. Two authors will be of help to develop this pursuit: Lev Vygotsky, whose work emphasizes learning as constructed through interactions and in collaboration with members of a community, and Victor Turner who identifies the potential for creativity and transformation within the concepts of liminality and communitas. The article concludes by suggesting that when a community acknowledges the multiple zones of proximal development—which creates opportunities of mutual support and democratic participation—communitas surfaces as a sign of liminal vitality, openness, and solidarity.     

MONEY,MODERNITY, AND MORALITY: SOME ISSUES IN THE CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF ADULTS

If we take seriously cultural or neo‐Marxian theories of periodicity, it becomes possible to identify educational problems that affect the formation of men and women as church leaders. These include the impact of money on contemporary spirituality, self‐deception, and other forms of coping with social injustice. Primary and secondary forms of false consciousness are described, and the article concludes with suggestions about curriculum and method in the training of Christian professionals