ABSTRACT

The above title may appear strange, even an oxymoron. After all, faith schools are supposed to uphold and promote religion. It is the secular and the material outlook that is taken to be the challenge to faith schools, not religious and spiritual traditions. How then can religion be a challenge to faith schools? Yet, I would like to argue that in at least two ways—in terms of the portrayal of intrareligious diversity and in terms of the schools’ rela-tion with one of the central religious teachings—religious traditions them-selves present formidable challenges to the manner in which many faith schools operate and are defended by their proponents.