ABSTRACT
Can global citizenship education transcend the limits of liberal individualism? Before it can, the emerging “global liberalism” must learn to move beyond the autonomous individual. This chapter examines examples of global citizenship education that seek to recognize the particularity of religious traditions and identities that may not immediately align with the secularity of Western liberalism. The chapter describes how three religious schools (Muslim, Catholic, and evangelical Protestant) root the universal longings and moral expectations of global citizenship in the particular rituals, traditions, and limits of their religious faith. As noted in the previous chapter, violent religious conflict is what gave rise to liberalism in the first place, and it proved a successful peacemaker in the religious wars of post-Reformation Europe. Indeed, religious conflict still causes death and violence around the world. But the “new global order” religions cannot be ignored. The religious schools in this chapter, though minorities, suggest that the way forward for global citizenship may not be the elimination of boundaries and the continued celebration of unlimited choice, but rather the embrace of human limits and differences. Perhaps a global citizenship education that embraces a thick global pluralism and makes room for various collective identities—rather than the global liberalism present in current strategies—offers the best hope for achieving the longings for a better world.
