ABSTRACT

Major social changes, especially as a result the more multicultural nature of society, have raised important issues about the teaching of religion and the rational basis of different religious faiths. Challenges for Religious Education addresses and critically examines these changes and asks where religious education and Faith Schools fit within secular society and indeed whether there is still a place for them at all.

Analysing what religious education could look like if it were considered from a wider ‘world views’ perspective that doesn’t focus on a particular set of religious beliefs, this book considers the ‘reasonableness’ of holding a faith and therefore in teaching it; the ongoing tensions between faith and reason; arguments for and against the study of religious education; whether modern secular thought is itself an ideology; and the philosophical standpoints on the relationship between faith and reason.

Linking faith and reason with the issue of whether religious education is truly necessary in a modern world, Challenges for Religious Education is a crucial read for anyone interested in the future of religious education teaching in a secular society.

chapter |2 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|17 pages

Teaching religious education

Changing conceptions of RE

chapter 2|13 pages

Faith

Meaning and reasonableness

chapter 3|16 pages

Belief in God

Knowledge, evidence and assent

chapter 4|9 pages

Understanding the nature of God

chapter 5|11 pages

The moral dimension

Has God got a place within it?

chapter 6|8 pages

Spiritual development

chapter 8|13 pages

Surviving the secular age?

chapter 9|17 pages

The challenges for religious education

chapter 10|3 pages

Indoctrination?