ABSTRACT
In considering a Religious Education (RE) curriculum, the concept of religious symbolic language has much to offer. In the United States, RE is construed in two distinctly different ways, reflecting a long history of negotiation between church and state. In the case of the non-religious school, a study of the language of religion is important because so many use that language in the world in which we live and which we must negotiate as community members, neighbours and citizens. As Miles indicates, even contemporary Christianity, which is characterized as the 'religion of the Word', has not always been so heavily dependent on language. Its ways of conceptualizing and expressing meaning follow the same logical patterns and symbol processes: denotation, representation, exemplification, expression and re-enactment, both literal and metaphoric as other forms of knowing, are embedded in their own histories of practice, and are cognitively accessible once one learns the keys to unlocking them.
