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The Recovery of Christian Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

A. Thatcher
A. Thatcher
Affiliation:
College of St Mark & St John, Derriford Road, Plymouth PL6 8BH
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Extract

Christian theology is an important perspective for theorizing about education. This article develops a possible theological perspective on religious education. RE these days is seldom Christian education. It is dominated by secular assumptions: it is to be open, multi-faith and descriptive. What might a Christian theology of education say of these developments? In section 1 the question is raised why RE should be taught in schools at all. In section 2 a theological analysis of what may be called ‘the climate of unbelief’ is attempted, and it will be shown how several of the assumptions of the new RE arise directly out of this. In section 3 some fresh criticisms of the phenomenological approach to religion are made, which if they are sound, will indicate that this approach need not be preferred to more traditional approaches to teaching religion. In section 4 it is suggested that both the alleged fact of modern secularity and the fear of religious absolutism provide no grounds for embracing a purely descriptive approach to religion. There is a simple, practical conclusion – there should be more Christian Studies and less Religious Education in schools.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , August 1987 , pp. 437 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1987

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References

1 I develop this claim in my ‘Learning to Become Persons — A Theological Approach to Educational Aims’, Scottish Journal of Theology, xxxvi (1983), especially pp. 527–530Google Scholar. See also several contributions to Gay, J. D. and Francis, L. F. (eds.), The Future of the Anglican Colleges (Abingdon: Culham Educational Foundation, 1985)Google Scholar, especially Francis' ‘Theology's Right to Speak in the Educational Debate’. Theology's right to contribute to education is defended at length in his ‘The Logic of Education, Theology and the Church School’, Oxford Review of Education, ix (1983), pp. 147–162.Google Scholar

2 See Hirst, P. H., ‘Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge’, in Peters, R. S. (ed.), The Philosophy of Education (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 102Google Scholar; Brent, Allen, Philosophical Foundations for the Curriculum (London: Allen & Unwin, 1978), ch. 3Google Scholar; Sealey, John, Religious Education: Philosophical Perspectives (London: Allen & Unwin: 1985), p. 15.Google Scholar

3 Russell, Bertrand, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10th imp., 1982), p. 70.Google Scholar

4 John 14.6.

5 MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1981)Google Scholar. The title of ch.1 is ‘A Disquieting Suggestion’.

6 Op. cit., p. 2.

7 Op. cit., ch. 7.

8 Op. cit., p. 11.

9 Op. cit., p. 21.

10 Op. cit., p. 4.

11 Op. cit., p. 2.

12 Quinton, Antony, ‘The Concept of a Phenomenon’, in Pivcevic, Edo (ed.), Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 2.Google Scholar

13 The approach founders because until the ‘peak-experiences’ or whatever they are called are associated with a religious tradition, there seems no reason why, per se, they should be regarded as religious at all. See note 15.

14 This is the point of Wittgenstein's cryptic remark ‘The proposition “Sensations are private” is comparable to: “One plays patience by oneself”.’ Philosophical Investigations (tr. Anscombe, G.E.M., Oxford: Blackwell, 1972, 1st edn. 1953), section 248.Google Scholar

15 Ryle's, GilbertThe Concept of Mind (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976, first pub. 1949)Google Scholar is a sustained polemic against the dualism that lends credibility to any ‘private’ or ‘privileged access’ theory. Wittgenstein's treatment of inner experiences, private experiences, etc. begins at section 243 (op. cit.). Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980) deconstructs ‘the invention of the mind’ (the title of ch. 1), together with accompanying notions like ‘inner space’, ‘inner arena’, ‘the Eye of the Mind’.

16 For theological criticisms see Tillich, Paul, Theology of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. 5Google Scholar, 9, and Smith, John E., Experience and God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 11Google Scholar, 15 et passim. For philosophical criticism see Miles, T. R., Religious Experience (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1972), chs. 1 and 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Quinton, op. cit., p. 16.

18 MacIntyre, op. cit., p. 78.

19 The literature is vast. Allen Brent's forthcoming The Secular Illusion, described in his Philosophy and Educational Foundations (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), pp. 352–353Google Scholar, will criticise the influence of the idea of secularity upon education.

20 Cupitt, Don, Taking Leave of God (London: SCM Press, 1980), p. xii.Google Scholar

21 Op. cit., p. 4.

22 Smart, Ninian, The Phenomenon of Religion (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1973), p. 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Hollis, M. and Lukes, S. (eds.), Rationality and Relativism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982).Google Scholar

24 Sealey, op. cit., p. 20.

25 The phrase is taken from section 27 of the D.E.S. document The School Curriculum (London: HMSO, 1981), p. 8.Google Scholar