Teaching Religion in a multicultural European Society

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Teaching Religionin a multicultural European
Society

• Bert Roebben
• Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies
• Tilburg University
• The Netherlands
• www.seekingsense.be
• TRES Launching Conference
• Uppsala
• March 31, 2006

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Aim of the first TRES-action

• The focus is on the general question of how to
  teach religion in a multicultural Europe and how
  to prepare young people to think in a responsible
  way about their professional contribution to a
  well integrated, respectful and tolerant Europe.
  Fundamental to this action will be how to raise
  awareness of interpretation and understanding of
  religion in different national and
• international contexts.

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Aim and outline of this presentation

• Examination of the presuppositions behind the
  concepts of the project Teaching Religion
  Multicultural European Society
• In two movements
• Multicultural European perspectives on teaching
  religion what is the context in which and for
  which we prepare young people for future
  leadership?
• Religious educational perspectives on a
  multicultural Europe what kind of religious
  educational competences are needed to face the
  hermeneutical challenges of this context?

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1. Multicultural European perspectives on TR

• The soul of Europe a permanent battlefield
• Religion in Europe today post-secularism and
  religious extremism
• The commitment of the Council of Europe in 2004
  the religious dimension of intercultural
  education
• Organisational diversity in the field of RE in
  Europe

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1.1. The soul of Europe a permanent battlefield

• Europe is not a harmonious project, but a complex
  historical patchwork of different ways of dealing
  with great epistemological crises (Alasdair
  MacIntyre)
• The modern phenomenon of the so called clash of
  cultures is not apt to describe the complex ways
  in which (Eastern and Western) Christianity,
  Judaism and Islam have coped with these crises
  differently (Timothy Garton Ash)
• However, these crises have eventuated in open
  wars, in its utmost brutality in the 20th century
  (Geert Mak, In Europa. Reizen door de 20ste eeuw,
  2004)
• In the ashes of World War II the modern Europe
  was born (1951, European Community of Coal and
  Steal)
• There is no encounter without difference, no
  common project without conflict. The price to be
  paid however, was high

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• These mist covered mountains, are a home now for
  me. But my home is the lowlands and always will
  be. Some day youll return to your valleys and
  your farms, and youll no longer burn to be
  brothers in arms.
• Through these fields of destruction, baptisms of
  fire. Ive watched all your suffering as the
  battles raged higher. And though they did hurt me
  so bad in the fear and alarm. You did not desert
  me, my brothers in arms.
• Theres so many different worlds, so many
  different suns. And we have just one world, but
  we live in different ones.
• Now the suns gone to hell and the moons riding
  high. Let me bid you farewell, every man has to
  die. But its written in the starlight and every
  line in your palm were fools to make war on our
  brothers in arms.
• Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms, 1986

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1.2. Religion in a post-secular Europe

• Religious individualisation and differentiation
  personal spiritual quest, new-religious
  longing (Anton van Harskamp), off road
  religion (Heinz Streib) churchification and
  religious extremism at the other side of the same
  spectrum?
• Churches and religions present themselves as part
  of the market anthropology they are suppliers of
  spirituality (Rodney Stark) this is the way in
  which modern people perceive them and use them
  irreverently can churches remain authentic?
• Churches and religions are challenged to reframe
  their spiritual resources in an open and
  constructive mode regarding the contemporary
  quest for meaning they are challenged to remove
  the poisonous sting of exclusivism and inherent
  fundamentalism from their communities can they
  re-create their impact from lethal dynamite to
  vital dynamism for society, from dehumanizing
  submission to humanizing faith in society?

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1.3. The commitment of the CoE in 2004

• The Religious Dimension of Intercultural
  Education (Oslo, 6-8 June 2004) in the
  aftermath of 9/11
• Every form of intercultural education is
  undeniably rooted in the moral and philosophical
  presuppositions and worldviews of the
  participants. This dimension of conviction
  needs to be elucidated in education and implies
  appropriate concepts of knowledge, learning
  attitudes and skills. Curricula, textbooks and
  teacher training are the direct access to this
  work of cultural literacy
• Need for a program on the phenomenon and problem
  of religion supporting the cultural difference of
  all the pupils within the framework of their
  common citizenship (Flavio Pajer 2001,
  consistent with Jacques Delors, The Treasure
  Within, 1996)
• Perception and interpretation of differences and
  interpellation through encounter interreligious
  learning (IRL) as part of the larger hermeneutic
  awareness in (post)modern education

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• Students in the NL prefer a multi-religious
  approach to RE. They argue that every religion
  has the right to exist and to express its own way
  of salvation.This tolerance is the basis for
  solving contradictions and stopping conflicts.
  However, one should not only be acquainted with
  the different religions, but also allow oneself
  to be affected by their messages. This approach
  is inherent in religion as religion (Hans-Georg
  Ziebertz 2005)

(Roebben Van der Tuin 2004) The Netherlands in
RALP, n 816
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1.4. Organisational diversity of RE in Europe

• Synchrony of insynchronies
• A multi-layered subject (Peter Schreiner)
  different religious landscapes, cultural
  politics, strategies of nation states towards
  minority groups, etc.
• Important shifts, e.g. from RE as a confessional
  (state church) to a non-confessional school
  subject Norway, recent shift from public to
  private schools UK, from confessional RE to
  teaching world religions in other subjects such
  as history or culture South Eastern Europe,
  Russian Federation, continuous discussions
  within French laicité, Dutch proposal (of
  Roman-Catholic and Protestant authorities!) to
  make RE compulsory in final examination of every
  school, etc.
• Contextual approach (Friedrich Schweitzer 2004)
  scientific modesty!
• Overview (Ger Skeie 2001)

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Uniform solutions (with strong state
intervention) 
Synchrony of insynchronies  
  Pluriform or mixed solutions (with weak state
intervention)  
  (Ger Skeie 2001)
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2. Religious educational perspectives on Europe

• The modern Europe as a learning zone
• RE in secondary school in Western Europe
• Multi-religious and inter-religious learning
• Otherness of the other in the classroom
• Learning by encounter intra-religious learning
• Elements for theological education and teacher
  training

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2.1. The modern Europe as learning zone

• Premodern Europe was the age of religious wars,
  modern Europe was the age of ideological
  conflicts, the postmodern age should be the age
  of the free meeting of minds, prepared to
  contribute to a common historical project, on the
  basis of a cosmopolitan ethos (E. Balducci,
  quoted by Pajer 2001).
• This hermeneutical project of the construction
  of a European house through education implies
  the permanent encounter with the other and the
  re-sourcing of the self in that encounter

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2.2. RE in secondary school in Western Europe

• RE influenced by the contemporary boost of
  reflexivity or accelerated hermeneutic awareness
  das Recht auf Denken über religiöses Denken
  (Friedrich Schweitzer 2003)
• Young people as self-reliant learners, dealing
  with processes of interactive meaning giving (no
  more linear-chronological interpretation of moral
  and religious development)
• Hermeneutic-communicative approaches in RE
  learning to perceive religions/religiosity, to
  communicate about this perpectibility with others
  and to clarify ones own point of view
• Dialogue with other belief systems in the depth
  of time (intergenerational), in the breadth of
  space (intercultural) and against the horizon of
  the future (global)
• Modern schools experience an appeal to their
  response-abilty to the quest of young people,
  by offering them valid mental detours (Paul
  Ricoeur)

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2.3. Multi- and inter-religious learning
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2.4. Otherness of the other in the classroom

• Resistance within the learning process,
  hermeneutic junctions and interpretation
  differences (Herman Lombaerts) Thats the way
  religious people give answers to issues of
  meaning giving, but how about you, sir/madam? Do
  not harmonise the learning process!
• (multi) How far can I walk in the moccasins of
  the other? (Heinz Streib 2001) particular
  elements in the classroom can remain
  non-accessible and radically foreign to the
  learner
• (inter) Can I handle the communication? the
  classroom may be not safe for diversity or
  students could run aground in testing the
  trustworthiness of the other
• (intra) Can I deal with this myself? students
  can run into internal fallibilities (Hanan
  Alexander) or holy envy (Mary Boys)

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2.5. Learning by encounterintra-religious
learning

• What do I have to learn from you, if we do not
  differ? Why should I learn anything at all, if it
  doesnt make a difference where you come from,
  who you are and what you believe in? Defining
  moments in education occur when differences in
  interpretation come to the surface you are
  different from me, you appeal to my imagination,
  your thoughts trigger mine, your ways are unknown
  to me, but yet I want to know you, you intrigue
  me. This is me, how about you?
• Learning by encounter
• Learning in the presence of the other (Mary
  Boys)
• Learning in difference

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• (Halsall Roebben 2006)

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• Intra-religious learning is, in this respect, a
  method of intensified teaching of religion. It
  constitutively deepens the hermeneutic dynamic of
  learning about religion through a communicative
  exchange between students in the classroom. The
  other is then no longer the generalised other
  (the master narrative, the classical text or the
  great tradition), but the actual other, sitting
  next to me in the classroom (the small narrative,
  the text of my fellow student, the tradition in
  her/his own mind). Intra-religious learning takes
  place, in the first instance, not between
  representatives of ideological groups from an
  outsider perspective, but rather in the inner
  dynamics of the quest for meaning of young
  people, in communication with other young people.

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• This critical encounter reinforces the ability
  to look deeper into my own meaning-giving system
  and to explore further the existential resilience
  it offers. Through the intercultural and
  interfaith encounter I am challenged to redefine
  and re-dignify myself to know myself better and
  respect myself more, as a human person with
  dignity, who makes a difference in encounter with
  others. In this model learning in difference
  and learning on common ground particularity
  and universality come together (Halsall
  Roebben 2006)

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2.6. Elements for theological educationand
teacher training

• Training in classroom management learning to
  perceive the (social, cultural, moral and
  religious) complexity and diversity of the local
  class groups (e.g. family and church background)
• Training in particular (moral and religious)
  contents acquiring knowledge and heuristic
  strategies (to find knowledge) on TWR preferably
  focused on those religions who are actually
  present in the classroom and/or can be introduced
  through local representatives ( learning about
  religion)
• Training in hermeneutical and communicative
  strategies for classroom discussion adapting and
  interpreting the TWR materials to particular life
  issues such as love, death, suffering, etc.
  training oneself and students in perspective
  change ( learning from religion)
• Training in the appropriation of moral and
  religious convictions in ones own biography as
  TWR teacher coming to terms with a personal
  spiritual synthesis and narrative identity (
  learning in religion).

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By way of conclusion

• One of the purposes of education is that
  individuals and communities should flourish,
  should grow strong and be fruitful, should be
  creatively at home in a beautiful and restored
  environment, in which human life and nature can
  together be renewed. When we ask about the
  contribution of Christian faith to education in
  modern Europe, we must ask what stops our
  children and our young people from flourishing.
  It is poverty, ethnic and racial tension and
  hostility, lack of community, and above all, the
  ethos created by the money-mad society. Those who
  live for money will live stunted and selfish
  lives, but those who live for others in human
  solidarity will flourish like the tree that is
  planted beside the living waters. The role of the
  Christian churches in Europe is not to control
  education, not to domesticate it or to turn it
  into something it cannot and should not be, but
  to enable it to flourish (John Hull 2004).

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Comments?

• h.h.m.roebben_at_uvt.nl