Interreligious Learning

By Didier Pollefeyt

The growth of secularisation, pluralism and globalisation have
placed the West's traditional monoreligious education under pressure.
Christianity no longer possesses a privileged position in Western Europe. Since
the 1970's, a number of scholars have been trying to formulate an answer to
this question of multireligiosity by developing a multireligious concept of
religious education.

As both a critique on, and alternative for, the multireligious model, scholars
in the 1990s developed the interreligious model of religious education. This
aproach distinguishes itself from monoreligious pedagogy through acknowledging
plurality among the pupils as both a part of departure and as a possible end
result of religious education. Moreover, it openly approaches the plurality of
religions and worldviews as a learning opportunity. Religious education thus
becomes a place of encounter and dialogue between different religious
convictions. Interreligious learning further distinguishes itself from the
multireligious model by overcoming a purely objective representation of the
multitude of religions. In the interreligious model, students are not only
informed, but are introduced to the cognitive and value commitments underlying
the different religions, giving them the opportunity to enrich and develop their
own personal religious identity. The teacher takes an explicit and particular
religious (Christian) standpoint, but also tries to bring in other committed
religious and philosophical voices. The interreligious model aims to teach
students that holding a proper religious identity while having an openness to
the religious other is not necessarily self-contradictory. What is more, that
authentic religiosity is able to welcome the other in his/her vulnerability and
strength as a witness to God.

In this volume, scholars from various disciplines (theology, pedagogy,
psychology and ethics) and from different religious backgrounds (Jews,
Christians and Muslims) face up to a total of ten challenges related to
interreligious learning. Challenges that may act as obstacles to the acceptance
of this possible new paradigm for religious education.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9042918659
• ISBN13: 9789042918658
• Release Date: December 2007
• Publisher: Peeters
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.6"