Religious education

About: Religious education is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9554 publications have been published within this topic receiving 65331 citations. The topic is also known as: faith-based education & RE.

The Madrasa at Deoband: A Model for Religious Education in Modern India

Abstract: A Recent conference of specialists on the study of Muslims in South Asia identified as one of the neglected areas of their field the study of traditional religious institutions in the modern period. Such institutions as the sufi orders, the religious schools, and the system of pious endowments have been treated, if at all, only in their relation to political developments. Thus the leading theological academy of modern India, the Dār ul-'Ulūm of Deoband, has been studied because many of its ulama played an important role in nationalist politics in India and opposed the foundation of Pakistan. That motive for study has seriously distorted the treatment of the nineteenth-century history of the school, endowing it with an anti-British and revolutionary character when, in fact, the school's concerns were totally a-political. An investigation of the early history of the school suggests many other significant historical themes, notably an important incipient trend toward a formal bureaucratization of the ulama and their institutions. Studies of religious institutions outside India such as Gilsenan's study of the Hamidiya Shadhiliya order in modern Egypt and Roff's study of the Majlis Ugama in Malaysia4 suggest that successful functioning in the modern period has required such a transformation in organizational structure. This article describes the organization of Deoband in its initial decades.

‘For Children in Yeeres and Children in Understanding‘: The Emergence of the English Catechism under Elizabeth and the Early Stuarts

Abstract: When Immanuel Bourne published his larger catechism in 1646, he prefaced it with an unusually full account of the history of catechising. He was not the first author of the period to trace the practice back to the examples of religious instruction in both Old and New Testaments, or to cite the works of Pantaenus, Clement of Alexandria and Origen as proof of the existence of religious education in the early Church. Nor was he alone in praising the efforts of those continental reformers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries who thought they had revived the characteristic form of instruction of the early Church after centuries of neglect, though it may be added that Bourne's list of contemporary European catechists was longer and more cosmopolitan than others'.

Sources of Conflict Over Priorities of the Protestant Church

Abstract: Theor-etical approaches to internal conflict over priorities in the Presbyterian church are tested using surveys of laymen, ministers, and seminary seniors. Conflicts are greatest over the type and importance of church mission and outreach; there is little conflict over congregational life, religious education, or spiritual nurture. Path analysis shows that theological factors are intervening variables between all background variables and attitudes about church priorities. Orthodoxy and ethicalism act independently and in opposite directions. It is concluded that the conflict is largely theological, explained partly in terms of church-sect tension and partly by conflicting theological orientations in the denomination. Although conflict within the Christian church has been ever present, at times it has intensified when crucial debates came to focus. In recent years the conflict within American Protestantism has been intensifying with a heated debate about the priorities of the church and its proper role in society. The issue of church priorities has been the most important conflict in American Protestantism in the past decade. In the 1960s a complex of events and movements intensified feelings on the question. Prodded by the civil rights movement and the new youth culture, many church leaders have called for new emphasis on Christian social involvement, and this new call has ushered in the conflict about the proper functions and priorities of the church. Several American denominations are preoccupied with internal conflict in the early 1 970s, for viewpoints have crystallized and rival factions have organized themselves within them. This article discusses the conflict in one denomination, the United Presbyterian church in the U.S.A. Among Presbyterians the debate about church priorities has been growing since the middle 1960s. Many denominational leaders and ministers have strongly urged a more effective social witness, especially to combat the evils of racism in America. In opposition to them, a group of Presbyterian businessmen organized the Presbyterian Lay Committee in 1965, dedicated to moving the denomination away from social concerns and back to personal evangelism, maintenance of "scripturetaught moral standards," and religious nurture of individuals. It strongly argues that any social action should be done by Christian individuals, not by organized church bodies. The church should leave social, economic, and political issues to individual Christians with competence in such matters. During the past several years the factions in the United Presbyterian church have battled over mission hudgets, church union, reorganization of denominational boards, and other issues. THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO

Religious Education between Modernization and Globalization: New Perspectives on the United States and Germany

Abstract: A constructive new approach to religious education While important strides are being made to improve religious education at the national level, there is much to be learned by looking at the subject from a global perspective. This volume is a first -- and very significant -- effort to reap the benefits of sharing educational successes and challenges between countries, in this case the United States and Germany. Featuring a unique comparative approach to religious education, this volume is sure to spark the interest of those in the field. The book first explores the importance of comparing religious education within differing social contexts, and it introduces "modernization, " "globalism, " and "postmodernism" as key terms for such research. Next, central figures and texts in twentieth-century religious education in both Germany and the United States are examined and compared. In the last section of the book the authors point to the challenges that religious education faces in the new millennium, and they offer constructive proposals that will interest not only Protestants and Catholics but also members of Jewish, Muslim, and other faith communities.