Gabriel Moran

Religious Education in United States’ State Schools

Using the experience of the United States and its experiment of banning religion in public schools, this essay explores the impact of such separation on interreligious dialogue. The ramifications of such a split are highlighted and critiqued. The author proposed that the United States, given its religious diversity and its commitment to schools, should be a leading participant in discussion about emerging meanings of “religious education” but it is absent. He asserts that if it is to confront its political, ecological, and economic problems, the academic examination of religion is a needed part of education.

Religious Education and the Nation-State

This essay is a reflection on the ambiguous role of the nation-state in its relation to religion. I examine the way in which the nation-state is a protector of religion. I also examine the way in which the nation-state needs to be resisted and criticised by religion. Religious education thus has an important part to play in maintaining a fruitful tension between the nation-state and religion. Our present system of nation-states is usually traced to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.Since then, thenation-state isassumed tobe themainagent in theworld’spolitics, economics and social dealings. The twentieth century had opposite movements relative to the nation-state. Some national groups strove to get the privilege, power and security of statehood. At the same time, there have been regular announcements that the nation-state is finished, that it has outlived its usefulness. Is one of these movements completely mistaken? Or is it possible that the nation-state, while destined for eventual retirement, is still important for bothgoodandbad reasons? The nation-state has had a key role in the articulation of modern ethics. The central problem of ethics is how to unite two outlooks. One outlook is a commitment to family, friends and neighbors. This particularistic view might extend as far as the nation. The other outlook recognises the limitation of all groups, including the nation. It looks to a universal concern with all humanity and the whole earth. At their best, the major religions of the world embody such a twofold ethics: a passionate attention to the particular concerns of everyday life, and at the same time a recognition that every human being and all of the earth is dependent on the creative power of God. Religion, of course, is not always at its best. When not challenged by disciplined understanding, religious passion is placed at the exclusive service of a small segment of humanity. The love of one’s neighbor is interpreted to mean love for one’s close kin, and indifference or hatred for everyone else. Religious beliefs too often dichotomise the world into good and evil.

Still to Come.

The hundredth anniversary of any organizations founding is an occasion for celebration. At the least, one can celebrate the organizations longevity in surviving for a whole century. The organization has to be doing something right to exist that long. The Religious Education Association has done many good things in its hundred years of existence. These things should be remembered and praised.

REVELATION AS TEACHING‐LEARNING

Abstract Revelation is a central category in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions for relating the divine and the human. Each of these religions tends to speak of revelation as something given to them in the past. This essay describes revelation as a present relation of teaching‐learning, one that is universal in scope and finds particular expressions in bodily and communal life. To teach is to show someone how to do something. Teaching is a fundamental act of all human and some nonhuman beings. Some Christian writers, including Clement of Alexandria and Thomas Aquinas, are cited in support of this thesis.

INSIGHTS FROM SCHOLARSHIP REVELATION IN A CULTURE OF DISBELIEF

Abstract The least inadequate way to identify revelation is as a relation of speaking and listening. Given this premise, it follows that revelation is a process of personal relation that cannot be exclusive to any religious group. This perspective on religious education should help Jews, Christians, and Muslims live out of the particularity of their own revelations and learn, as well, how to talk to each other.