Mary C. Boys

Engaged Pedagogy Dialogue and Critical Reflection

This article challenges faculty to adopt “engaged pedagogies” that are grounded in dialogue and critical reflection. It first situates this challenge in the academic culture where the scholarship of teaching is given little attention. Then it highlights the importance of conversation, a fundamental aspect of dialogue, and develops the radical character of dialogical teaching. The article then turns to ways in which critical reflection might foster dialogue.

The Catholic-Jewish Colloquium: An Experiment in Interreligious Learning.

In 1992 the Lilly Endowment, Inc. awarded a grant of

Learning in the Presence of the Other

142,375 to the Institute for Christian‐Jewish Studies in Baltimore for the Catholic‐Jewish Colloquium. The Colloquium convened twenty‐two professional Catholic and Jewish educators from the northeastern quadrant of the United States for six intensive two‐day sessions over a period of nearly three years. This is the story of the project from the viewpoint of those who conceived and directed it. Our account is drawn from transcripts, journals, evaluations and personal communication with the participants, as well as from our own extensive notes.

TEACHING: THE HEART OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION∗ 1

My Christian colleagues in Religious Education and practical theology may well wonder why I have seemingly wandered into another academic arena. True, my last four books have concerned Christian– Jewish relations; I have not written at length on the field of Religious Education since Educating in Faith (1985), nor contributed much for this journal since Sara Lee and I served as co-editors of, and contributors to, the 1994 issue on “Religious Traditions in Conversation.” Yet I have followed and value highly many of the turns our field has taken in recent years: sophisticated qualitative research; attentiveness to the complex interplay of gender, race, sexuality, and class; practical theologies of childhood and family life; and sensitivity to religious diversity. I note that now many religious educators are grappling with the realization that forming persons in faith today necessitates teaching them “to be religious interreligiously,” to borrow a phrase from Peter Phan (2004). I share this realization. Yet there is one inter-religious relationship that is absolutely fundamental to Christianity: its relationship with Judaism in both the past and present. I believe it is incumbent on all Christian educators to examine their theology of the Christian–Jewish relationship. This is a brief story of how I came to this belief, and what it means to me.

The Role of Theology in Religious Education

∗Accepted for publication on the basis of peer review 1I wish to acknowledge from the outset the contribution of Ann Louise Gilligan, a doctoral student at Boston College, who has assisted me with ...

PRINCIPLES AND PEDAGOGY IN BIBLICAL STUDY 1

The intensified efforts in recent years to bring definitional clarity to the field of religious education involve not simply elucidating the role of theology but also exploring the function of religious studies. A proposal is made in this essay that both theology and religious studies make different and necessary contributions to religious education, though neither subsumes it. The context for this argument is established by means of an initial review of the literature of religious education regarding the varied perspectives on the role of theology and then by attention to the relationship of theology and religious studies. The concluding section consists of three propositions specifying a conceptualization of the field of religious education with distinct functions for theology and religious studies.

Has God Only One Blessing?: Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding

1 This article is based upon the opening keynote address at the REA International Convention (East Lansing, Michigan; November 1981). As was the closing keynote — a study of the “Our Father” using the “shared praxis” approach — the address was team‐taught rather than delivered from a prepared text. Thus the text attempts to reflect the teaching dynamic; the initials before each section indicate the speaker