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The following essay is based on an oral presentation, "On Being a Good Teacher and a Good Writer," which the author was asked to make for the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies, March 16, 2003. The purpose of the presentation was to encourage conversation among theological educators on the character of their vocation. A panel discussion of the theme followed the presentation. The presentation was designed to engage this subject at an autobiographical and reflective level rather than as an academic argument. The published version of the essay seeks to retain something of the personal reflective character of the original presentation.

While electronic learning is transforming the face of higher education today, some in the theological community question whether it is appropriate for the specific goals of graduate level theological formation for ministry. Drawing on the work of one theological faculty, this article answers yes. The author describes the school's hybrid model of distance education pedagogy. He discusses the underlying teaching and learning principles that guided the faculty in their development of this model, and, in particular, the pedagogical ideal of the learning cohort as a "wisdom community." Web-based instruction can be effectively designed to nurture wisdom communities for integrative learning. The author describes the "pedagogy of the online wisdom community" from his experience of Web-based distance education teaching. The growing demand for ministry formation programs, particularly in mission areas, underlines the urgent need for continued study of the role of technology in theological pedagogy.

This article presents a particular teaching strategy that involves using food playfully in the classroom in order to change the mood, generate different forms of learning, and prod students to connect food and religion. I offer a rationale for teaching with food, then provide an application from a university course on Gnosticism. My goal is to encourage college and university teachers of religion to take food, and play, more seriously in their teaching.

This article responds to the exponential growth in academic textbooks on Western or American Buddhism by arguing that popular trade books written by Buddhist teachers in the West make more effective tools for teaching and learning about the growth of Buddhism in western societies. The use of such texts in the classroom provides students with opportunities to exercise critical thinking and permits instructors to avoid conveying misleading interpretations about the practice, thought, and identities of Buddhists in North America and Europe. The pedagogical advantages of using what could be described as primary sources on Western Buddhism include promoting active learning techniques, muting the differences drawn between convert and ethnic Buddhist communities, and encouraging students to become aware of and refrain from Orientalist approaches towards describing and knowing the religious and/or cultural Other. A list of practical suggestions for classroom exercises using trade books written by Buddhist teachers is provided at the end.

This essay explores the terrain of technology in theological education and offers a typology for how technology is used in seminary contexts. The author surveys 43 seminaries in North America to gain insight into the attitudes of faculty toward the use of technology in their teaching and for use in the preparation of ministers. Reflections on the typology in the concluding section offer fuel for subsequent work on the topic.

This article looks at policies of the British Government relating to teaching, the curriculum, and research and how they impact Theology and Religious Studies (TRS). It reflects on the use of Government funding to steer research outputs and to focus such activity on a small number of selected institutions. It further discusses Government attempts to define degree standards and "the boundaries and the internal geography" of the subject by producing "benchmarking guidelines" to which each department must adhere. The paper concludes with reflections on the fears of Government control of the curriculum. Underlying much of the discussion is a sense of the differences between Theology and Religious Studies in North America and Britain. To emphasize the point that this paper expresses personal views based on my own experience I have used a more informal and personal style than is my custom in publications. It is relevant to outline the experience which has fashioned my views. Prior to moving to Liverpool I have held Chairs at Manchester in Comparative Religion, where I also served as Dean of the Faculty of Theology, and London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) where I started the Department for the Study of Religion. I have served as President of the national body for the subject, the Association of University Departments of Theology and Religious Studies (AUDTRS) for three years; on the research panels of the two main bodies to which people in Theology and Religious Studies apply for research grants (the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Board); on two national research assessment panels and co-chaired the Benchmarking Panel for Theology and Religious Studies (the work of the panels is outlined below). I was a member of a team funded by the Home Office to produce a report to inform Government policy on possible legislation on Religious Discrimination. The relevance of each of these will become clear in the course of the article.

Can students learn religious history from movies? While using film as text is likely to attract students' interest, will such a course be able to negotiate the complex intertwining of film with religion and history to provide students with more than mere entertainment? Will students respond to a challenge to move beyond a movie's surface visual experience to address the core lessons history posits: it's not always been this way, we are the product of what has come before us, I/we are being called to change? This article discusses one attempt to answer these questions and examines both the opportunities and difficulties of using movies to teach religious history.

The Bible is a non-western text subject to a variety of interpretations and applications – constructive and destructive. The academic study of the Bible, therefore, requires critical thinking skills and the ability to engage with diversity. The reality is that most first-year college students have not yet developed these skills. Rather than bemoan students' lack of development, the essay explores ways of teaching and applying critical thinking within the context of an introductory Religion course. The essay claims that first-year college students can better learn the content of the discipline and function in a pluralistic world if the teaching of critical thinking skills is a part of the pedagogy.

This essay draws on insights from studies on learning to explore the role of formation in the classroom. Studies of intellectual development, learning styles, and the physiology of learning are reviewed. Methodologies and models for encouraging formative learning in seminary classrooms are explored. This essay was written to address one of the issues that have focused the attention of the participants in the Lexington Seminar on Theological Teaching for the Church's Ministries, a project sponsored by Lexington Theological Seminary and supported by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. It will be included in Practical Wisdom: On Theological Teaching and Learning, edited by Malcolm L. Warford, a collection of essays intended to (1) affirm the teaching ministry of theological educators, (2) raise up and discern the diverse ways in which issues of teaching and learning present themselves in institutional contexts, (3) evoke new perspectives on the challenges facing individual schools, and (4) encourage faculty to make conversations about teaching and learning a crucial part of faculty life. Peter Lang Publishing will release the book in fall 2004. Additional information about the work of the Lexington Seminar is available on the Lexington Seminar's Web site .

This study ventures to sketch the dimensions of stress in religious thinking among young Muslims studying theology in Turkish universities and the ways in which these tensions are handled in educational institutions. As a result of a review of related literature, together with the use of a questionnaire with 382 respondents and interviews with 15 participants, the extent of experienced intense religious stress, the source, the content, the ways of resolution, the duration, and the period of religious stress were identified. Finally, the cognitive, educational, theological, and socio-cultural challenges to which young Muslims were exposed were delineated and possible ways to overcome these problems were outlined, with some suggestions for educational settings.