Resources
The author uses a variety of Internet-related technologies to support pedagogical approaches where students become conscious of their role in the production of knowledge in a public and critically collaborative environment. These approaches also seek to address theory/practice dichotomies by using the Internet to bridge academic and parish contexts. The article describes and assesses three courses utilizing web-based technology. One course features student portfolios posted on a website with peer- and parish-based reviewers. A second course features student creation of the course text with contributions from external professionals. A third course features a ministry resource website created by students.
The author's experience of reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action in clinical supervision for counseling provides the basis for an analogous experience in the classroom that promotes the teaching of the practice of general pastoral care. A classroom ritual of role play within a specific process for reflection provides the basis for integrating theory and practice.
This paper discusses a problem which is largely, though not exclusively, peculiar to the older universities in Great Britain where, in recent years, many long-established departments of Christian theology have expanded their area of responsibility to include religious studies. However, the author believes that what he has to say is not without relevance to universities and colleges outside of Great Britain which have inherited and continue to maintain a confessional bias in teaching theology and religion.
In view of the current attention being given to "practices," this paper argues that Mortimer Adler and Paulo Freire have developed pedagogical practices that are relevant for the task of teaching theology in a democracy. Emphasizing the connection between education and democratic life, both reject a facile relativism or pragmatism, on the one hand, and an uncritical adherence to either a traditionalist or revolutionary agenda, on the other. Indeed, both present their pedagogies not simply as a means for advocating certain types of religious and ethical practice (whether traditional or revolutionary) but as a means for critically examining those practices in light of the truth and justice – and for believers, the reality of God – they presuppose. This essay examines precisely how they do this and what their relevance might be for the teaching of theology in a democracy where the co-existence of competing religious and ethical claims is a given.
The author makes a case for the contributions of liberal theology to the transformative pedagogy that is essential for the flourishing of human beings in the twenty-first century. First he advocates the retention of liberal theology, but in a postmodern form that is open, critical, experiential, visionary, and culturally transformative. Then he demonstrates points of contact between this revisioned theology and liberal education, particularly those connections manifested in five elements of transformative pedagogy: education and life-formation, the rhythm of education, constructive and interactive knowledge, connected and imaginative teaching, and education as the practice of freedom. The author concludes that a revisioned liberal theology can contribute significantly to the recovery and explication of the religious dimension of education and its incumbent power of transformation.
This article considers those passages in the prophetic writings of the Hebrew Bible that present the relationship between God and the people by means of a metaphor of a man and his promiscuous female partner. It reflects upon how these texts may fruitfully be taught in a seminary or college introductory Bible course, arguing that they should be included in the curriculum and not ignored. Practical recommendations of methods for presenting such biblical passages in the classroom are suggested.
In an effort to create a context in which my students might have the opportunity to touch, and to be touched by, the richness, texture, and power of different religious worlds, I have experimented throughout the years with a wide variety of experiential and participatory exercises in the classroom. For example, the students and I (at times with the assistance of an invited expert practitioner) have drummed, danced, gone on shamanic journeys, made masks, done tai chi and hatha yoga, performed dhikr, engaged in mythic psychodramas, practiced different styles of meditation, and so on. In this paper, I examine some of the difficulties and rewards of utilizing these techniques within a university setting. I also explore some of the ways in which a willingness to incorporate these types of exercises into the classroom challenges several current academic pedagogical assumptions.
The author notes that current seminary stutipsdents show great variation in their academic skills, in their familiarity with the basics of Christianity, and in their sense of, and skill in, theological method. This condition is both caused and exacerbated by the students' acculturation in American religious privatism, which makes them resist a critical and constructive examination of their views and hinders their understanding of theology as an undertaking of and for the Church. The author describes a number of pedagogical strategies, teaching techniques, and classroom exercises that have shown some effectiveness in overcoming these problems.
Changing pedagogies is an ongoing process consequent upon personal and social change. Those of us who teach in religious studies or theology departments risk failure in changing pedagogies if we attempt such change alone. This essay, cast as a personal journey, reviews the changing student body, the reasons why we must adapt our pedagogies to this change, and the processes and consequences of adapting these new pedagogies. The goal of changing pedagogies is to allow the plurality of voices and pedagogies to speak and be used to sustain a community of love and concern in the midst of diversity.
By reclaiming the role of confession in the classroom, we can rethink the fundamental question of what it means to teach religion. That is, the project of thinking about the religious dimension of pedagogy should also force us to rethink religious studies in general. Pedagogy, after all, is not an incidental expression of religious commitments but is instead one significant place where the religious imagination takes shape and form. All religious reflection is confessional, because scholarship is only one form of pedagogy, and teaching is the act of saying who we are, where we are from, and where we are going.