Religious Diversity

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It is generally accepted that theological education and ministerial formation must both take place "in context". The context, in most parts of the world today, is one of religious pluralism where Christians must live in dialogue and grow in commmunity with neighbours of other faiths. Ministers have a crucial role in shaping the attitudes of church people, especially in the area of interfaith relations. How may they be equipped to play this positive role? What, in other words, are the implications of interfaith dialogue for theological education?
That was the question discussed by a group of theological teachers when they met in Malaysia in June 1985, called together by the World Council of Churches' Programme on Theological Education (PTE) and the Dialogue Sub-unit. Ministerial Formation in a Multifaith Milieu presents an informal report of that meeting. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction
ch. 1 A Step Forward (T.K. Thomas)
ch. 2 A Reflective Report ( S. Wesley Ariarajah)
ch. 3 Introducing the Concern (Samuel Amirtham)
ch. 4 Teaching Theology in a MultiFaith Context (M. Thomas Thangaraj)
ch. 5 A Response from Another Context
ch. 6 The Perspective of Pluralism in Theological Education (Diana Eck)
ch. 7 A Response
ch. 8 Implications of Interfaith Dialogue for the Teaching of Mission and Evangelism (Elizabeth G. Dominguez)
ch. 9 A Group Response
ch. 10 Ministerial Formation in a Multifaith Parish (Rienzie Perera)
ch. 11 A Response
ch. 12 Theological Education in a Pluralistic Context: An Overall Assessment (J. Paul Rajashekar)

Appendix

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This book argues that American colleges and universities need to enlarge their understanding of pluralism and multiculturalism by sponsoring open, challenging, spiritually and educationally revitalizing conversations among students about genuine religious difference. Although religious difference is a pivotal component of cultural pluralism, too often today it gets ignored, marginalized, or sugar-coated in higher education. Together administrators, faculty, and students must take the initiative to tranform the academy into an exciting space for robust and respectful religious dialogue throughout the campus. This book offers a number of concrete examples and strategies in each chapter for achieving this objective. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Acknowledgments

ch. 1 The Cry for Meaning
Taking the World by the Throat
Taking the Plunge
Student Affairs Professionals: The "Hidden Educators"
Overcoming Fear
Three Objectives in Writing This Book
My Preliminary Credo
Organization of the Book
A Note on Use of Resources
Definitions of Several Key Terms

ch. 2 The Paradox of Religious Pluralism
The Reality of Religious Pluralism on College Campuses: Promise or Peril?
Is Conflict Among Religious Groups Inevitable?
The Paradox of Religious Pluralism
Bounded Versus Unbounded Discourse
When Should Intolerance Replace Tolerance?
Toward Unbounded Dialogue

ch. 3 Religions as Narratives (I): Three Mainstream Stories
The Indispensability of Stories
Narrative Construals of Reality
Six Types of Religious Stories That College Students Tell
Three Mainstream Stories
The Orthodoxy Narrative
The Wounded Belief Narrative
The Mainline Narrative

ch. 4 Religions as Narratives (II): Three Alternative Stories
Three Alternative Stories That Students Tell
The Activism Narrative
The Exploration Narrative
The Secular Humanism Narrative

ch. 5 The Role of Religion in Fostering Values on a Secular Campus
"I Am Comfortable Talking About Values...Not Religion"
Learning About Earning Is Not What College Is All About
It Is Neither Possible Nor Desirable to Decouple Religion and Values
An Example of Coupling Values and Religion in a Colloquium
We Are All Values Educators
The Nineteenth-Century Capstone Seminar
Is the American Professoriate Actually Religio-Phobic?
My Captone Seminar on Religion and Values
A Personal Memorandum to My Students on the Capstone

ch. 6 One Group, Many Truths: Constructing a Moral Conversation
"I'm Afraid to Open My Mouth in There for Fear of Getting Killed!"
Moral Conversation Versus Adversarial Discourse
Six Principles of Moral Conversation
Are College Students Developmentally Ready for Moral Conversation?
Establishing a Culture of Dialogue on College Campuses
The Widespread Yearning for Consoling Narratives of Meaning

Bibliography
Index

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A guide for students, groups, and organizations seeking to foster interfaith dialogue and promote understanding across religious lines

In this book, renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel offers a clear, detailed, and practical guide to interfaith leadership, illustrated with compelling examples. Patel explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership, before turning to the issues interfaith leaders face and how they can prepare to solve them. Interfaith leaders seek points of connection and commonality—in their neighborhoods, schools, college campuses, companies, organizations, hospitals, and other spaces where people of different faiths interact with one another. While it can be challenging to navigate the differences and disagreements that can arise from these interactions, skilled interfaith leaders are vital if we are to have a strong, religiously diverse democracy. This primer presents readers with the philosophical underpinnings of interfaith theory and outlines the skills necessary to practice interfaith leadership today. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction

Identity
ch. 1 The Identity of an Interfaith Leader

Theory
ch. 2 The “Inter” in Interfaith
ch. 3 The “Faith” in Interfaith

Vision
ch. 4 The Vision of Interfaith Leadership

Knowledge Base
ch. 5 The Knowledge Base of Interfaith Leadership

Skill Set
ch. 6 The Skill Set of Interfaith Leadership

Qualities
ch. 7 The Qualities of Interfaith Leadership

Conclusion
Appendix: Summary of Frameworks
Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index

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Based on ten years of research, God Beyond Borders is a comprehensive study of interreligious learning in faith communities. The United States is one of the most a diverse countries of the world. Kujawa-Holbrook details the many practices of interreligious learning in faith communities; through interreligious encounters, religious education, shared sacred space, shared prayer, and compassionate action. The book also surveys the field of interreligious learning and investigates some of the more common intentionally interreligious communities--families, clergy groups, chaplaincies, and community organizations. Kujawa-Holbrook combines theory and praxis to make a case for the importance of interreligious learning in all religious organizations. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction

Ch 1. Ways of Understanding Interreligious Learning
Ch 2. The Transformative Power of Interreligious Encounter
Ch 3. Practices of Interreligious Learning
Ch 4. Sharing Sacred Spaces
Ch 5. Compassionate Action as Interreligious Learning
Ch 6. Initiating Intentional Interreligious Learning Communities
Ch 7. Interreligious Learning in the Future

References

Appendix

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Currently, the recent history of the field shapes the content of introductions to the philosophy of religion. In order to substantively engage students, whose experiences and destinies are already shaped by global realities, such teaching must undergo revision. A shift from introducing philosophical theology towards active learning analyses of ostensibly religious phenomena is the means by which the field can regain its relevance for students. This article first explores the rationale for teaching differently, and then works out a pedagogy that has students themselves practicing a global philosophy of religion.

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"Teaching Difficult Texts." 1000 word essay scaffolding student engagement with difficult texts from non-Western Christian contexts.

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"Teaching Difficult Texts." 1000 word essay describing a student-interactive, small -group discussion of challenging texts.

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Educating and training Muslim men and women leaders who are capable of effectively navigating the multi-ethnic and multi-religious terrain in America – particularly in the post 9–11 milieu – requires the development of a new critical American Muslim pedagogy. This new pedagogy, centered in Islamic epistemology and ontology, should selectively appropriate the best of traditional Muslim educational paradigms and modalities used over time. However, the traditional Muslim model must not be reified, but rather be subjected to a sharp critique which maintains the richness of its spiritual and intellectual legacy but rejects teachings and interpretations used to create false dichotomies resulting in binary constructs, particularly those which pit Muslims against the west. Finally, the new critical American Muslim pedagogy must embrace all of the best discursive practices (e.g., pedagogies of Freire and others) that engage us in a critical analysis of the way in which power and privilege, even in religious communities, operate to marginalize and suppress women, minorities, and people of color.

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This essay traces the development of the Zarathushtrian (Zoroastrian) priesthood from the time of the prophet Zarathushtra, through the Median priestly tribe as Magi, and the Macedonian and Arab invasions. This sets the stage for the separation of the Zarathushti priesthood between Iran and India and the generation of independent training methods. Centuries later dialogue between the two groups revealed some remarkable differences due to diverse cultural influences. From the eighteenth to the twentieth century there is a loss of respect for the priestly class and organization by the community of learning institutions to revamp the priestly training. The last portion of the paper discusses factors that affect the training of priests in North America. Some recommendations are put forward to adapt the training of the priesthood in the changing world society, and how these ideas can be brought to reality.

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This article describes the transformation of Catholic theological education over the last fifty years from a highly defensive posture vis-à-vis other religions toward dialogical engagement with members of other religions and all persons of good will. Until Vatican II, most Catholic theologians and officials distrusted exploration of other religions as leading to a dilution of Catholic identity. Vatican II condemned anti-Semitism and called for dialogue among religions in pursuit of common values. Since the Council, there have been developments in interfaith education on three levels: religious studies, comparative theology, and inter-religious practice.

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This book is about teaching, interfaith dialogue and theological education. The core of the book: six critical case studies of seminary taught, degree courses in interfaith dialogue. The cases give expression to a broad range of dialogical pedagogies and course formats, and they include the courses’ syllabi and bibliographies. By critical case we mean one that describes not only the context, content, methods and related goals and rationale of the course, but also presents an evaluation of the course and discussion of the implications of the evaluation for teaching interfaith dialogue in theological institutions. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Editor's Introduction

ch. 1 Navigating the New Diversity: Interfaith Dialogue in Theological Education
ch. 2 'Interreligious Dialogue' at the Jesuit School of Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley (James Redington)
ch. 3 World Religions and Christianity: A Global Perspective in the Context of the Overall Program of Theological Education at Perkins School of Theology (Robert Hunt)
ch. 4 Building Abrahamic Partnerships: A Model Interfaith Program at Hartford Seminary (Yehezkel Landau)
ch. 5 The Challenge of World Religions to Christian Faith and Practice at Drew University School of Theology (S. Wesley Ariarajah)
ch. 6 Theological Education for Interfaith Engagement: The Philadelphia Story (J. Paul Rajashekler)
ch. 7 Dialogue in a World of Difference: Turning Necessity into Opportunity in Hartford Seminary's Master of Arts Program (Suendam Birinci, Heidi Hadsell, David Roozen)

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This paper uses the language of Vodou doctrine to articulate its key tenets and speak to how the challenge of plurality or diversity in the twenty-first century has been and continues to be addressed among African and Afro Atlantic spiritual leadership. Following the slave trade and colonialism's aftermath, a pluralistic vision, reflecting the harsh new global order, permitted spiritual sustainability by reconfiguring African ontologisms. Embracing pluralism through annexation of non-native spiritual practices augmented the power of African rulers, providing them with other epistemes and access to spiritual forces they believed enhanced their position. The issue of preparing for the priesthood in a global or pluralistic society is examined in this essay through the historical and metaphysical framework that shaped the making of our societies.

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Rabbis are commonly perceived as bearers of Torah – the sacred traditions and ways of life of Judaism. As such, rabbis certainly have an important role to play in a community seeking guidance and inspiration from and a renewed connection to those traditions. Yet, historically, rabbis arose as a class in a period of crisis and were not merely conservative figures, but were also radical agents for change. The training of rabbis in the contemporary world calls for an assessment of our situation. Is our time a time of crisis? If it is, how should we prepare to meet that crisis? Do rabbis have a role to play in the future? While the texts and traditions of the past are available for study, interpretation, and application, is there a need to prepare rabbis to become effective agents for change? How can we embark upon such an uncharted path?

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For more than twenty-five years, field education programs have been the primary pedagogical strategy by which contextual (practical) theological training has occurred at most Orthodox theological schools in America. These programs are based on a developmental approach, with students progressing from observation to participation to actual leadership. A synthetic model of contextualism will prepare students more effectively for ministry in the third millennium by providing attention to the contemporary context throughout the entire curriculum. This article will: (a) discuss the current practice of Orthodox theological education in America, (b) examine six classifications of contextual theology, and (c) suggest nine core values and goals that support a synthetic model for the contextualization of Orthodox theological education in America.

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An historically familiar tension in East Asian Buddhism between meditation and cultivation in broad learning has appeared in discussions and planning for preparing ministerial students in Won Buddhism. This paper reviews the history of preparation in this order, which was founded in 1916. While the alternatives of training based on practice and education based on classroom intellectual experience have occurred in Won Buddhism, the tension has appeared within the recently founded Won Institute of Graduate Studies in the USA in a clear manner. While the pre-ministerial students coming from Korea have preferred the experiential/practical emphasis, it is recognized that graduate education in the USA normally requires broader learning and critical thinking. The faculty of Won Institute respects both strategies and their respective, almost incompatible, goals, and has tried to create a curriculum embracing both. This effort is described and viewed in the context of Won participation in a culture of pluralism and interreligious relations.

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"Are there Hindu leaders in North America"? Can there be leaders of a purportedly invented or imaginary religion that has no shared doctrines or beliefs? This provocative essay offers answers to these and related questions about the nature of Hindu leadership in North America. Three ideal types are examined: Ritualists, Guides, and Administrators. Their roles and responsibilities, though relatively clear in India, have become complicated in their current incarnations in North America. The difficulties are further enhanced when combined with a drive to derive a syncretic form of Hinduism, a pan-Hinduism that never existed before. This article challenges the leaders of Hinduism in North America to confront and perhaps even jettison their invented identity as a way of becoming better leaders.

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This paper seeks to outline the broad parameters of Soto Zen Buddhist training in the North American context. Using his personal experience of training as a case study, the author argues that Zen in America is strongly oriented towards meditation and everyday practice in the world by dedicated lay people, a situation relatively rare in the history of Buddhism. The training of today's Zen teachers calls for unique skills conditioned by modern life in the developed world: pastoral counseling, psychological acuity, communication training, political awareness, and an ability to translate traditional teachings into terms that are relevant. Teacher training still observes traditional Soto Zen ordinations and pathways. But though the ritual forms endure, their meaning continues to evolve and shift according to the different needs and expressions of American Zen.

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As established in the Sikh scriptural canon, ideal leaders internalize qualities of self-sovereignty, intentional servitude, integrative creativity, authentic compassion, and perhaps most significant of all, Divine inspiration. Models of communal decision-making can also be derived from the lives of the Gur -Prophets (1469–1708 C.E.) and the institutions they established. Though the faith recognizes no clergy class, graduates of historical seminaries often emerge as significant leaders for the Sikh nation. The community outside of the homeland, however, has experienced a lesser effort in the cultivation of leadership. With a primary focus on education, religious centers, youth camps, and retreats have played a critical role in imparting Sikh culture to the masses. While ideals are clearly articulated within the Sikh tradition, it is the application of the ideals that is necessary – Sikh leadership continually works towards these ends, and will ever seek to progress as individuals as well as a community.

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This paper asserts that training Christian leaders for faithful and effective leadership in religious communities, which is responsive to the reality of the diverse religious experiences of this country, requires that they learn the skills of integration, specifically the ability to integrate formation into a community within the context of a multicultural, multifaith world. The process of pastoral theological reflection, a process that seeks to methodically put into conversation the student's experience, social context, and religious tradition, holds promise in a Christian context as a way to accomplish such integration. After discussing the process of pastoral theological reflection, the paper examines a seminary ministerial formation curriculum, based on this integrative process, to discern how it might better engage multifaith realities in its formation of leaders for Christian communities.

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Graduate Theological Education and the Human Experience of Disability examines graduate schools of theology and their limited familiarity with the study of disability -- and the presence of people with disabilities in particular -- on their campuses. Dubbed a "missing note" by one theologian, this text offers critical research and illuminates new pathways for theologia and practice in the community of faith. Reviews of previous literature, theology, and practices illuminate how people with disabilities have historically been marginalized by the religious community. Theologians, people with disabilities and researchers offer suggestions for incorporating disability studies into theological education and religious life. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction: A Look Down the Road (Robert C. Anderson)
Access to Professional Education (Harold H. Wilke)
Integrating Welcome into the Seminary Curriculum (Bruce C. Birch)
In Search of the Disabled Human Body in Theological Education: Critical Perspectives on the Construction of Normalcy - An Overview (Robert C. Anderson)
Toward a Theology That Includes the Human Experience of Disability (Deborah Creamer)
Christian Theology and Human Disability: A Literature Review (W. Daniel Blair)
Healing and Hospitality in Jesus' Ministry (Bruce G. Epperly)
Inclusiveness as Hospitality in Worship Settings (Laurence Hull Stookey)
Each Made in God's Image, Each a Unit of God's Grace (Lu Leone with Ginny Thornburgh)
Index

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How can teaching and living abroad impact our teaching in North America? This article explores how what I do teaching religion and ethics to undergraduates at Texas Christian University has been influenced by twelve years of teaching in the two-thirds world. It is structured in terms of three insights that correlate with what I call the past, present, and future dimensions of ethics, respectively. First, we need to begin where our students are – taking their contexts seriously. Second, we should expose them to the moral and religious experience of others, so that they might be pulled by those others toward broader perspectives. Third, we should challenge them to envision new ways of living, including new self-understandings and images of society. Drawing on examples of how I use these insights in courses at TCU, I contend that we can best promote transformation in our students by holding these three insights in creative tension.

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Reflective and meditative practices, whether Eastern or Western, are being taught in multiple places – retreat houses, hospitals, Zen centers – but are rarely included in the theology classroom. What would be the rationale for inclusion of reflective/meditative practices in a theology curriculum that does not include such a theory/praxis course? What might a mystical tradition/reflective practice course look like? The author first explores the implications of a three-semester pilot program – using guided imagery, spiritual journaling, iconography, and centering prayer – that was conducted with volunteers outside the classroom. Then, based on the experimental project, the author describes a course that blends global traditions with the best of the practices. The author concludes with an evaluation of the reflective/meditative practices and the praxis-inclusive course in terms of possible long-term effects on the personal development of the participants and the ministry of teaching and learning itself.

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In response to our increasingly global and multicultural world, undergraduate degree plans have come to include courses, which meet the Diversity requirement. While diversity may have a variety of definitions, clearly the educational institution believes that all students earning a degree should complete course work that exposes them to cultures not their own. Courses that fulfill Diversity requirements often include "Introduction to World Religions," among others. Even a traditional-style teaching of such a course will accomplish a certain degree of broadening of students' perspectives. The risk, however, is that at the end of the course the students are simply better informed about sets of people whom they would still objectify as the other. This article describes an experiential method of teaching which enables students to begin to change their consciousness, as well as their body of information, by learning to experience the other as self. The author calls this the identification/participation method.

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In this essay I reflect on my experience thus far of teaching Islam as a non-Muslim at Metropolitan State University and at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. I begin by narrating a conversation about conversion that I had with one of my Muslim students. Then I introduce the theme of multiplicity as a way of being, teaching, and learning. The third section illustrates the theme of multiplicity pedagogically with reference to institutional identity, choice of textbooks, topical organization of the course, the "mosque visit" assignment, and class composition and student roles in the classroom. I conclude in the fourth section with personal reflections on multiplicity in relation to credibility and identity, politics and transformation. The essay was inspired by my realization that I embody multiple religious identities, and that one of my purposes is to build community inside and outside the classroom in an effort not only to transcend the tendency of our culture to adopt an essentialist view of Islam as suspect and alien, but also to recover Islam as a universal religion and to consider its agenda for world transformation alongside those of other religions.

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Traversing a rock-strewn terrain of essentialist methodologies historically employed for teaching Islam, the author espouses a non-Essentialist pedagogy that combines critical reflection, analysis of historical methods, and development of an appreciation for alternative notions about Islam and global interdependence. In this essay the author contends that teaching Islam ought to avoid our and their language and instead aim at helping students think in critically reflective, creative, and relational ways so that they might learn to "think of civilizations as transformative, reflexive, and fluid entities."

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In a brief essay originally presented as part of a panel discussion with Christian and Muslim teachers of Islam in the university setting, the author describes the distinctive characteristics of the Islamic Studies Program at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, Minnesota). While the program allows Islamic studies "majors" to earn a degree (M.A. or M.Th.) or certificate in the field, it also aims to be accessible to students in all degree and non-degree programs of the seminary. The author names three sets of issues that result from the determination, at one and the same time, to be faithful Christian theologians and to honor Muslims and their traditions: the hermeneutical issues arising when Christians attempt to read Muslims' sacred scripture; the challenges of developing a dialogical theology in relation to Islam; and questions about the character and practice of Christian witness in a world shared with Muslims, themselves called to da'wah.

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Journal Issue.

Table Of Content:
Freedom’s Holy Light (Frederick W. Whittaker)
ATS: 1974–76—The Executive Director’s Report (Jesse H. Ziegler)
Readiness for Ministry: Report on the Research (Milo L. Brekke, David S. Schuller, and Merton P. Strommen)
The Role of the States in Theological Education (Richard M. Millard)
Indicators of Crisis in Theological Education (Jesse H. Ziegler)
Seminary Management from the President’s Perspective: A Bicentennial Overview (David A. Hubbard)

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In the past decade, critical scholars such as Ronald Grimes and Talal Asad stated that there is a need to recognize the cultural and spiritual dimensions of religion, especially in an age of pluralism. While they call for an increased knowledge and application of techniques from anthropology, ethnology, and performance studies, what actually happens when one teaches from this perspective? As a religious scholar with training in dance anthropology, I created a class on World Religions that was based on these principles. Taught at interfaith and ecumenical seminaries, as well as a California university, the results were interesting, varied, and insightful. This paper discusses the problems, questions, and positive results of these classes, offering a base model for teaching religion in a multicultural, pluralistic age.

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This paper is a reflection on the two most significant challenges that I have faced teaching the introductory course in Islam. The first is the challenge of teaching Islam after September 11, 2001, the events of which gave rise to such pedagogical questions as how much and in what ways the course syllabus should change, and in particular how we should address issues such as extremism and terrorism. The second is the challenge of being a non-Muslim teaching Islam, which raises issues of authority (particularly when there are Muslim students in the classroom). The limitations and advantages of teaching a tradition as an outsider are explored, and strategies for compensating for the limitations are suggested. The final section of the essay explores the following question: When, if ever, can (or should) we as teachers move from explaining and analyzing the positions taken by members of a tradition to criticizing them?

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Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

Table Of Content:
Environmental Justice and Interreligious Ecotheology(Julia Watts Belser, ed.)

ch. 1 Earth-honoring Faith: A Decade Project, Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico (Larry L. Rasmussen)
ch. 2 Where Sustainability and Social Justice Meet in Theological Education (Cynthia Moe-Lobeda)
ch. 3 Teaching toward Ecojustice: Integrating Womanist Justice and Environmental Concern in the Classroom (Melanie L. Harris)
ch. 4 Of Disability and the Garden State (Sharon V. Betcher)
ch. 5 Practicing Ahimsa: Nonviolence toward Humans, Animals, and Earth (Pankaj Jain)
ch. 6 On Beauty and Sustainability (Sandra B. Lubarsky)

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Journal Issue.

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 Of Satos and Saints: Salvation from the Periphery
ch. 2 Mixed Messages: Encountering Mestzaje in the Book of Ruth
ch. 3 Confesiones de un Macho Cubano
ch. 4 Response to Miguel Angel de la Torre

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Journal Issue.

Table Of Content:
Part I
Theology That Tells People’s Passion Stories (Choan-Seng Song)
Babel and Beyond (Leander E. Keck)
The 1984 Presidential Address: Unity and Pluralism in Theological Education (Vincent dePaul Cushing)

Part II
James Franklin Hopewell: An Appreciation (James T. Laney)
A Congregational Paradigm for Theological Education (James F. Hopewell)
Theological Seminaries in the Future (John C. Fletcher)
Ministry, Sacred Space, and Theological Education: The Legacy of Victor Turner (Robert L. Moore)

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This article builds upon the theological insights of feminist and womanist theologians with respect to the sin of self-hate, and explores the ways in which gay male cyberculture inhibits the spiritual development of gay Asian men. 

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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.

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Journal Issue.

Table Of Content:
Ministerial Education in a Religiously Diverse World (W. Clark Gilpin)
A Recommendation Toward Humanistic Christian Witness (Franklin I. Gamwell)
Hermeneutics of Generosity and Suspicion: Pluralism and Theological Education (Margaret R. Miles)
The Vocation of the Theological Educator (James M. Gustafson)
Priorities in Theological Education (James M. Gustafson)
Spiritual Identity and Churchly Praxis (Richard J. Mouw)
Theory and Practice: Theological Education as a Reconstructive, Hermeneutical, and Practical Task (Francis Schussler Fiorenza)
Theological Education in a World of Religious and Other Diversities (Gayroud S. Wilmore)

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Abstract: There is still resistance in Christian institutions to interreligious dialogue. Many feel that such a practice weakens Christian faith, and promotes the idea that Christianity is merely one among many different religious options. When it comes to higher education, there is the fear that both college and seminary students will “lose their faith” if they are invited to study other religious traditions from a positive perspective.

Unfortunately, this attitude belies the current culture in which we live, which constantly exposes us to the beliefs and practices of others. Kristin Johnston Largen sees this setting as an opportunity and seeks to provide not only the theological grounding for such a position but also some practical advice on how both to teach and live out this conviction in a way that promotes greater understanding and respect for others and engenders a deeper appreciation of one’s own faith tradition.

Largen’s synopsis of interreligious education and suggested action includes contributions by Mary E. Hess and Christy Lohr Sapp. Hess and Sapp provide practical commentary regarding the successful implementation of Largen’s proposed approach. As a group, Largen, Hess, and Sapp create a text that extends pedagogical innovation in inspiring but practical ways. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Acknowledgments
ch. 1 Our Interreligious Life in the Twenty-First Century North American Context (Kristin Johnston Largen)
Chapter Praxis Points (Christy Lohr Sapp)
Praxis Point #1
Praxis Point #2
Praxis Point #3
Praxis Point #4
Praxis Point #5
Praxis Point #6
Chapter Response: What are Students’ Questions? (Mary Hess)

ch. 2 A Christian Rationale for Interreligious Teaching and Learning (Kristin Johnston Largen)
Chapter Praxis Points (Christy Lohr Sapp)
Praxis Point #7
Praxis Point #8
Praxis Point #9
Chapter Response: How Do We Understand Student Learning? (Mary Hess)

ch. 3 Outcomes, Strategies, and Assessment for Interreligious Teaching and Learning (Kristin Johnston Largen)
Chapter Praxis Points (Christy Lohr Sapp)
Praxis Point #10
Praxis Point #11
Praxis Point #12
Chapter Response: How Do Theological of the Pluralism of Faith Help? (Mary Hess)

Epilogue
Returning to the Questions with Which We Begin (Mary Hess)
Endings and Beginnings (Kristin Johnston Largen)
Works Cited
Photo Credits

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An entire special issue of “Teaching Theology and Religion” on the topic of addressing sexuality in the classroom (in both undergraduate and theological education contexts).  

Table Of Content:
Ch 1. Embodied Learning: Teaching Sexuality and Religion to a Changing Student Body (Kate Ott, Darryl W. Stephens)
Ch 2. Inviting Perspective Transformation: Sexual History Awareness for Professional Formation (Kate Ott)
Ch 3. Case Method Strategies for Teaching Sexual Ethics to Relativists and Skeptics (Edward Vacek)
Ch 4. Trigger Warnings, Covenants of Presence and More: Cultivating Safe Space for Theological Discussions about Sexual Trauma (Stephanie M. Crumpton)
Ch 5. Sexual and Religious Autobiography (Kent L. Brintnall)
Ch 6. Safely Discussing What Cannot Be Said Out Loud (Patricia Beattle Jung)
Ch 7. Beginning with Social Context: Human Sexuality and the Bible (Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre)
Ch 8. Actively Listening to Testimonies about Rape Culture and Religion (Traci C. West)
Ch 9. Getting a Sense of the Room When Discussing Sexuality (Darryl W. Stephens)
Ch 10. Teaching about Sexuality and Veiling in Islam (Amy Defibaugh, Brett Krutzsch)
Ch 11. Civic Learning and Teaching as a Resource for Sexual Justice: An Undergraduate Religious Studies Course Module (Elisabeth T. Vasko)
Ch 12. A Response to Elisabeth T. Vasko: The Risk and Reward of Teaching About Sexual Assault for the Theologian on a Catholic Campus (Donna Freitas)
Ch 13. Teaching Sexuality and Christianity for Perspective Transformation: Suggested Resources and Strategies (Katia Moles)
Ch 14. Teaching about Teaching Sexuality and Religion (Daryl W. Stephens)

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None of the Above asserts that a growing divide between religious and nonreligious populations could engender a greater distance in moral and political values and behaviors. At once provocative and insightful, this book tackles questions of coexistence, religious tolerance, and spirituality, as American and Canadian society accelerate toward a more secular future. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Front matter
Contents
Introduction: Nonreligious Identity in the US and Canada
1. I’m Done . . . and I’m Not Going Back!
2. Nones of All Shapes and Sizes
3. We Are Just as Moral . . . If Not More!
4. I Want Everybody to Have the Same Chance to Find Happiness
5. It’s Too Bad Your Parents Aren’t Christian . . .
Conclusion: Darlene, Patrick, Corrine, and Sandra
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: Interview Guide Used in Semistructured Interviews with Religious Nones
Appendix B: Further Statistical Results from Chapter 2
Appendix C: Further Statistical Results from Chapter 3
Appendix D: Further Statistical Results from Chapter 4
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Authors

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Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

Table Of Content:
Editorial Introduction (Gail Buchwalter King)
Theological Education, Pluralism and the Common Good (Joseph C. Hough, Jr.)
Responses: (David T. Shannon, Eleanor Scott Meyers, and Fumitaka Matsuoka)
The Future of Mission in a Pluralistic World (Marian Bohen)
Responses: (Andrew D. MacRae and Donald W. Shriver, Jr.)
Theological Publishing and Theological Education (Barbara Wheeler)
Supporting Faculty Scholarship (Jeanne R. McLean)

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See the responses by Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, Yael Shy, and Yehuda Sarna directly following in the table of contents linked here. Rabbinical students gain important knowledge and become more reflective teachers by learning about other religions and with people who practice them. They can also learn how to help educate non-Jews about Judaism and serve as representatives of, and advocates for, our community.

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After illustrating the joys of teaching religious studies abroad with an anecdote from my trip to China, I warn of some of its inherent pedagogical and ethical challenges. I argue that teaching some of the “new directions” in religious studies scholarship might address these challenges. These include a turning away from the abstract (texts, beliefs, theologies) and towards the concrete (bodies, places, rituals); moving away from teaching religions as unchanging, ancient verities and instead emphasizing the impact that colonialism, modernization, and secularism have had; moving from searching for authenticity to questioning it; and emphasizing methodological self-consciousness. Keeping these new directions in mind will help ensure the study abroad experience is educationally successful. This essay serves as an introduction to a series of six additional essays comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).

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Seminaries have a responsibility to engage students in reflecting upon the spiritual life, as well as providing opportunities to deepen their own spiritual journeys. It also is important that they consider the intentional ways that their understandings and experiences of the spiritual life influence their leadership in the Church. Spiritual formation of seminarians provides particular challenges to faculty of liberal, ecumenical seminaries. This article describes a course designed to address these issues and argues that spiritual formation can be effectively integrated into the curricula of liberal, ecumenical seminaries.

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The issue of comparison is a vexing one in religious and theological studies, not least for teachers of comparative religion in study abroad settings. We try to make familiar ideas fresh and strange, in settings where students may find it hard not to take “fresh” and “strange” as signs of existential threat. The author explores this delicate pedagogical situation, drawing on several years' experience directing a study abroad program and on the thought of figures from the Western existentialist tradition and Chinese Confucian philosophy. The article focuses particularly on “oh events” – defined as moments when one learns one has something to learn and something to unlearn. The author argues that the experience of shame that is typical of oh events can become a valuable resource for cross-cultural learning and personal transformation, if teachers assist students to reflect on the experience as a sign of differing, but potentially harmonizable, cultural expectations. This essay is published alongside of six other essays, including a response from John Barbour, comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).

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This paper discusses strategies I employed during seven years of teaching within a study abroad program focusing on religion. This year-long program traveled to four Asian countries and included immersion experiences in monasteries, ashrams, and other religious institutions. I identify four principles and discuss accompanying exercises that guided my teaching: (1) Accept and observe anxiety. Inability to understand is a sign that direct and deep contact is taking place. (2) Educate about education. Help students to see the aims, assumptions, and context of the teaching strategies religious practitioners employ. (3) Make it practical. Devise exercises that students can do and do well and that do not demand synthetic, systematic comprehension even as a goal. (4) Stop making sense. Build pauses and breaks into the train of reflection on the meaning of experience. These spaces give room for the shifts in the ways of learning that study abroad demands. This essay is published alongside of six other essays, including a response from John Barbour, comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).

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This essay is concerned with study abroad experiences as opportunities for student cognitive development, using the interpretive lens of educational psychologist William G. Perry. A standard and often valuable assignment in courses on world religions is a site visit to a religious institution in one's local area. This may concretize otherwise abstract materials and help students reflect on ways in which the lived experience of religion differs from its presentation in course texts and other academic materials. Increasingly, study abroad trips are being offered as extended and more intensive ways of bringing this material to life, offering students opportunity to see lived religion within another cultural framework. At the heart of this paper is the contention that such study abroad experiences function not simply as longer, more intense versions of site visits but, rather, as experiences that invert the subject and object of study. The worldview of the student becomes a primary object of study, which is examined, as it were, by the particulars of the religion(s) under investigation and the cultures of which said religion(s) are a part. Where site visits offer students an opportunity to visit the strange amidst the familiar, study abroad trips provide opportunities for students to become the strange within a recalibrated familiar. The subject becomes the object and is interrogated by the context of study. While local, stateside site visits can offer a degree of such dislocation, their brevity, together with some degree of assimilation to the larger culture flows on the part of the local religious institution being visited, most often mitigates any significant inversion. Students generally see such institutions as either mildly or wildly exotic, but always within their frame of reference, which constitutes the norm. When abroad, the normative experience of students is often subverted in ways that lay bare the assumptions behind such views and makes possible another world in which to live. Simply put, the subject and object of study change places. If this inversion is carefully attended to, it can provide rich insight into not only the topics nominally being studied but also occasion opportunity for real cognitive development on the part of the student. This essay is published alongside of six other essays, including a response from John Barbour, comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).

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Reflecting on two study abroad trips to New Zealand in 2005 and 2007, I suggest in this essay that it is possible to mitigate the risk of (American or European) students recapitulating imperial attitudes through development of a rigorous curriculum focusing on the legacies of colonialism, institutional racism, and the somewhat dubious phenomenon of “post-colonialism.” Readings, I argue, should be in continual play during cultural and social activities, operating in a dialectal move toward an “ethics of respect.” Such an ethics remains aporetic, or uncertain, insofar as no code of behavior can render us immune to the political and polemical effects of past and present forms of imperialism. However, a cultivated respect for distance and difference, including regarding questions of “authenticity,” can help to actualize the transformative promise of studying (indigenous) religion abroad. This essay is published alongside of six other essays, including a response from John Barbour, comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).

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Conservative (fundamentalist, evangelical) Christian students present a general theological worldview that often correlates with significant anxiety. In a foreign setting, the anxiety of conservative students, removed from their supportive infrastructure, can be considerably heightened. This structure of thinking and emotion presents distinctive challenges and opportunities. Drawing upon my work as a clinician and as a religion professor who conducted study abroad programs, I make suggestions for working effectively with conservative Christian students in study abroad contexts. Suggestions include predeparture, in-country, and post-trip strategies. Specific examples of conversations with students are provided to illustrate the challenges and strategies. This essay is published alongside of seven other essays, including a response from John Barbour, comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).

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Teaching music in certain seminary contexts poses particular challenges for teaching and learning. The theme of disjuncture between teacher and student in courses that aim to incorporate music in the seminary curriculum are more vital than ever before because of the extreme cultural diversity of our population and integral nature of music in the worship life of religious communities. This essay tackles the difficulties associated with teaching worship music in seminaries where there are a plurality of religious traditions represented and a host of expectations held by diverse student bodies about what connotes worship music. Topics addressed include issues concerning terminology, repertoire, pedagogical methods for teaching worship music, and current issues in church music.

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Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

Table Of Content:
Christian Hospitality and Pastoral Practices in a Multifaith Society: An ATS Project 2010-2012 (Stephen R. Graham)
Christian Hospitality and Pastoral Practices from an Evangelical Perspective (Sang-Ehil Han, Paul Louis Metzger, and Terry C. Muck)
The Mainline's New Moment: Hospitable Christian Practice in a Multireligious World (Frances S. Adeney, Duane R. Bidwell, and Elizabeth Johnson Walker)
Christian Hospitality and Pastoral Practices from a RomanCatholic Perspective (Mary C. Boys and Scott C. Alexander)
Guests of Religious Others: Theological Education in the Pluralistic World (Amos Yong)
Educating Religious Leaders for a Multireligious World: Outcomes and Learning (David A. Roozen)
Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct (World Council of Churches, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and World Evangelical Alliance)

Open Forum
Theological Diversity in a Liberal Seminary: United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (Sharon M. Tan)

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This article argues that as the emerging field of interfaith studies defines the skills and knowledge base required for students to become public interfaith leaders, it must include the practice of public deliberation and collaborative problem solving in its curricula. It begins with a delineation of fundamental questions about the place of religion in the public sphere and ways that these questions surface in interfaith studies classrooms. It then describes in detail a developmental metacognitive pedagogy for engagement in interreligious deliberation at the first year level. The article concludes with thoughts on how our students may move beyond dyadic thinking about secular and religious reasoning in public deliberation.

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The politics of pedagogy when teaching for belief in culturally diverse settings inevitably draws attention to the power dynamics in the encounters of teachers and students. The quest for a pedagogy that is not oppressive or coercive provides the impetus to liberative proposal for teaching practice.

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This series of three essays by educators from Georgia, Texas, and Alabama examines teaching Asian Religions in the American South. Through reflection on individual experience, each essay offers concrete strategies for the classroom that can be utilized by fellow educators working in the American South, but can also inform pedagogy in other North American regions. Introducing the idea of the “imagined student,” Esaki discusses teaching African American students and tailoring Asian religions courses towards their interests by producing positive buy‐in, while also acknowledging their potential isolation from White peers interested in similar topics. Mikles builds on Esaki's idea of the imagined student to discuss her own experience teaching Mexican and Vietnamese American students in Texas, while presenting specific strategies to overcome preconceived educator bias about students in Southern classrooms. Battaglia closes out the series by suggesting the use of a phenomenological approach for students to sympathetically enter into an Asian religious worldview. She offers specific exercises that can help students unpack their own assumptions – their “invisible backpack” – and approach Asian religions on their own terms.

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Growing numbers of church leaders are discovering that many films are able to impact viewers with gospel truths almost as well as a good sermon. Former pastor and longtime reviewer of films Ed McNulty offers this insightful guide to help church leaders enter into dialogue with contemporary films. McNulty carefully crafts a theology of movies and then provides practical suggestions for creating and leading movie discussions with groups. In addition, he provides people from all across the theological spectrum with a framework to understand whether the overall message of a film outweighs concerns over profanity, violence, or sex in the film. He concludes by introducing twenty-seven films and including provocative questions about each that will prepare leaders to assemble and facilitate a group. Popular films explored include The Color Purple; Crash; Hotel Rwanda; The Matrix; Million Dollar Baby, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Shawshank Redemption. Faith and Film accessibly and comprehensively helps readers and moviegoers develop "eyes that see and ears that hear" how God's messages of hope and love are revealed in contemporary films. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Part 1: Looking for the Light of the World While Sitting in the Dark
Introduction: Developing a Theology of Seeing
What Has Jerusalem to Do with Hollywood?
Four Types of Films
More on Parable and Film
Help for Becoming Your Own Critic
Settings for a Film Discussion
Using the Guides in This Book

Part II: Movie Discussion Guides
American Beauty
Amistad
Babe: Pig in the City
Beyond the Sea
Chocolat
The Color Purple
Crash
Dogma
Erin Brockovich
Final Solution
The Grapes of Wrath
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Hotel Rwanda
The Insider
The Iron Giant
Les Miserables
The Matrix
Million Dollar Baby
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Pieces of April
Road to Perdition
Shawshank Redemption
The Spitfire Grill
Tender Mercies
The Thin Red Line
To End all Wars
Walking across Egypt

Appendix 1: List of Films and Their DVD Distributors
Appendix 2: Church and Theater

Notes
Bibliography

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Discussions of world citizenship that elide the challenge of grappling with religious worldviews expose a covert intolerance at the very core of secularism, calling into question the “liberality” of liberal education. The ethical imperative of engaging with different worldviews not only demands that religions be taught, but also raises questions regarding how religious worldviews should be taught.

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This project proposes to look at the emergence of Black theology as a discipline within the academy and how Black theology may serve as a resource for excellence in teaching. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface

Introduction
ch. 1 Pedagogy and Black Community
ch. 2 What Can a Black Woman Teach Me?
ch. 3 Pedagogy and Ontological Sameness ch. 4 The Black Church and Pedagogy
ch. 5 Emancipatory Praxis and Liberation for Oppressors
ch. 6 Pedagogy as Celebration

Notes
Bibliography
Index

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Journal Issue.

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Journal Issue.

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This essay explores new ways of engaging diversity in the production of knowledge in the classroom using coloniality as an analytical lens. After briefly engaging some of the recent literature on coloniality, focusing on the epistemic dimension, the author uses the example of teaching a course on religion, culture, and theology, where he employs this analysis, to develop a new pedagogical approach as a step towards an intercultural, de-colonial theological education.

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Explores the field of pastoral theology and multiculturalism in New Zealand. Restructuring of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand; Structure of theological education; Identification of the future needs and character of the Anglican Church.

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Abstract: This volume explores the twenty-first century classroom as a uniquely intergenerational space of religious disaffiliation, and questions about how our work in the classroom can be, and is being, re-imagined for the new generation. The culturally hybrid identity of Millennials shapes their engagement with religious "others" on campus and in the classroom, pushing educators of comparative theology to develop new pedagogical strategies that leverage ways of seeing and interacting with their teachers and classmates. Reflecting on religious traditions such as Islam, Judaism, African Traditional Religions, Hinduism, Christianity, and agnosticism/atheism, this volume theorizes the theological outcomes of current pedagogies and the shifting contours of comparative theological discourse. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction

Part One - Comparative Theology in a Millennial Classroom
ch. 1 (Un)Silencing Hybridity: A Postcolonial Critique of Comparative Theology (Judith Gruber)
ch. 2 Newman, Millennials, and Teaching Comparative Theology (William L. Portier)
ch. 3 Teaching and Learning Comparative Theology with Millennial Students (Mary E. Hess)
ch. 4 The Religion Classroom as a Site for Justice (Wanda Scott)

Part Two - Interrogating Identity
ch. 5 Comparative Theology at the Intersections of (Multi)Racial and (Multi)Religious Identities (Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier)
ch. 6 Soteriological Privilege (Mara Brecht)
ch. 7 Teaching Tawhid: Unity through Diversity (Syed Adnan Hussain)
ch. 8 Feeling Comparative Theology: Millennial Affect and Reparative Learning (Lisa Gasson-Gardner and Jason Smith)
ch. 9 Constructing Boundaries by Crossing Them: Comparative Theology as a Practice of Community Self-Definition (Reid B. Locklin)

Part Three - Getting (Comparatively) Theological
ch. 10 Among the "Nones": Questing for God in the Twenty-First Century Classroom (Jeannine Hill Fletcher)
ch. 11 What Muslims Can Teach Catholics about Christianity (Rita George-Tvrtković)
ch. 12 Recognizing the Place of African Traditional Religions in the Comparative Theological Discourse: Mediating Classroom Encounters through Storytelling (SimonMary A. Aihiokhai)
ch. 13 Dharma and Moksha, Works and Faith: Comparatively Engaging the Tension Between Ethics and Spirituality (Madhuri M. Yadlapati)
ch. 14 Knowing Their Rites: The Formation of ‘Textual Confidence’ among Jewish and Muslim Women in Academic and Community-Based Settings (Shari Golberg)
ch. 15 Teaching World Theologies through Film (Jon Paul Sydnor)

Afterword (Francis X. Clooney, S.J.)

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Journal Issue.

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 The Future Of Christian Religious Education In An Era Of Shrinking Transcendence (Ronald H. Cram)
ch. 2 The Vulnerability Of The Postmodern Educator As Locus Theologicus: A Study In Practical Theology (Bert Roebben)
ch. 3 Fundamentalist Education: A Critical Analysis (Doret De Ruyter)
ch. 4 Christianity And Dogmatism Revisited: A Study Among Fifteen And Sixteen Year Olds In The United Kingdom (Leslie J. Francis)
ch. 5 Fundamentalism As A Challenge For Religious Education (Heinz Streib)
ch. 6 Having Faith In Our Faith In God: Toward A Critical Realist Epistemology For Christian Education (Robert K. Martin)

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Opinion. Discusses the interplay among religion, education and multiculturalism in reshaping conscience. Persistent premise that not only salvation but also civilization was not possible without Christianity; Relaxing of exclusivism by the Vatican Council II to reach out to other faiths.

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Inspired by the #FergusonSyllabus, the #StandingRockSyllabus, the #BlackIslamSyllabus and others, this reading list provides resources for teaching and learning about anti-Muslim racism in the United States. 

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Working with undergraduate students invites teachers into relationship and conversation with young people at a time when they are emerging as adults and forming their identities. Faith is one area of identity formation often attended to by scholars, college professors, and their institutions. But within that, little attention has been paid to those who do not identify as religious. Additionally, “the overwhelming presence of Christianity at American institutions maintains it as the spiritual norm on campus. … Those within the spiritual norm gain a level of privilege that is often unconscious” (Seifert 2007, 11). This has an effect not only on nonreligious students but on any student who identifies as anything other than Christian; and it has a unique effect on teaching and learning in the religion classroom. In this article, I will explain what Christian privilege is, why it is a unique problem in the undergraduate religion classroom, and what teachers of religion might do in response to it. In the end, I argue that educators need to better understand the effects of Christian privilege in our classrooms and become allies to the nonreligious in particular by using pedagogies that include and support all students, in their many religious affiliations and unaffiliations.

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Table Of Content:
The U.S. Bossey Assessment Project: An Introduction (John B. Lindner and Linda-Marie Delloff)
Ecumenical Formation: A Methodology for a Pluralistic Age (John B. Lindner)
Embracing Estrangement (Linda-Marie Delloff)
Worship and Prayer in Ecumenical Formation (John H. Erickson and Eileen W. Lindner)
Learning a Religious Tradition: Identity by Contrast (Bertice Y. Wood)
Does What Is Taught at Bossey Equal What Is Learned? (Michael Gilligan)
Two Agendas for Ecumenical Formation (Heidi Hadsell)
Ecumenical Formation: Ecumenical Reflections and Suggestions (Alan C. Clark and Metropolitan Elias Audi)
Supplementary Reading

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Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

Table Of Content:
Foreword (Robert J. Schreiter, S.J.)

Section 1: The Changing Terrain of “Globalization” in the ATS
Editor’s Introduction
Stumbling in the Right Direction (William Lesher and Donald Shriver)
The Changing Terrain of “Globalization” in ATS Conversations (Fumitaka Matsuoka)
Words and Deeds: An Informal Assessment of Globalization in Theological Schools (Daniel O. Aleshire)

Section 2: The Dynamics of “Globalization” and Their Theological Significance
Editor’s Introduction
The Calculus of Global Culture (Kathryn Poethig)
Religion and Theology in Global Culture , Robert J. Schreiter, S.J. with excerpts from The New Catholicity: Theology Between the Global and the Local
Globalization, Faith, and Theological Education (Max L. Stackhouse)
A Decade of Special Issues on Globalization in Theological Education

Section 3: Report on the ATS Telephone Survey on Cross-Cultural Relationships
Collective Wisdom: What ATS Schools Have Learned about Establishing, Sustaining, and Evaluating Good Cross-Cultural Relationships (Judith A. Berling)

Section 4: Particular Cases
Getting Down to Cases: Responses to Globalization in ATS Schools (Judith A. Berling)

Section 5: Looking Toward the Future
Editor’s Introduction
Globalization, World Religions, and Theological Education (M. Thomas Thangaraj)
If Globalization Is True, What Shall We Do? Toward a Theology of Ministry (Max L. Stackhouse)
One in Christ: An Intra-Christian Conversation on Christianity and Difference in a Global World (Robert F. Ferris and Judith A. Berling)
Resistance to the “Globalization” Emphasis in ATS Schools from Theological Educators from Other Parts of the World (William Lesher and Barbara Brown Zikmund)

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Teaching students to doubt, that is, to "test," theological arguments as one might test any other kind of knowledge is challenging in that the warrant for such testing is not immediately clear. Stephen Toulmin, Richard Rieke, and Allan Janik's model of reasoning provides a conceptual framework that demonstrates the logical relationships between a claim, its grounds, warrants, and backing for warrants. Against such a model, the instructor and students may study religious claims, both biblical and theological, with the aim of analyzing the ways such claims find support or a lack of support depending upon the particular ways that claims and evidence have competing warrants. Several pedagogical benefits ensue. First, students see that the validity for theological claims rests as much upon warrants as it does upon grounding. Second, searching for ancient warrants privileges historical-critical investigation. Third, competing warrants for contradictory theological claims summon pedagogical metaphors of process and development.

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Site visits provide an irreplaceable learning experience to students in both religious studies and the emerging field of interfaith studies. The conceptual core of this thesis is the claim, drawn from feminist epistemology, that an embodied pedagogy – a pedagogy which engages students not only intellectually, but as embodied beings who inhabit a space, engage in physical activities, and undergo various sensory experiences – is ultimately more enriching than a pedagogy centered exclusively in the classroom. Factors that make a site visit a successful instance of embodied pedagogy include the provision of sufficient context to students in advance for them to understand and appreciate the experience, an opportunity afterward to reflect on this experience in an intentional way, ensuring the site and the community whose space it is are treated with proper respect, and ensuring that the religious sensibilities of one's students are also similarly respected.

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Discussions on teaching and learning within theological seminaries often center on the question of student diversity, focused primarily upon issues of race, gender, and ethnicity. At the same time that seminaries are challenged to deal with a multitude of pedagogical suppositions emerging from increasingly diverse learning goals, seminaries must also pay attention to the ways their students challenge an institution's core mission to train ministers for service in churches and denominations. Based upon the author's experience teaching in a mainline Protestant seminary, the essay discusses three student cultures that often overlap among today's seminarians. These three student cultures, referred to here as "church seminarian," "new paradigm seminarian," and "vocational seminarian," carry very different understandings of the seminary's role to prepare students for ministry. A critical discernment of these cultures might challenge seminary faculty to reevaluate their educational and missional suppositions amidst divergent student career objectives.

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Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

Table Of Content:
Contributors
ch. 1 Islamic Studies at North American Theological Seminaries: Editor's Introduction (Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner)
ch. 2 International Institute of Islamic Thought and Its Role in Promoting Islamic Studies at Theological Seminaries (Ermin Sinanović)
ch. 3 Muslim Studies at Emmanuel College: Intercultural Pedagogies and Emerging Epistemologies (Nevin Reda)
ch. 4 Fulfilling the Need for Muslim Chaplains (Feryal Salem)
ch. 5 Catholic-Muslim Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago (Scott C. Alexander)
ch. 6 Challenges and Opportunities in Interreligious Seminary Studies (Munir Jiwa)

Resources

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Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

Table Of Content:
Taking Interfaith Off the Hill: Revelation in the Abrahamic Traditions (Gregory Mobley)
The Pastoral Practice of Christian Hospitality as presence in Muslim-Christian Engagement: Contextualizing the Classroom (Mary Hess)
Raising Awareness of Christian Hospitality and Pastoral Practices: Equipping Ourselves for a Multifaith World (Barbara Sutton)
Christian Hospitality in a World of Many Faith: Equipping the New Generation of Religious Leaders in a Multifaith Context (Eleazar S. Fernandez)
Caring Hospitably in Multifaith Situations (Daniel S. Schipani)
Interfaith Perspectives on Religious Practices (Timothy H. Robinson; and Nancy Ramsay)
Putting into Practice an Intercultural Approach to Spiritual Care with Veterans (Carrie Doehring; and Kelly Arora)
Table Fellowship with Our Buddhist Neighbors for Beloved Community (Paul Louis Metzger)
Developing a Cultural Competency Module to Facilitate Christian Hospitality and Promote Pastoral Practices in a Multifaith Society (Paul De Neui; and Deborah Penny)

Open Forum
Pedagogic Principles for Multifaith Education (Rabbi Or N. Rose)
Christian Hospitality and Muslims (Amir Hussain)
Muslim Studies in a Christian Theological School: The Muslim Studies Program at Emmanuel College in Toronoto (Mark G. Toulouse)

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Boyer describes a teaching method which uses popular movies to explore themes encountered in the New Testament. Topics include, for example, martyrdom in Witness and The Gospel of Luke and apocalypse in Waterworld and The Book of Revelation. A modernized film interpretation of Shakespeare's Rome. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction
Teaching Literature
The New Testament is Literature
Literary Redaction Criticism: The Dreamer of Oz: L. Frank Baum and The Wizard of Oz
The Elements of a Story: The Wizard of Oz
Teaching Mark's Gospel
The Good Mother
Phenomenon
Sommersby
The Shawshank Redemption
Teaching Matthew's Gospel
Being There
Willow
Teaching Luke's Gospel
Witness
Teaching John's Gospel
Jeremiah Johnson
Powder
The Shawshank Redemption
Teaching the Acts of the Apostles
The Mission
Teaching Pauline Theology
Regarding Henry
The Doctor
Teaching the Book of Revelation
Pale Rider
The Milagro Beanfield War
Waterworld
Teaching the "Vineyard" Metaphor
A Walk in the Clouds
Teaching Hermeneutics
Romeo and Juliet

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From its beginnings, Georgetown College welcomed students of all faiths. Today, that imperative finds roots in the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate and serves the good of interreligious dialogue in a globalized world. Georgetown describes its posture as “centered pluralism,” remaining in the Catholic tradition while engaging in conversation with others. An ongoing challenge is how to remain centered in Catholic tradition and at the same time be truly open to encounter with the religious other. (From the Publisher)

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In the fall of 2010, anti-Muslim furor in the United States reached a breaking point, capping a decade in which such sentiment had surged. Loud, angry crowds gathered near New York's Ground Zero to protest plans to build an Islamic cultural center, while a small-time Florida minister appeared on national television almost nightly promising to celebrate the anniversary of 9/11 with the burning of Korans. At the same time, fifteen devout Muslims quietly gathered in a basement in Berkeley, California, to execute a plan that had been coming together for over a decade: to found Zaytuna College, "Where Islam Meets America." It would be the nation's first four-year Muslim liberal arts college, its mission to establish a thoroughly American, academically rigorous, and traditional indigenous Islam.

In Light without Fire, Scott Korb tells the story of the school's founders, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir, arguably the two most influential leaders in American Islam, "rock stars" who, tellingly, are little known outside their community. Korb also introduces us to Zaytuna's students, young American Muslims of all stripes who admire—indeed, love—their teachers in ways college students typically don't and whose stories, told for the first time, signal the future of Islam in this country.

From a heady theology classroom to a vibrant storefront mosque, from the run-down streets Oakland to grand ballrooms echoing with America's most powerful Muslim voices, Korb follows Zaytuna's students and teachers as they find their place and their voice. He ultimately creates an intimate portrait of the school and provides a new introduction to Islam as it is being lived and re-envisioned in America. It's no exaggeration to say that here, at Zaytuna, are tomorrow's Muslim leaders. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction 11/5/09, "Going Muslim"

ch. 1 Zaytunah
ch. 2 Al-Madrash
ch. 3 Al-Tullab
ch. 4 A Muslim Stillness
ch. 5 631 Jackson Street
ch. 6 The Dear Self
ch. 7 Reviving the Spirit
ch. 8 Peace Be uponHim
ch. 9 Sacred Caravan
ch. 10 The Citizen
ch. 11 Jesus, the Son of Mary (Peace Be upon Them)
ch. 12 Year One

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Articulates a learning process to help Christians improve approaches to understanding other religious traditions. Understanding Other Religious Worlds is built on the difference between learning facts about other religions and understanding them and their followers in a wholistic manner. Berling argues that incorporating the religious “other” in one’s own Christian identity is integral to living an authentic Christian life. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
Introduction

ch. 1 Christians and Religious Diversity
ch. 2 Thinking about Learning
ch. 3 Learning Religions
ch. 4 Theological Learning
ch. 5 Unraveling the Threads: The Process of Learning Another Religion
ch. 6 Classroom Learning: Improving Traditional Approaches
ch. 7 Beyond the Classroom: Learning Other Religions in the Churche

Appendix A: Selected Annotated Bibliography
Appendix B: Practical Guidelines for Parish Learning Experiences
Selected Bibliography
Index

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Syllabi of five courses taught within new interfaith and interreligious studies programs. Also  model student learning outcomes and curricular programs. 

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This reflection offers a glimpse into a Masters' level practical theology course in “wisdom formation” for its potential implications and contributions in multifaith education. Instigated by an unexpected companionship between the two instructors – an eighth-generation rabbi, leader of CLAL (the Center for Learning and Leadership) and a Presbyterian practical theologian in a free-standing United Methodist seminary – this elective course was developed for Christian and Jewish ministry students, though it eventually evolved into a required Masters of Divinity course in theologies of religious pluralism and interreligious/intercultural encounter. The course's structure and implementation are described, followed by difficulties faced and potential implications for multifaith education, specifically those in disciplinary formation, institutional stewardship, and the diverse contexts and questions for teaching and learning.

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Journal Issue.

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Seminary education is adjusting to the global realities of inter-religious encounter. An increasingly important element of equipping seminarians must be the ability to embrace two dimensions of mature faith; (1) deep convictions related to their own faith, and (2) genuine civility in their engagement with others. The practice of convicted civility is best learned experientially through participative assignments and close contact with people of other faiths. The article explores an approach by which students are encouraged to develop the capacity and skills to both address the faith issues that divide us and to respond to social issues that require the exercise of civility to live together peacefully. The experience of Fuller Seminary, an evangelical, multidenominational, and multiethnic institution provides a context for educating seminarians for convicted civility in a multifaith world.

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One page Teaching Tactic: students compare two theology textbooks to gain a new understanding of diversity.

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Many theological schools use short term travel as a way to foster interfaith education. Due to their experiential, holistic, and intense nature, travel seminars focused on the promotion of interfaith learning can shape a future religious leader's outlook on religious communities across the course of her entire career. In this article I explore the pedagogical dimensions of travel seminars as a tool for interfaith education through the lens of a travel seminar to Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories.

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The authors developed and co-taught a course on Korean indigenous spiritualities designed primarily for Korean Christians to reflect on whether such spiritualities might hold resources for their religious lives. Engaging students directly with the spiritual practices, texts, and representatives of the traditions, the course encouraged students to voice their understandings of these traditions on their own terms, and the extent to which they might hold resources for Korean Christianity. Starting each class session with pair discussions (in Korean, if desired), and then sharing the pair responses with the larger class for fuller discussion gradually developed intracultural interreligious openness to the Korean indigenous heritage. Two non-Korean students brought “outsider” questions and responses to the conversation. Students reported that the learning experience was successful and valuable.

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Jesus and Mary have been called simultaneously a bridge and a gulf between two massive, complex religion-communities. In spite of this – and in spite of obvious distinctions between instructional venues such as a church's adult education program, a seminary classroom, or a required university theology course – a fairly consistent set of strategies work well when helping Christians understand Jesus and Mary as Muslims known them. Gaining such familiarity is useful preparation for Christians' eventual appreciative conversation with Muslims.

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The period 2002–2012 saw remarkable developments in multifaith education at American theological schools. Looking ahead, multifaith education in theological schools is poised to enter a new phase of broad engagement and development. This essay focuses on three aspects of the practice of multifaith education in seminaries. It first presents a brief historical overview of the initiatives and institutions that pioneered multifaith education in theological schools. It then summarizes findings from surveys, reports, and collegial gatherings about the pedagogy of multifaith education. Finally, eight questions for practitioners of multifaith education seminaries to explore in the future are offered.

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The author and her colleagues planned and led three retreats to build relationships between rabbinical students and Muslim leaders of tomorrow. Narrative Pedagogy served to inform the creation of these immersive experiences. The retreats made use of the shared scriptural traditions around Joseph (Torah) and Yusuf (Qur'an) to build connections based on a common passion for text study. Parallel to the academic exploration of religious and cultural narratives, participants wove connections based on an ethos of appreciative inquiry and the guided sharing of personal stories. Carefully structured exercises provided a container for the growth of understanding and connection.

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One page Teaching Tactic: students experience the transformative power of telling your story through well designed prompts for pairs.

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This book introduces readers to systems of knowing and learning different from our familiar Western educational tradition. As with other areas of education, the knowledge base that has developed around adult learning and education has been firmly lodged in Western values and culture. But we need only look beyond our borders as well as to our own indigenous Native Americans to find major systems of thought and beliefs embedded in entirely different cultural values. Chapters on Native American Indigenous Knowledge, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Maori, Latin American Perspectives and African Indigenous Knowledge will acquaint readers with alternative understandings of learning, leading, it is hoped, to a more holistic understanding of adult learning. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
Introduction
Contributors
ch. 1 An Introduction to Non-Western Perspectives on Learning and Knowing (Sharan B. Merriam)
ch. 2 Islam's Lifelong Learning Mandate (Mazalan Kamis Mazanah Muhammad)
ch. 3 American Indian Indigenous Pedagogy (Paula Gunn Allen)
ch. 4 Hinduism and Learning (Swathi Nath Thaker)
ch. 5 Maori Concepts of Learning and Knowledge (Lavinia Tamarua)
ch. 6 Buddhist Learning: A Process to Be Enlightened (Jienshen F. Shih)
ch. 7 African Indigenous Knowledge: The Case of Botswana (Gabo Ntseane)
ch. 8 Liberation Theology and Learning in Latin America (Simone C.O. Conceição Augusto Marcos Fagundes Oliveira)
ch. 9 Adult Learning from a Confucian Way of Thinking (Youngwha Kee)
ch. 10 Broadening Our Understanding of Learning (Sharan B. Merriam)

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Offers a view on teaching Islam. Reason instructors do not look to Muslim scholarship; Role of the instructor in the modern university; Impact of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on teaching the religion.

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Online companion to the PBS weekly news show, with lots of resources for teachers (lesson plans, tips, additional links). Explicitly aimed at K-12, but helpful for college age students as well.

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Lesson plans, classroom tips, and teaching resources, on the website of the popular PBS news show.

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A browsable online library of resources for interfaith work on campus and in the classroom - including downloadable PDFs, videos, webinars, and podcasts, teaching modules, case studies, reading lists, and “best practices” and topics such as assessment, leadership, impact, and guidelines for site visits.

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This paper asserts that Continuing Education aimed at equipping Christian leaders (lay and ordained) to carry out their ministries in the midst of America's increasing religious diversity in a way that views this diversity positively must be two-pronged: (1) it must provide accurate information about the beliefs and practices of the neighbors, and (2) it must provide theological resources rooted in Christian scripture and tradition. As this paper explores a variety of models, it reflects on the difficulty of holding these two goals together and the problems inherent in attempting to measure what such Continuing Education programs and events accomplish. In considering ways forward, it offers a Christian theology of religious difference informed by notions of neighbor-love.

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Examines how the higher education sector in Britain has responded to changes due to religious diversity. Takes particular account of the perspectives of chaplains in higher education, and also considers the perspectives of religious, student-run, and academic organizations concerned with religion in universities. Explores the role that religion plays in shaping a new generation of British Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, and examines issues such as the staffing of chaplaincies, religious dietary needs, and equal opportunity policies. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 Introduction
ch. 2 Religion in Higher Education in Britain Since 1945
ch. 3 University Faith Communities: Diversity, Identity and Rights
ch. 4 Chaplaincies: Organisation, Funding and Staffing
ch. 5 Meeting Student Needs
ch. 6 Religion and the Corporate Life of Universities: Equal Opportunities?
ch. 7 Student Voices
ch. 8 Religion in Higher Education and Public Life: Some Conclusions

Appendices
References
Index

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This article reports on the findings of a study carried out with ordinands and faculty in English theological Colleges and Courses (programs). The project aimed to discover (a) how and to what extent students are trained to work in Britain's multi–faith society, and (b) how are ordinands thinking theologically about issues of religious diversity. This article highlights the examples of good practice that emerged from the study and considers what makes for good learning about multi–faith issues for ordinands training for the ministry.

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Click Here for Book Review
When religious diversity is our reality, radical hospitality to people of other faiths is not a luxury but a necessity. More than necessary for our survival, radical hospitality to religious diversity is necessary if we are to thrive as a global society. By no means does the practice of hospitality in a multifaith world require that we be oblivious of our differences. On the contrary, it demands a respectful embrace of our differences because that's who we are. Neither does radical hospitality require that we water down our commitment, because faithfulness and openness are not contradictory. We must be able to say with burning passion that we are open to the claims of other faiths because we are faithful to our religious heritage. The essays in this book do not offer simply theological exhortations; they offer specific ways of how we can become religiously competent citizens in a multifaith world. Let's take the bold steps of radical openness with this book on our side! (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
ch. 1. Our Journey in Multifaith Education (Robert Hunt)
ch. 2. Multifaith Context and Competencies (Eleazaar S. Fernandez)
ch. 3. Designing Curricular Approaches for Interfaith Competency or Why Does Learning How to Live in a Community of Communities Matter? (Mary E. Hess)
ch. 4. Religious Self, Religious Other: Coformation as a Model for Interreligious Education (Jennifer Peace)
ch. 5. Beyond World Religions: Pedagogical Principles and Practices for the Encouragement of Interfaith Hospitality and Collaboration (Lucinda Mosher)
ch. 6. Pursuing and Teaching Justice in Multifaith Contexts (Justus Baird)
ch. 7. Spiritual Formation in a Multifaith World (Ruben L. F. Habito)
ch. 8. Pastoral and Spiritual Care in Multifaith Contexts (Daniel S. Schipani)
ch. 9. Chaplaincy Education Meets Multireligious Literacy Development: Strategies for Teaching Models and Methods of Spiritual Caregiving in Multifaith Contexts (Lucinda Mosher)
ch. 10. Public Ministry in a World of Many Faiths (Shanta Premawardhana)
ch. 11. Letting the Arts Lead: The role of the Arts in Interfaith Dialogue (Cindi Beth Johnson with Jann Cather Weaver)
ch. 12. "The Sacrament of Human Life": Cultivating Intentional Interreligious Learning in Congregations (Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook)

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This essay explores pedagogical practices and ethical obligations in the embrace of cultural and religious diversity by a faculty team in a theological school course. Attention is given to the interplay of art and ethical dilemmas in an educational praxis that calls into question students' taken-for-granted worldviews and theologies. In the first of three sections the writers identify several assumptions they brought to the conduct of the course regarding diversity, art, and pedagogy. The second section describes student encounters with and responses to art from a variety of cultural contexts. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on ethical and political issues arising from pedagogical practices that engage students with art.

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This essay argues, as its title suggests, that learning that is both comparative and theological can be an ordinary – possible, beneficial, even necessary – part of theological education and, like other fields of study, may be incorporated in the curriculum in ways that meet practical curricular needs. Once the professor has undertaken the initial, minimal learning, teaching comparatively can become a natural and integral part of any seminary course. The study of the other is not exotic or in a class by itself; if we can study our own religious tradition today, we can study others as well. The thesis is argued in several parts: (1) interreligious diversity is integral to the context of contemporary faith; (2) comparative theology engages diversity in an intentionally theological way and needs to be distinguished from other disciplines; (3) a comparative theological approach aids in the process of ensuring that attention to diversity is integral to theological education; (4) teaching comparative theology is not different from teaching other forms of theology. None of this, I suggest, requires a liberal or pluralist theological starting point.

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This essay argues that multifaith concerns must become central components of curricula across theological education. It outlines a methodology for such incorporation in a course and for an audience that, at first glance, appears not to lend itself to such an approach, a Hartford Seminary course on Muslim public speaking for Islamic Chaplaincy students. This methodology is based on the model of educational programs developed by the Interfaith Center of New York for local religious leaders and professionals who work with and within religiously diverse settings, such as school teachers, court officials, health care professionals, and social workers. This model of practical multifaith education is based on the local realities of religious diversity that constitutes the context for the work of graduates of theological schools.

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Discusses issues in coping with religious diversity in the classroom. Suggests confronting students’ assumptions regarding religion; strategies for countering resistance; and finding benefits of diversity.