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Education Formation and the Church II: Brokenness, sin and grace in human formation

Call for papers (Please submit your proposal not later than the 21st of April 2021)
Education Formation and the Church II (August 25-27, 2021)

Brokenness, sin and grace in human formation

We kindly invite you to the biannual academic conference, organised by the Theological University Apeldoorn and the Theological University Kampen. This conference was meant to be held in the summer of 2020, but was postponed because of the pandemic. The conference will be held online and is entitled ‘Brokenness, sin and grace in human formation’.
The conference is scheduled for the 25 , 26 and 27 of August 2021.

Within Christian education we are used to expressions such as ‘growth’, ‘talents’ and ‘human flourishing’. Observing current pedagogical and psychological approaches it may seem that human perfection is the norm. The emphasis on the positive side of faith in human formation can entail the risk of the reality of sin and brokenness being dismissed from the educational vocabulary. At the same time, there is an intrinsic pedagogical motive for adopting stimulating perspectives. The question can, therefore, be raised whether Christian education has become infected by a narrow and reductionist conversation about human flourishing, understood in the meaning of growth, perfection and success.

The upcoming EFC conference will explore questions related to the place of brokenness and grace in the pedagogical theory and practice. How are we to understand good and evil in human nature? How do good and sin manifest themselves in education and formation? Do positive and negative views on pupils, teachers and pedagogy contribute to human formation or to human frustration? How are we to evaluate the current instrumental strive for perfection? How do we cope with the effects of sin and brokenness; the effects of evil in classrooms, learning processes and human formation? This is an opportunity for pedagogues and theologians to inform and inspire one another by understanding and rethinking brokenness and grace in the process of human formation.

The Formation Conference wishes to continue the conversations initiated at the successful conference in 2018. Invited key note speakers are Jan Habl (CZ), Petruschka Schaafsma and Wolter Huttinga (both NL). We are happy to announce that Ros Stuart-Buttle (UK), David Smith (US) and Ronelle Sonnenberg (NL) will be part of the panel in the last part of the conference.

Call for papers

Researchers, professionals and scholars in theology, education and related disciplines are invited to submit paper proposals for the paper sessions. Both practical/professional and scholarly contributions are welcome. The text of the proposal should not exceed a maximum of 500 words, apart from the title of the paper, the author’s name, affiliations and the paper’s four key words.

Please submit your proposal not later than the 21st of April 2021 to Annemarie Kuijvenhoven, member of the preparation committee (amkuijvenhoven@tukampen.nl).

If more information is needed, feel free to connect with one of the members of the committee.page1image1821952page1image1824448

The conference will be held in English. We will consider publishing the lectures and a selection of short papers in a volume with the proceedings of the conference.

Cooperation in partnership

The initiative is taken by the cooperating professors Bram de Muynck (Theological University of Apeldoorn) and Roel Kuiper (Theological University of Kampen).

The conference will be organized with the support of NICER at Canterbury Christ Church University and Centre for Christian Education at Liverpool Hope University.

The conference will also be supported by CHE (university of applied science Ede), Driestar Christian University Gouda and VIAA hogeschool (university of applied sciences Zwolle).

Kind regards,
Prof. Bram de Muynck
Prof. Roel Kuiper
Tirza van Laar-Jochemsen MSc, MPhil Willemieke Reijnoudt-Klein MA Annemarie Kuijvenhoven MA
Geranne Tamminga MA

Faith in the Nexus Training – The Faith in the Nexus Report and its implications

Our Faith in the Nexus research report has led to dioceses offering training based on the report. Here is one offer by the Diocese of York.

How do church primary schools facilitate opportunities for children’s exploration of faith and spiritual life in the home?

The Faith in the Nexus research project has identified the fruitful ways in church primary schools (working in collaboration with churches and other interested stakeholders) facilitate opportunities for the exploration of children’s faith/spiritual life in the home.

The research findings emerged from research focus group interviews with 450 participants (pupils, parents & staff), and an online survey with 1000 participants across 20 church primary schools in England.

This session explores the report and the implications of the findings for our work with children and young people in the Diocese of York

DATE:21 Apr 2021

TIMES:7:30pm – 9:00pm

Booking

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-faith-in-the-nexus-report-and-its-implications-registration-136602930041

WEBSITE:

https://dioceseofyork.org.uk/developing-ministry/training/trainingevents/faith-in-the-nexus-training-the-faith-in-the-nexus-report-and-its-implications/

Faith in the Nexus

Download the Report here

The Faith in the Nexus research project has identified the fruitful ways in which twenty church primary schools (working in collaboration with churches and other interested stakeholders) facilitate opportunities for the exploration of children’s faith/spiritual life in the home. The research findings emerged from research focus group interviews with 450 participants (pupils, parents & staff), and an online survey with 1000 participants across 20 church primary schools in England.

Tribute to Professor Paul Hirst who died on 25th October 2020.

Trevor Cooling remembers and writes about the impact and influence of his tutor, Paul Hirst on his own thinking.

9th June 2011 was a big day for me; I gave my inaugural lecture as Professor of Christian Education at Christ Church (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCedF10YJfk). The phrase Christian Education is not widely used in the UK (unlike other parts of the world); I know of only one other person who has taken this professorial title, the Catholic scholar John Sullivan at Liverpool Hope University. I chose it because of the influence of one man, Professor Paul Hirst.

When I first encountered Hirst in 1972, he was an up-and-coming sensation in the philosophy of education. As part of the London School (in association with RS Peters) he pioneered a rationalist approach that sought to base education on the principles of reason. The prestigious Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, which he founded in 1964, is part of his legacy. Hirst’s ideas had a profound and lasting influence on British education. I often hear them in training sessions and read them in the academic literature from people who have never heard of Hirst. The greatest tribute to an influencer is to have your language adopted by people who have no idea where it came from. Hirst achieved that.  

In 1972 I was a student at Cambridge, newly studying the Education Tripos. Hirst had just arrived as our new professor. Our set text was his The Logic of Education and we were inducted into forms of knowledge and his other philosophical ideas. I remember him as a flamboyant lecturer, immaculately turned out and a master of the art of rhetoric and persuasion. 

As a young Christian, the thing that really provoked my interest was Hirst’s assertion that Christian education was a “contradiction in terms”. His argument was that Christianity was a controversial belief system, whereas education should be based on universal human reason and established knowledge. To put the words “Christian” and “education” together was, for Hirst, a contradiction in terms. To make the point clear, he classified educational approaches as either “primitive” (faith-based), where indoctrination prevailed, or “sophisticated” (reason-based), where rational autonomy prevailed. As Cambridge students we were taught this as established fact. 

However, this was a problem for me since I was committed to the idea that being a Christian fundamentally shaped how one approached the educational task. It was a problem that other students shared. So, we got together to search for counter arguments. We unearthed an academic literature in the North American Christian Reformed tradition that took seriously the notion that all truth is God’s truth. Rather pretentiously, we published a paper challenging Hirst’s views about Christian Education. We were told that he was somewhat miffed by this, which is understandable given that we never consulted him, but also a little sad as, looking back, I see it as a huge tribute to his inspiration. 

The interest that Hirst sparked in 1972 led me first to an MA and then a PhD in which I sought to grapple with the “contradiction in terms” challenge. These formal courses went side by side with a career as an RE teacher, then work for a Christian education charity, the Church of England and, finally, ten years as a professor at Christ Church. I am still convinced that Hirst was profoundly wrong about the contradiction in terms, but am now convinced that he was profoundly right to want to distinguish between primitive and sophisticated forms of education. He just did it on the wrong basis.

I am not, therefore, a Hirst disciple. But at the sad event of his passing away, I bear testimony to the massive influence he had on my life. His ideas inspired a life-long intellectual pursuit. At my inaugural, nearly forty years after I first encountered Hirst,  I described myself as “Professor of Contradiction in Terms”. What greater tribute can there be to a teacher than that?

Trevor Cooling., Emeritus Professor of Christian Education, Canterbury Christ Church University.

How to explore the question of Christianity and same sex unions, …. hermeneutically.

Tonight I am speaking at the Theos gathering at the launch of the new report “Worldviews in Religious Education”. I am speaking in relation to Worldviews and Texts and Teachers, a project I have been working on which advocates teaching RE in a Sacred text scholarship way.

But just as I am getting ready I read that Pope Francis is reported in the Guardian as having said in an interview in a documentary film, Francesco, which premiered at the Rome film festival on Wednesday: 

“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”  (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/21/pope-francis-backs-same-sex-civil-unions and also https://www.itv.com/news/2020-10-21/pope-francis-endorses-same-sex-civil-unions-for-first-time-as-pontiff-in-new-documentary-film for an ITV news clip with interviews on reaction)

Pope watchers might not be surprised but to those described as Catholic conservatives it will cause quite a debate. RE classes will now need to factor this in when they explore the topic which is of course a central one to young people. 

But how? 

Traditionally there is an approach to this sort of thing that goes a bit like this:

  • On the one hand conservative Catholics/Christians believe …. blah blah blah
  • On the other hand liberal Catholics/Christians (including Francis!) believe …. blah blah blah

Teachers will recognise this sort of framing. It is framed by an idea that you describe to the students different views within a religion and I should say that many would dispute the use of the words conservative and liberal in this framing, especially when it comes to describing a Pope! There might even be a debate style question on it:

  • arguments for and against, probably using love thy neighbour on the one hand and something from St Paul and the Hebrew Scriptures on the other!

Sacred Text Scholarship would allow us to go deeper than listing of views. An alternative approach would be to explore the scholarship sacred text debate about this. 

Gentile admission as an analogy

One possible place to start is the debate about whether the New Testament Church admission of gentiles was such a cultural revolution, that it could be drawn on as a scriptural reference point for adopting a new culture of inclusion of relationships previously thought unacceptable within traditional Christianity.

This is a debate about among some sacred text scholars and it is well summarised in Engaging Scripture, a great little book by Stephen Fowl of Loyola College, Maryland. It appears in Chapter 4, How the Spirit Reads and how to Read the Spirit, which touches on the perennial challenge for Christians on how to faithfully live and interpret the Bible. Fowl explores this through an understanding of what it means to read the Spirit and how the Spirit reads.

So interpretation is at the heart of the matter, and also at the heart is the extent to which there can be legitimate grounds for cultural revolutions in Christian communities today.  The sacred text scholars have had a lively debate of this kind for some 20 years.

I think students of secondary age doing Religious Education would find it an interesting thing to explore and it fits into big questions such as:

  • “Has revelation finished or is it ongoing?”
  • “How should traditions change?”
  • “When is an interpretation an interpretation too far?”
  • “Is there a too far’ when it comes to interpretation in a worldview that has a God who intervenes in history?”
  • “Are interpretations fixed, are some things open to change, or are all things open to change?”
  • “Can we reach a finally settled interpretation of anything? How?“

These are real questions for Christian communities today and real questions for students of hermeneutics and they reach far beyond any single ethical issue. It draws them into a much more hermeneutical way of thinking about these issues and shows more clearly how different Christian worldviews make sense of such important issues today, in relation to their ancient sacred text, the Bible.

Flourishing Schools

The Flourishing Schools Program: https://nicer.org.uk/flourishing-schools

FREE RESOURCES: This website has been designed to support school Spiritual Development, Improve Religious and Worldview Education and help provide tools for Shaping Character in the Curriculum with access to research and professional development materials and videos.

Leaders of Christian ethos schools, Church schools, Catholic schools, are challenged to develop an educational community that is shaped by a Christian understanding of the human, the world and God. For human beings, this includes their multiple dimensions, intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual, as well as their potential. They also must be led by an idea of the good that human society is capable of becoming, and the Christian contribution to that common good. These pages provide deeper insights from many teachers and school leaders involved in projects undertaken by NICER with our partners, to understand more deeply the reality of Christian schooling today.

Worldview in religious education

Professor Trevor Cooling has written about the notion of worldview figures prominently in the recent discourse surrounding Religious Education (RE) in English schools following the publication of the final report of the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) in 2018. His article reflects on the veracity of this initiative. It begins with an autobiographical reflection on the impact of worldview on the author’s development as a scholar. Then, the work of several critics of CoRE is discussed and a more nuanced understanding of worldview is developed as a result. Finally, the pedagogical implications of the shift to worldview are explored by drawing on the personal development approach of Michael Grimmitt and the responsible hermeneutics approach of Anthony Thiselton.

Follow the link.