Religious Education in a Pluralist Society The Key Philosophical Issues [Paperback]

Religious education in liberal pluralist societies such as the UK, the USA, and Australian underwent radical change in the 1980s and 1990s, with a major shift towards multi-faith, educationally oriented programmes. This has meant significant modifications to both the content and the methodology of religious-education courses and to the way they are conceived of and taught in schools and universities.
One important implication of this change for the teaching and study of religion today is the need for a philosophical dimension that deals with issues such as the truth status of religious statements and the moral acceptability of religious claims. This dimension is often insufficiently developed; this lack is made more critical by the multiple competing truth claims of various religions, giving rise to such contentious problems as the growth of fundamentalism, increasing religious intolerance and conflict, and differences of opinion on central moral problems such as birth control, abortion and euthanasia. This text attempts to provide the philosophical underpinning that the study and teaching of religion in modern societies requires.

Theology- In advocating an intelligent, philiosophical understanding of religious education, this book offers valuable insights applicable to the reality of today s RE classrooms.



Comparative Education, Vol 36, No 1, 2000

This robustly thoughtful book tackles without flinching the main philosophical issues which confront religious education in Great Britain, the USA and Australia today. It is not an easy read. Bur the extent of the authors background knowledge, their liberality of mind and the clarity of their exposition make the effort worthwhile.



Resource, Vol 23, No 3, Summer 2000

Religious Education in a Pluralist Society is quite simply the most important book on religious education to have been published in recent years. With remlã(