Concept
Religious education
Overview
In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion (although in the United Kingdom the term religious instruction would refer to the teaching of a particular religion, with religious education referring to teaching about religions in general) and its varied aspects: its beliefs, doctrines, rituals, customs, rites, and personal roles. In Western and secular culture, religious education can imply a type of education which is separate from academia, and which (generally) regards religious belief as a fundamental tenet and operating modality, as well as a prerequisite for attendance.
The secular concept is substantially different from societies that adhere to religious law, wherein "religious education" connotes the dominant academic study, and in typically religious terms, teaches doctrines which define social customs as "laws" and the violations thereof as "crimes", or else misdemeanors requiring punitive correction.
The free choice of religious education by parents according to their conviction is protected by Convention against Discrimination in Education.
Religious education is a contentious topic everywhere. Some nations, including the United States, neither publicly support religious education nor include religion in the curriculum. In other contexts, such as the United Kingdom, an 'open' religious education has emerged from Christian confessionalism that is intended to promote general religious literacy without imparting a particular religious perspective.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Religious education is discussed.
A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice.
Alfred North Whitehead, The organisation of thought, educational and scientific
states what it is; names the idea
From this usage it has also come to pass that God Himself is called pious,[369] in which sense the Greeks never use εὐσεβεῖν, though εὐσέβεια is applied to works of charity by their common people also.
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
states what it is
EDITOR: Yet we cannot do without it. India will never be godless. Rank atheism cannot flourish in that land. The task is indeed difficult. My head begins to turn as I think of religious education. Our religious teachers are hypocritical and selfish; they will have to be approached. The Mullas, the Dasturs and the Brahmins hold the key in their hands, but if they will not have the good sense, the energy that we have…
Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Home Rule
names the idea
But by sacred things one must not understand simply those personal beings which are called gods or spirits; a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred. A rite can have this character; in fact, the rite does not exist which does not have it to a certain degree.
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
states what it is
What are termed faculties--attention, memory, thinking, perception, even the sentiments, are arrangements, associations, and complications, formed by the interaction of these submerged presentations with one another and with new presentations. Perception, for example, is the complication of presentations which result from the rise of old presentations to greet and combine with new ones; memory is the evoking of an…
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
states what it is
Philosophers who discussed Religious education
Related ideas
- Belief
- Ritual
- Germany
- Greece
- Hindus
- Yeshiva
- Italy
- India
- Iran
- Punishment
- Academy
- Japan
- Judaism
- Jainism
- Christians
- Doctrine
- Islamic world
- Myanmar
- Muslims
- Mesopotamia
- Western culture
- Teaching
- Pakistan
- Lutheranism
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy of education.