Religious literacy, moral recognition, and strong relationality

Abstract

Several proposals for addressing religious literacy or including religious content in American public schools point to potential advantages for intellectual and moral development. These proposals include moral arguments, which suggest that religious literacy is an individual and social good. Although the proposals selected for this analysis span the previous two decades, it appears that little progress has been made toward addressing religious literacy in American public school contexts. In this theoretical article, I examine several of these proposals using a philosophical contrast between weak and strong relationality. It is argued that although these proposals include strong relational assumptions, weak relational assumptions remain that could inhibit the successful implementation of these proposals—or perhaps even undermine their ultimate goals.

Keywords:

• Religious literacy
• school relationships
• moral development
• philosophy