The model of religious education in today’s secular and multicultural societies – Post-Confessional Inclusivist Religious Education (PCIRE)

ABSTRACT

”Pularity” has emerged due to the rapid communication and interaction of different religions, languages, and cultural elements with the effect of globalization, modernization, secularization, and the necessity to live together. It has affected not only the politics of countries but also education and imposed new duties and responsibilities on it. In particular, the coexistence of individuals with different religious and cultural backgrounds raises the question of how to teach ”religion,” which is one of the determining elements of their identities, also becomes one of the main problems in the science of religious education. In the context of this study, the role of religious education in secular and multicultural societies is emphasized, and the 'Post-Confessional Inclusivist Religious Education' model is mentioned as a new proposal. The main purpose of this model is to contribute to the training of individuals who can understand the phenomenon of ”pularity” correctly and finally manage to live in peace and reconciliation by preserving their differences. However, it is aimed not to exclude and marginalize the ”differences” exterior to the individual's religious tradition but rather to have a ”cultural pluralist” understanding because people's will and choices are as effective as their choices in choosing their beliefs.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious education model
• inclusivist
• multicultural societies
• pluralism
• plurality

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Muhammet Fatih Genç

Muhammet Fatih Genç is a lecturer in Religious Education at the Kocaeli University, Turkey. He received the Bachelor of Arts degree in Theology from the 19 May University Faculty of Divinity, Samsun/Turkey, in 2003, and MA. degree in Teacher of Religious Culture and Ethics from the Ankara University, in 2005 and second MA degree in Religious Education from the Cumhuriyet University in 2007 and he holds a PhD in Religious Education from the Ankara University. He worked as a research assistant at the Sivas Cumhuriyet University Faculty of Divinity between 2003-2007 and Department Religious Education at Ankara University Faculty of Divinity between 2007-2011. Between 2009 and 2010, he was a senior researcher at the Faculty of Education at the Vrije University of Amsterdam He worked as lecturer at the Sivas Cumhuriyet University Faculty of Divinity between 2012-2015 and Department Religious Education at Ankara University Faculty of Divinity between 2015-2017. Genç, who has 5 published books, more than 35 national and international articles and book chapters, has been working at Kocaeli University since 2018.

A. H. M. Ershad Uddin

A.H.M. Ershad Uddin Has completed both Bachelor’s and Master’s in Qur’anic sciences from International Islamic University Chittagong in 2007 and 2009, respectively, where he worked as a lecturer for a couple of months before starting his second Master’s in Islamic law at Cairo University in 2010, Egypt under Egyptian government scholarships. Then, he did his Ph.D. in Islamic law from Marmara University with a full bright scholarship from the Turkish government in 2020. For the last four years, he has worked as a lecturer in the department of Islamic law at Dumlupınar University in Turkey. However, amid his Ph.D. programme and teaching, he has frequently presented academic research papers and was invited home and abroad to places like Harvard Divinity School, McGill, Cambridge, Aberdeen, Monmouth, Manchester Metropolitan, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, and Bristol universities, etc. Also, he travelled to more than 20 countries as a research presenter, including the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Iran, Georgia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, etc. He also reviews internationally recognised journals, and he has almost eight research articles referred to international journals. Uddin has been working as a Lecturer at the Department of Basic Islamic Sciences, Kocaeli University, Türkiye, since 2021.