Marius Felderhof, Penny Thompson and David Torevell (Eds), 2007
Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing
£55.00 (hbk), 199 pp.
ISBN 978‐0‐7546‐6031‐6
Inspiring faith in schools: studies in religious education is an engaging, timely and impressive riposte to an increasingly secularised vision of religion and education.
As the publishers accurately state, the book ‘addresses the privileging of secularism that affects RE in countries influenced by modern western thought’. The result of a series of colloquia held at St. Deiniol's Library near Chester between 2003 and 2006, this generally excellent collection of essays contains a range of expert voices writing well on an important and newly reinvigorated debate between liberal secularism and religious traditions. Part 1 contains the following: Secularism, Schools and Religious Education (Brenda Watson), Understanding, Belief and Truth (Joe Houston), Confession and Reason (Ieuan Lloyd), Religious Education and Committed Openness (Elmer Thiessen) and Religious Education in Australia and New Zealand (Grant Maple). Part 2 contains: Religious Education from Spens to Swann (Penny Thompson), Religious Education and the Misrepresentation of Religion (Philip Barnes), Religious Education, Atheism and Deception (Marius Felderhof), Can ‘Skills’ Help Religious Education? (William K. Kay) and Is there Anything Religious About Religious Education Any More? (Joe Fleming). Part 3 contains: Dismembering and Remembering Religious Education (John Sullivan), On the Grammar of Religious Discourse and Education (David Carr), Religious Education through the Language of Religion (Iris Yob), Religious Education and Liberal Nurture (Andrew Wright) and Crossing the Divide? (Jeff Astley). Some more forceful shaping of these sections might have been useful here. For example, the three parts themselves lack headings and so it is difficult for the reader to see immediately what in terms of intellectual coherence distinguishes one section from the other. This raises, too, the question of method—is the framework or discourse presented within Inspiring faith in schools of educational research, philosophy of education or theology of education?
Inspiring faith in schools in this sense highlights more than its subtitle portends, for the book actually raises critical questions at a range of levels—notably for the study of religion, theology and education—but also political questions which probe the underlying motivations (whether conscious or otherwise) of policy‐makers.
If there are potential weaknesses in the work they are in those areas where the book extends precisely to those political considerations. Contributions on citizenship—as a current‐day educational, as well as political, force—should at least have been more widely touched upon. Deeper consideration might also have been welcomed on the historical and philosophical contexts from which secularism has arisen in Western thought—with the caveat that there are some strong inroads here, for example, from Andrew Wright and David Carr. Contemporary international relations—in cultural and educational, as well as political, spheres—through inter‐governmental agencies such as the United Nations and UNESCO are woefully neglected. These latter contexts are important because at an international level they arguably support the liberal secularism riled against throughout the book.
Minor errors were also evident, for instance where Thompson notes Swann as correctly dated to 1985 (p. 70 ff), but incorrectly by Thiessen (in an otherwise strong chapter) as 1988, with neither chapter referencing it fully.
That said, religious educators will find this work particularly useful. Remaining with Thompson's chapter, for example, she provides an outstanding summary of the historical conditions that have led, in England at least, to the present tense state of affairs between secular and religious outlooks within education. And throughout the volume readers are constantly engaged with questions of faith commitment in religious education set against a vast backdrop of the philosophical, political and religious forces that continue to shape our world.
In all, I found Inspiring faith in schools a highly agreeable work, worthy of a wide readership and likely to find one. It was the sad task of Marius Felderhof to write the book's Afterword, following the sad, premature and much mourned death of Professor Terence McLaughlin, a voice no doubt much missed in this volume and to whom Inspiring faith in schools is dedicated.
© 2010, Liam Gearon