Towards Religious Competence: Diversity as a Challenge for Education in Europe

Religious Education, Fall 2002 by Astley, Jeff

Towards Religious Competence: Diversity as a Challenge for Education in Europe. Edited by Hans-Gunter Heimbrock. Christoph Th. Scheilke and Peter Schreiner. Munster, LIT Verlag, 2001. 291 pp. paper cover (3-8258-5015-3).

This collection brings together eighteen contributions from four nations to address issues of diversity, plurality, and religious education in a European context. Its key category of "religious competence," defined in terms of religious self-understanding coupled with an appreciation of the religious concerns of others, is central to those European states that include some form of religious education (RE) in the curriculum of their public schools.

The book includes discussions of different approaches to RE, the dynamics of modern school life and its impact on school RE, and the politics of religious education in Europe (with special reference to issues of citizenship), together with empirical studies focused on both the students and the teachers of religious education.

Despite the differences between the national systems of education in Europe, examples abound of a common philosophy or at least a convergent approach. This is particularly the case where there are similar multicultural and multireligious contexts. The authors of this book also agree in taking seriously the concrete experiences and individual situations of their school students, in embracing a form of RE that not only helps students to learn about religion (now, particularly, in its contemporary lived expression) but to learn from religion about themselves, and in acknowledging the variety of religious expression that exists within any given faith tradition.

There is much of interest here and religious educationalists outside the European school context will discover many valuable insights: including Heinz Streib's comment that "inter-religious learning... can be defined by the change of perspectives... [which] is hardly possible while standing on the top of the mountain: because there the foreign is far away... Perspective change occurs rather in the valley"; and Geir Skeie's reflection that "many [RE] teachers are put in a position where they are expected to solve problems within the classroom that society at large is not able to find solutions for."

As other authors point out, reflecting on the teaching of religion in schools tells us much about the political and ideological issues of identity in the wider society which support those schools. It may also signal how that society is learning to deal with the religious dimension of these issues in the future. The present book, in sampling the work of religious education scholars and researchers across Northern Europe, offers not only a valuable contribution to the literature on religious education, but also a rich vein of material that is of relevance to the broader issues of community, plurality and identity.

Jeff Astley

North England Institute for Christian Education