READING RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Religious Education, Spring 2005 by Seymour, Jack L

During this year, as we celebrate 100 years of publishing Religious Education, I hope to remind us of the strengths in our history. In his introduction to the first issue of Religious Education in April 1906, Henry F. Cope, the editor, noted that the Religious Education Association sought "to unify scattered workers and to be an exchange for the results of honest experiments (1)." The journal was to be practical; not practical in the sense of publishing "lesson helps," but practical in being open to the sharing of any member who sought to assist others in the "ever-growing complexity" that is religious education.

As we are aware, in its beginning, the Religious Education Association was part of a movement. A diverse group of people gathered with the cause of "inspiring" religion with the best of education-to see that religion played a crucial role in decisions about the future and forms of human community. In fact, the associations early issues, while heavily focused on Christian topics, explored the variety of places where religious education took place-congregations, synagogues, colleges, public schools, camps, and service organizations. Its topics spanned from character development to "world living;" from economic justice to issues of race and war.

A "scattered" and diverse group of people seeking to "inspire" religion with the depth of education may be a helpful reminder of the present constituency of Religious Education. In his quaint 1906 language, Cope defined the members as "University Presidents, Clergymen, Sunday School Teachers, Kindergartners, business men, artists, and plain parents (1)." Does that still describe us? Probably not. But we are diverse, interfaith, and international. We are a group of practitioners and scholars with a practical passion to affect communities with the best of religion and education.

This last weekend I attended the planning retreat of the REA board. Clearly the passion continues for "experiments" and scholarship. The new Religious Education Association seeks to honor the cause of religious education and its diversity through three forums aimed at affecting the journal and the planning of each conference: Religious Education in Faith Communities, Religious Education in Public Life and Global Community, and Religious Education in Academic Disciplines and Institutions. Each of us represents and is concerned about the work of one, two, or even all three of these forums.

Grounded in scholarship, future issues of the journal will seek to more directly address these three practical agendas. For example, the dialogue begun in the forum section about publication in religious education (with the article by Leona English, Mario O. D'Souza, and Leon Chartrand, as well as L. Philip Harness response) is the first of what will be an ongoing conversation about research and scholarship in religious education. Later this year, we will publish the first of a series of "review essays" that summarize key bibliographic resources on topics of interest to both religious education practitioners and scholars. That first essay will focus on children's ministry. Over the next year, these reviews will extend to topics, such as multiple intelligences, brain research, spirituality, and emerging religious movements. We intend to give priority to reviews of works by members of the Religious Education Association and articles submitted by our members.

In this issue, authors from Germany, Canada, England, and the United States deal with issues of transformation in religious learning. Hryniuk describes an embodied approach to youth ministry drawing on practices of spirituality. Beaudoin delves deeply into the assumptions about human learning and transformation at the heart of the Christian religious education approach of Thomas Groome. Boschki explores the relational pedagogies and convictions embodied in the work of two premier Jewish educators-Buber, with whom many of us are familiar, and Korczak, who died for his convictions in the Holocaust. Martin and Martinez de Pison explore how religious education is integrative and holistic. Finally, Ted Brelsford, who so effectively edited Religious Education for the last several years, reminds us of the educational implications of the new brain research.

The essays in Religious Education encompass the commitments of educators interested in faith communities, academic institutions, and the global community. We read the journal from our particular contexts, yet we hope that each of us will be challenged as we seek to give practical import and expression to "experiments" in and research about religious education.

REFERENCE

Cope, Henry F. 1906. "Introductory." Religious Education (April):1-2.

Jack L. Seymour, Editor