Search results for ""author b. roebben""

In a post-secular society contemporaries are challenged to raise and face existential questions in the midst of a plurality of (religious and non-religious) worldviews. Children, adolescents and young adults are especially eager for orientation in negotiating this plurality. Religious Education in European schools can provide them with solid insights and a safe space to accept this challenge. In this book the narrative, communicative and spiritual dimensions of religious education are discussed. In the act of theologizing with children, adolescents and young adults, “in each other’s presence” and with a view to wisdom traditions, they are empowered to patiently engage in new ways. Alternative patterns of framing identity and community, experience and interpretation, transcendence and immanence, can then emerge. The book is rooted in the teaching praxis of the author and reaches out to the centers of initial teacher education, where future leaders learn to discover the theological dignity of religious education.

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This book is meant to honour the Belgian religious educationalist Herman Lombaerts reflecting on his legacy. He is internationally renowned as a scholar with a strong commitment to and a conceptual analysis of the social and cultural context in which people live and learn. This series of essays is build upon a thought provoking, streamlined design on the relationship between theology and education, relying on Lombaerts' societal and cultural analysis of contemporary religious education. Three key elements are at stake: the self-agency of the learner, the hermeneutic and communitive interpretation of religious traditions in the teaching of religion, and the radical re-imagination of Christian theology relying on this new model of religious educational praxis. For Lombaerts, the search processes of religious people have their own dynamic and dignity. Practical theology should listen carefully and empathetically to this quest. But he is also convinced of the need of solid fundamental research to understand critically its ambiguities and perspectives. Scholars from Europe, the United States and Australia lead the way in this process of "conceptual stretching". Issues such as happiness of children, identity formation of youth, educational and religious insecurity of parents, multi-faith education, tradition crisis of churches, theological education of lay ministers, narrativity and modern art in religious education, etc. are examined from a practical theological point of view, with a strong commitment to the philosophical, psychological, sociological, educational and political dimensions of three issues. With this book the editors hope to commemorate Lombaerts' international radiation, by building a collegial bridge between the different theoretical approaches in the German, Dutch, French, Italian and Anglo-Saxon religious educational research.

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