Critique in Religious Education

As Religious Education (RE) in public schools repositions to remain educationally relevant for children in an increasingly secularised and post-truth world, the need to engage critically with complex issues (agreeable and the disagreeable) cannot be greater, even in non-public faith-based contexts such as Sunday School or Madrassa. The juxtaposition of different (at times conflicting) knowledge in the material content of contemporary RE, variety of pedagogical approaches and, crucially, how classroom discourse (involving students and teachers) at times de/legitimises certain knowledge, calls for critique (not criticism) as the basis for doing RE. While criticism focuses on fault-finding, disapproval, and ‘othering’, on the other hand, critique relates to skilful conceptualisation, considered judgement, detailed analysis, and reflective assessment of issues, whether religious or not. Critique draws from Critical Theory, involving dialectical thinking and is helpful because it facilitates a critical assessment of and challenge to hegemony, dominant culture, and ideology of the curriculum. In RE, critique is aligned with Critical Religious Education (CRE) initially developed by Andrew Wright mainly dealing with truth claims (Wright 2007). In its rather evolved form, what makes CRE useful is how it can help learners engage with truth claims whether inside or outside religious belief, including how the approach can be put into practice in classroom discourse (Franck 2015; Goodman 2018). Critique in RE does not require suspending one’s faith (for those with one) nor provide, carte blanche, space to attack religious beliefs or non-religious stances for that matter. Rather, while it deals with disagreement – after all disagreements are part of life (Flensner and Von der Lippe 2019), it fosters critical dialogue informed by an exchange of relevant information, contradictory feelings, and nuanced perspectives (O’Grady and Jackson 2020). Reading the various articles selected for this volume, I find myself re-appraising the value of critique in RE to appreciate fully their significance in the context in which they have been raised. From Sweden, Ebba Henrekson takes a historical-policy perspective in surveying the existence of independent of confessional schools and highlighting – to the contemporary reader – that these schools are neither new nor a growing problem. This point, according to her, is worth raising to dispel the media-fuelled fear of Muslim independent confessional schools as potential cause of social problems that can lead to ‘segregation, intolerance, extremism, and religious fundamentalism’ belying the fact that historically in Sweden, Christian independent schools have always deviated from values existing in public schools. By highlighting the trajectory of Swedish independent schools, Henrekson takes a critical stance in arguing that public negative attention placed on fewer (Muslim) independent public schools is unfounded and hugely problematic for a pluralist society Sweden has become. Based on phenomenological reflections, the use of critique to address complex notions of truth in RE is evident in Brendan Hyde’s and David Kennedy’s articles. Writing from Australia, Hyde explores how, by working with community children in the Godly Playroom, truth as Alethia (‘unforgetting’) can be explored in Sunday school RE (drawing on Jerome Berryman’s work). According to Hyde Godly play involves the re/telling of Bible stories ‘. . . to show how truth is gradually disclosed through the telling of the parable’. From a critical stance, Godly play involves a dialectical process involving repeated interaction between showing and hiding of the truth expressed through ‘disclosure, concealment, withdrawal and reflection’. The creative process involved in the dialogical engagement encourages children to engage with their learning in a meaningful and reflective way. Through critical reflection, Hyde BRITISH JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 2023, VOL. 45, NO. 4, 309–312 https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2023.2244798