Religious Education Between Modernization and Globalization : New Perspectives on the United States and Germany

by Osmer, Richard Robert; Schweitzer, Friedrich

• ISBN13: 9780802812841
• ISBN10: 0802812848
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co

Summary

A constructive new approach to religious education While important strides are being made to improve religious education at the national level, there is much to be learned by looking at the subject from a global perspective. This volume is a first -- and very significant -- effort to reap the benefits of sharing educational successes and challenges between countries, in this case the United States and Germany. Featuring a unique comparative approach to religious education, this volume is sure to spark the interest of those in the field. The book first explores the importance of comparing religious education within differing social contexts, and it introduces "modernization, " "globalism, " and "postmodernism" as key terms for such research. Next, central figures and texts in twentieth-century religious education in both Germany and the United States are examined and compared. In the last section of the book the authors point to the challenges that religious education faces in the new millennium, and they offer constructive proposals that will interest not only

Author Biography

Richard R. Osmer is Thomas W. Synnott Professor of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary Friedrich Schweitzer is professor of practical theology and religious education at the University of Tubingen, Germany

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	xi
I. The Promise and Problems of Contemporary Religious Education
Protestant Religious Education in Context: The Need for Historical and Comparative Perspectives	3	(26)
Modernization, Globalization, and Postmodernism: Toward an Analytical and Cross-Disciplinary Framework	29	(51)
II. Paradigmatic Figures and Texts in Twentieth-Century Protestant Religious Education
Introduction to Part II	75	(5)
Facing Up to Modernity: Religious Education Reform Movements in the Early Twentieth Century	80	(39)
Modernity Reconsidered: The Reaffirmation of Theological Identity in Protestant Religious Education after 1945	119	(50)
Beyond Modernity? Protestant Religious Education after the 1960s	169	(46)
III. The Challenges of Protestant Religious Education in the Twenty-First Century
Introduction to Part III	209	(6)
Christianity's Contribution to Paideia and to Society	215	(16)
Congregational Education and the Challenge of Cross-Disciplinary Thinking	231	(22)
The Religious Dimension of the Self	253	(18)
The Family: The Rhetoric of Practical Theology and the Engagement of Audience	271	(25)
Bibliography for Paradigmatic Figures and Texts, Chapters 3-5	296	(19)
Index of Authors	315	(3)
Index of Subjects	318