I wish to use this space to reflect on the purpose and focus of our organization. I think the assigned topic is broad enough to include this reflection. After last year’s meeting I considered circulating a letter to a few people about the health and future of the organization. I do not consider myself the best person to raise these concerns. But I have no hidden agenda; I am simply asking whether others share my concerns.
The immediate trigger was Jack Seymour’s membership report at last year’s business meeting. If the organization is not in crisis it may be approaching that point. The shrinkage in numbers is not the main point, but it is a symptom. What is most clear in the numbers is that there are few people left from REA; in the reorganization, REA did not absorb APRRE but rather the reverse. And yet the organization’s rhetoric is tied to the old REA; there seems to be a sense of obligation to continue the stated mission of the REA. The result is vagueness and confusion. People drift away because another organization (perhaps one on practical theology) has a clearer focus on their interests.
I am not criticizing the present leadership team. The organization is probably better run than REA or APRRE ever was. Nor am I proposing a committee to study goals, purposes, mission statement, etc. I just wonder if an extended conversation among all the members is needed, something that goes beyond the annual business meeting. Internet blogs may be one way to aid such a conversation although it is not a substitute for face to face conversation.
Gabriel Moran
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I'm really glad that you ventured into this set of concerns, for I share them, too. I watch as many of the colleagues with whom I joined this organization (back in the 90's when we were doctoral students) become involved with the practical theology guild, and can't sustain membership here, too. What does that mean?
ReplyDeleteI think about Robert Kegan's work on competing commitments, and immunity to change, and I wonder if we are somehow immune to change we should be engaged with? Or can we better articulate our core commitments so as to be clear about our mission?
I do not have answers, but I have deep questions!
Mary Hess
I too was happy to see this conversation started. Dr. Moran is correct, I think, that the rhetoric of our organization continues to try to be faithful to the old REA. Yet, the opportunities for congregational educators to engage in the kind of dialogue that REA provided have proliferated in the last 20 years. For instance, the Princeton Youth Forum is thriving and challenging persons in youth ministry to think theologically about their work. Denominational gatherings are rich with resources for congregational educators. I'm not sure that the niche for REA still exists.
ReplyDeleteThe people with vested interest in REA are the academics who need the interaction and opportunities to share their work that the organization provides. People from academia have a lot to gain from participation in REA. Folks from congregations are just listening on a conversation in which they are not invested.
It will take courage, but I think we need to change to adapt to the new realities. Mary has articulated questions that we must engage in the near future!
Margaret Ann Crain
This is a great conversation and warrants ongoing consideration at the meeting as well. Yes there are diverse venues for local practitioners (though APREE members serve as practitioners as well!) who work in congregational/educational venues like religious schools or parish ministry settings. Many of these settings, often either congregational or entreprenurial in nature, provide more traditional training in ministry practices and organization with specific "publics" in mind. So what would the REA bring, particularly for people/academics often tasked with serving similar publics through their local institutions?
ReplyDeletePerhaps a modest answer might rest with our responsibility to provide new horizons of engagement that often anticipates new educational/ministerial concerns but does not necessarily embody complete educational practice as of yet. Such a view would put more pressure on the organization to be constantly engaged with the most recent research both within but also outside our traditional ranks. I think we already engage in this exploration intuitively, but actively acknowledging this role would make explicit our tendencies to live on the margins/boundaries/borders of our disciplinary interests (particularly those cognates that inform relgious education including culture studies, science, technology, social policy, inter-religious dialog, etc.). My sense of the past is that we have very good at living on the margins of social/cultural/political discourse but perhaps we need to move to embrace other disciplinary boundaries as well.
What may distinguish our organization from practical theology may rest with our willingness to be more "descriptive" in these engagements rather than feeling compelled to adjudicate the overall worth based on presumed theological convictions. Now, I do not mean we have no convictions, but it strikes me the organization may be better suited to suspend these convictions, at least early in the engagements, out respect both for the diversity of our constituency and the opportunities we have to engage a larger public discourse. From within my own convictional faith community, I am bound by a set of assumptions that sometimes impede an authentic border crossing with a disciplinary cognate... in part because the cognate may not be interested in the conversation due to an assumption of my faith tradition. However, the breadth of our "traditions" may afford a stronger platform for said conversations.
It is just a thought, but perhaps we might be able to relinquish being at the center of congregational conversations but serve as a resource from the margins. I know sometimes such a posture may be difficult to sustain (hard not to look faddish); however, even denominational and faith tradition leadership might feel better if we offered ourselves as such a listening post. At the seminary I teach I am often asked how I am keeping up with the latest innovations of local practice, helping to "answer" the pressing needs of ministry today. Usually I appreciate this challenge but, on occaision, I tell such people that I also interested in the questions, not the answers, that are just being shaped. Perhaps that might be our role, helping to shape the questions of future educational/ministerial practice.
Dean Blevins
Gabe is absolutely correct. The new REA is more APRRE than the old REA.
ReplyDeleteBut it has the potential of being more. I encourage us to focus on this “more” as we look to the future of REA. For example, the journal, RELIGIOUS EDUCATION, last year had an editorial board representing 10 countries; we received article submissions from 15 different countries and 5 faith communities; and we published essays from 10 different countries and 3 faith traditions. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION is the primary forum for international and interfaith reflection on religious education. Can we work to embody this profile and focus in our conferences and work? Congregational educators have many denominational- and faith-specific organizations in which to examine their work. The vocation of REA is to be the international and interfaith forum for religious education.
Yes, religious education. I chose the word very specifically. Maureen is quite right in focusing our conference this year on practical theology, an important and contested aspect of our work. I support this reflection; I am a member of APT and IAPT. Yet, I believe those who leave REA for a practical theology association miss important aspects of reflection on learning in a religious tradition and across religious traditions for the good of the world we together inhabit. For example, practical theology does not adequately describe the work of our creative interfaith colleagues in Great Britain who have worked across religious communities in formulating “The National Framework for Religious Education.” Their work has been amazing.
To explore suggestions for the future of REA, look at RELIGIOUS EDUCATION, Vol. 103, number 2, where several of our past presidents share their hopes. May conversation continue about the important work of “religious” “education!”
Jack Seymour
I love Dean's last sentence about our role:
ReplyDeleteREA shapes the questions more than the answers of future educational/ministerial practice.
Dear friends,
ReplyDeleteOne of the important developments in Europe is the reaffirmation of the subject "religion" at school. In a globalised and pluralist world the modern school can provide young people with clarification about the role of (non-)religious traditions and worldviews in the shape of personal identity and shared values. This is one of the ways (not really a broad avenue, but rather a small bumpy path) in which religious studies and theology can play a significant role in the public arena.
Those who educate religious educators for schools, have many tasks to face these days. They not only have to teach difficult contents and interaction formats, but they also need to help future teachers in finding a plausible way of dealing with their own (often absent or distorted) religious convictions.
In this field of tension between the secularised culture of young people at the one hand and the lived theology of future teachers at the other hand, European academic theology and RE are slowly but surely finding a new breath - at least, that is how I interpret the situation.
But the work is promising. Being involved with young adults in teacher training programmes is a great gift. Many questions are open for debate and new research is definitely needed (see e.g. the REDCo and REMC projects). And the presence of intellectual voices in public life is permanently sollicited. But we are there and we try to remain focused.
Could this school-related approach not be a helpful element in the reflection on the future of REA, just as it was in the beginning, at the end of the 19th century, when Dewey and others were not afread of a dialogue between formal education(s) and religion(s)?
REA has a great legacy. I do not know of any other journal of RE that is older than 100 years of age - not even in the 'old' Europe! We should cherish this legacy internationally and interreligiously, and not be afraid of how today's culture is polishing this precious diamond. Because there is no brilliancy without friction...
Bert Roebben
Thanks for the comments that introduce elements of the conversation we need. I was struck by Jack's statistics about who is submitting papers to the REA journal. The journal may have a future as a clearing house for an international discussion of religious education. Certainly, as Bert indicates we need to be aware of European developments. The conference contributions we have had from European, African, Australian and Asian participants have been small in number but invaluable to the REA-APRRE that was born as an international(United States-Canadian) organization.
ReplyDelete