| This Dictionary is concerned with religious education in every continent, and aspractised in many different faiths. It takes account of new developmentsthroughout the world, with a special focus on areas like Australia, North Americaand Western and Scandinavian Europe, where RE research and teaching havemoved on apace. However, because of the complexity of the questions involved,it has had to be rooted in one specific field of practice, and therefore providesmore information about British religious education than about any other a~rea. The Dictionary concentrates on methods of teaching rather than the contentof what is taught - there are adequate accounts of that elsewhere. Entries fallinto four main categories: descriptions of the major religious teaching traditionsand of religious education in school; summaries of the philosophical, theological,sociological and psychological understandings of religious education; outlines ofcurriculum and teaching methods; and notes on some of the resources for theteaching of religious education, A common assumption of the contributors, whichperhaps needs to be stressed to those comparatively unfamiliar with the scopeof the subject, is that religious education in its various forms is a lively andenterprising discipline and activity. Religious education is continually developing. For example, in the periodleading up to the production of the Dictionary there has been a new interest inspirituality, in the use of art and computers in religious education, in the relationof religious education to the personal and social development of pupils and inmore general life skills, humanities and pastoral programmes. None of this couldhave been foreseen even five years beforehand. That this is the case and thatcomputers and video are increasingly used in religious education reflects some-thing of the dynamism of the subject and commitment of innumerable teachers. The range of contributors to the Dictionary is itself testimony to the geo-graphical and intellectual diversity represented. The journey from Britishhumanism to Indian Jainism is long in every sense. For all this diversity contribu-tors have been united in showing extraordinary interest in the project, and I amgrateful for their encouragement and friendship. Religious education is capableof developing its own international multi-cultural fellowship. Faith communities have an historic interest in teaching. In world terms theyconstitute the major source of modern religious education. Some, like parts ofthe Muslim community, have continued to use long established methods. Othershave developed new approaches in the light of recent psychological, educationaland theological insights. In parts of the world church, for-instance, there havebeen renewed emphases on experience within the community of faith, the Bibleas a theological resource and catalyst, and on social and international issues asbeing jointly central to the church s educational task. Developments of a different |
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