Chris Hermans

Annotation Hermans (professor of identity of Catholic schools and religious education, Catholic U. of Nijmegen, the Netherlands) analyzes religious education in the context of globalization as a cultural phenomenon--a phenomenon characterized by processes of rationalization, fragmentation, and transformation. He explores the changing nature of tradition in terms of Christian concepts of transcendence and immanence as it relates to education. After attempting to define the characteristics of religion as experience, language, and practice, he proposes a concept of religious instruction based on "participation." Participatory learning is defined as developmental, social, mediated, and meaningful learning. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

In this article we will address the issue of obtaining insight into the way in which teachers deal with the normative side of their profession. We outline the problem that forms the context of our question (the difference in the meaning of good teaching in the process–product model and in ethical models) and we discuss Oser's discourse approach as a solution for that problem. His discourse approach appears to be a step forward, but at the same time leaves questions unanswered. As a contribution we introduce the concepts of pragmatic, ethical and moral. We show in what sense this conceptual framework provides a refinement of the discourse approach.

How do we define religious experiences? And what would be the relationship with spiritual experiences? The author claims that the cognitive turn in science gives us new opportunities to map the territory of religion and spirituality. In line with other authors, he proposes a building block approach of cognitive mechanisms that can deal with questions regarding the specificity, origin, and complexity of religious experiences. Two concepts are presented that bridge the great divide which is presumed to exist between sciences that study the brain and humanities, namely the encultured brain and predictive minds. In section three, six building blocks of the structure of religious experience are formulated. New in his approach is the unexpected possible as distinctive ground between normal experiences and what we consider spiritual and religious experiences. Finally, the author presents a critical reflection on his proposal and challenges for the road ahead.