Editor's Note

Abstract

“Teaching Theology and Religion endeavors to sustain an international discourse among faculty about teaching and learning in the several sub-disciplines in the study of religion” (“Aims and Purposes,” inside front cover of TTR). That statement expresses an intention and a conviction. The intention is to cultivate an international discourse. TTR does this by soliciting submissions from and publishing authors who teach theology and religious studies in institutions around the globe. And, by publishing articles that incorporate international, comparative approaches to the diverse origins, aims, contexts, constraints, and practices of the fields of theology and religious studies. Why promote an international discourse? Because an international discourse better advances understanding of teaching and learning in the fields of theology and religion than does a discourse situated within a single nation. This issue of TTR is particularly rich in international discourse. India, Japan, and the United States are the working venues for the three articles. Two focus on theological education in two different settings – South Asia and the United States. In a jointly authored piece, Joshva Raja and Peniel Rajkumar discuss the convergence of conflicting purposes and possibilities for theological education in South Asia. Multiple cultures, agenda, and models for teaching, many with their own deep cultural roots, meet in South Asian seminaries. Understanding how they do so is, argue the authors, especially important at this historical moment of heightened tension between Christians and some Hindus. Timothy Lincoln, working from a midwestern U.S. context, offers a model for understanding how theological education changes students. Drawing on “life course theory” promoted by Urie Bronfenbrenner, Lincoln works to take into account multiple interrelated factors that influence the dynamics of students' receptivity, resistance, and composition of meaning as they move through theological education. Read together, these two articles invite multiple comparisons that reveal an array of similarities and differences; a comparison that provokes insight into theological education and a reader's own assumptions. Satoko Fujiwara offers an incisive analysis of complex pedagogical, disciplinary, guild, and political issues that became visible through the project of attempting to construct a qualification system for undergraduate students in Japan, one that would certify them as “specialists in religious cultures.” Fujiwara's elaboration of the project's unfolding set of tasks and tensions, and her use of scholarship from the United States and Europe, results in a genuinely international discussion of religious literacy. Her comparative approach expands perspective and awareness of the stakes in discussions of religious literacy. The nuance that international perspectives bring to discussions of teaching and learning continues in this issue's “conversation.” Richard Ascough employs an historically comparative Canadian-United States perspective in his response to Hugh Heclo's On Thinking Institutionally (Paradigm Publishers, 2008). Ascough and the other contributors to the conversation, Michael McLain, Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Nancy Lynne Westfield, appreciate Heclo's issue – the nature and importance of institutions and how individuals contribute constructively to institutional projects. Precisely because the issue is so important, they offer crisp criticism of Heclo's argument on two fronts. The first is internal flaws within the argument itself. The second is lacunae in conceptualization and analysis occasioned in no small part by Heclo's failure to consider the topic from more diverse perspectives, notably how persons of different races, genders, classes, institutional settings, age cohort, and stage of career encounter and interact with institutions. Heclo's book is important because it is being widely read and discussed in educational and religious institutions. TTR is publishing the conversation on the volume to contribute to that larger discussion, one in which much is at stake. Those who have not read Heclo will find helpful Robert C. Fennell's review of the book that opens TTR's conversation. The other distinctive feature of 13:3 is an abundance of teaching tactics. At the 2009 meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Montreal, the AAR and the Wabash Center co-sponsored a workshop recognizing the Tenth Anniversary of the AAR Teaching Excellence Awards. Most of the award winners from the past decade shared favorite teaching strategies in a jointly presented workshop. This issue includes those tactics with brief explanations. This issue also contains three more responses to TTR's earlier call, “The Absent Professor.” Each brief essay also offers a teaching tactic. Hannah Schell has students “take it to the streets,” by applying key concepts learned in a philosophy of religion course in an actual conversation with a peer. Laura Simmons prompts student self-observation and analysis through absence in a seminary-based group communication course. Benjamin Zeller borrows Thomas E. Boyce and Philip N. Hineline's “interteach” method for structuring discussions among undergraduates in his absence from the classroom. This issue also contains reviews of books on a variety of topics, including the faith commitments of a professor, “teaching Black,” international service learning, and chairing departments.