Presumptions of Worth and Pedagogical Imperatives

Abstract

John Tillson’s thoughtful essay covers tremendous ground in limited space. Tillson does a terrific job highlighting many of the central concerns of religious education both in British and U.S. contexts. The thrust of his argument questions the point of pursuing open-ended discussions on matters that are settled, or as he says, “dead options.” As I understand him, Tillson’s point is that to the degree that an issue is truly open-ended, then Michael Hand’s notion of nondirective instruction, instruction where the goal is consideration of a range of views, is appropriate. Tillson, however, doubts that many religious claims are in fact truly open-ended. Therefore, our choices, he says, are all “unattractive.” According to Tillson, in considering all kinds of religious views and claims we (a) run the risk of having to remain non-committal on matters like holocaust denial or young earth creationism; (b) must also include discussions of atheist and agnostic claims, as well as flying spaghetti monster claims, which (c) inevitably leads to figuring out what to remove from the curriculum in order to make space for all of these open-ended discussions. Instead, he concludes, religious education is best if limited to a survey of the history of religions and perhaps the cultural contributions of religions over time.