Shaping Christian citizenship in diverse societies through family, church, and school educators

This chapter argues that two prominent approaches to ethics that are often thought to be rivals of a divine command ethic are actually complementary to a divine command ethic. In particular, a divine command ethics presupposes a natural law ethic, or some comparable account of the good. A natural law ethic, such as that developed by Mark Murphy, provides a good foundation for a divine command theory by providing an account of the good, and a divine command theory helps a natural law ethic give a convincing explanation of moral obligations. A divine command theory is also consistent with reasonable forms of virtue ethics. It is not consistent with extreme forms of moral particularism, but these views are not essential to virtue ethics. A virtue ethics can be linked to a divine command theory in that the virtues can be understood to provide the telos or goal of moral obligations.

This article discusses the importance of citizenship education in building a peaceful and harmonious school environment for the social welfare of elementary school students amidst the challenges of global diversity and complexity. The article describes the concept of Citizenship Education in elementary schools, and its role in shaping student character, democratic values, and active participation in society. The research method uses a literature approach by exploring and analyzing the concept of harmony in Citizenship Education in the context of peaceful schools. The results and discussion found that Citizenship Education plays an important role in forming attitudes of tolerance, mutual respect, and awareness of the rights and obligations of students in elementary schools, so it needs to be ensured that it is integrated with character education in the school curriculum as an effort to overcome challenges such as religious intolerance and fundamentalism, and lack of awareness, towards the values ​​of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution by teaching the values ​​of peace, conflict resolution skills, and respect for human rights. Schools also play an important role in creating a peaceful environment and supporting the welfare of socially active communities through environmentally based school programs, namely adiwiyata, health assistance such as brushing teeth properly and correctly, and helping to improve student welfare by providing group therapy therapeutic (TKT) in elementary school students before facing problems and obstacles to socializing in society. It is hoped that peace education in elementary schools can play a role in forming students who are harmonious, peaceful, and prosperous.

Uspostavljanje modela filmske edukacije u srednjoj školi

The primary aim of this study is to identify the dimensions and components of global citizenship education in first-year secondary schools using the thematic analysis technique. The research method is mixed (qualitative-quantitative). In addition to document analysis, the study employs thematic analysis using MAXQDA12 software to identify factors and components. The statistical population includes all faculty members with assistant professor rank or higher in the fields of educational management, higher education management, and educational technology, as well as principals and teachers of first-year secondary schools. Theoretical saturation was achieved after conducting 14 interviews. Ultimately, basic, organizing, and overarching themes were extracted. In the quantitative phase, structural equation modeling was used to determine the impact and rank of dimensions and components. Based on the semi-structured interviews, eight dimensions (ethical citizenship education, education for civic engagement and responsibility, education for peace and reconciliation, environmental citizenship education, education for global identity, education for global competence, education for scientific and practical knowledge, and student technology literacy) and 53 components (organizing themes) for global citizenship education in first-year secondary schools were identified. Subsequently, a researcher-developed questionnaire revealed the following ranking of priorities: education for global identity (coefficient = 0.942), education for global competence (coefficient = 0.937), education for peace and reconciliation (coefficient = 0.928), environmental citizenship education (coefficient = 0.921), education for civic engagement and responsibility (coefficient = 0.871), ethical citizenship education (coefficient = 0.862), education for scientific and practical knowledge (coefficient = 0.827), and student technology literacy (coefficient = 0.795).

Some scholars have contrasted Calvin’s and Edwards’s understanding regarding the third use of the law. They believe that Calvin emphasized the third use of the law for believers’ sanctification and that there is no room for virtue ethics in Calvin’s theology, while Edwards’s ethics is virtue ethics and there is no room for the third use of the law in Edwards’s theology. In contrast, this article uncovers that both Calvin’s and Edwards’s ethics combine features of both virtue ethics and divine command ethics. Accordingly, Edwards holds the same view as Calvin regarding the third use of the law.

Calvin formulates an ethical framework in which the idea of natural law is interwoven with divine command ethics in a way that leads to a new awareness of the unique relationship between God’s authority and human autonomy with regards to morality. For Calvin, God’s creational order is the ultimate source of natural law and the natural moral order perceived by natural reason still provides true sources for human morality. He does not underestimate, however, the noetic effect of sin on natural reason. In fact, Calvin takes seriously the epistemological limitation of the created but fallen natural reason with regard to understanding the true intention of creational moral order in its full scope and meaning. So, he argues that the scriptural revelation does not just complement natural morality, but it redeems it. His view thus successfully rules out extreme views of both natural law and divine command ethics that render morality either utterly autonomous or rigidly heteronomous. For Calvin, God’s authority in morality and the natural moral order are reconciled because the heteronomy of revealed laws and the autonomy of natural law are reintegrated in redeemed reason. In this view, humans can acknowledge the God-commanded biblical moral law by their natural reason because the biblical moral law is a written manifestation of natural law. The regenerate can wholly acknowledge it through the renewal of their natural reason while the unregenerate can partly acknowledge it through common grace of God that preserves functionality of natural reason in fallen humanity to a certain degree.

In this paper I will argue that a false assumption drives the attraction of philosophers to a divine command theory of morality. Specifically, I suggest the idea that anything not created by God is independent of God is a misconception. The idea misleads us into thinking that our only choice in offering a theistic ground for morality is between making God bow to a standard independent of his will or God creating morality in revealing his will. Yet what is God is hardly independent of him, and in coupling a perfect being theology with the doctrine of divine simplicity we discover that God's reason is God. Accordingly, obeying the truths of goodness that we humans speak of as contained in the divine wisdom hardly impugns the divine sovereignty. By modifying divine command ethics to give primacy to God's love or justice, thinkers such as Robert M. Adams, Philip L. Quinn, and Edward J. Wierenga admit the repugnance of this picture in spite of their verbal allegiance to divine command ethics. Accordingly, they implicitly concede that basing morality on God's sheer power should not be the preferred option for the Christian theist.

GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup('ISBN:9780748621187); This book is a biography of a leader of the campaign for moral education which had been conducted for several decades in Britain and in the USA. The campaign has culminated in the establishment of many programmes of 'education for citizenship', 'values education', ethics education', 'character education' and 'education for global citizenship' - in effect, the establishment of moral education in schools throughout the world. But the book is also a history of the campaign in the UK since the 1960s, when Victor Cook, a millionaire engineer and businessman in Aberdeen, began to devote his remaining thirty years of life, and all his wealth, to persuading the educational establishment to give priority to this central area of the work of schools. Faced with indifference and even mockery, Cook and the small but growing band of professional educationists and philosophers recruited to the cause set up studies of the subject and its problems, commissioned research and development projects, and sponsored conferences and experimental teaching programmes. They also encouraged policy makers and politicians to take seriously the proposition that moral education, conducted along with or in addition to cognate subjects such as religious education and social studies, can and should be introduced as an important function of educational organisations. Set in the context of recent educational developments, this narrative, and the accompanying expositions of theories and practices, provides new insights into a complex but important subject, and a comprehensive account of the development of moral education and its role in the world of today. "

Introduction: The Secular Outlook. 1. Atheism, Agnosticism, and Theism. The Alpha Privative. Atheism and Liberal Concepts of God. Atheism as an Unpopular Position. A Definition of Atheism. Motives for Atheism. Atheist Values. Spiritual Excellences and the Liberal Decalogue. Agnosticism. The History of Agnosticism. Huxley and Russell. Pascal s Wager. Pascal s Insight. Atheism or Non-Theism? 2. Freethought I: Criticism of Religion. Ecrasez l Infame . Religion and Evil. Religious Violence. Father and Daughter. How to Discover a Relationship between Religion and Violence. Ramadan v. Hirsi Ali. Religion per se . Textual Relativism. Can Translation Mitigate All Immoral Passages in Scripture? Can Interpretation Mitigate All Immoral Passages in Scripture? Why Are Moderates so Reluctant to Criticize Religion? The Bible on Apostasy. Biblical Terrorism: The Story of Phinehas. Biblical Violence and Modern Legal Practice. The Book of History. Some Objections. 3. Freethought II: Freedom of Expression. Mill on Liberty. Khomeini v. Rushdie. Fukuyama Giving Up on the Arab World. The Limits of Free Speech. The Deontological and Utilitarian Justifications for Free Speech. Clifford on the Duty to Critique. Freedom of Speech and Philosophers on the Index. Intolerance not Restricted to Islam. Giniewski v. France. Freethought under Fire. People Are not Being Insulted for Having a Religion. Racism without Race. Social Criticism not Identical with the Urge to Provoke. Flemming Rose on Why He Published the Danish Cartoons. The Theory of Evolution: Too Controversial to Defend? Is There Another Way to Discover the Truth than by Free Discussion? 4. Moral and Political Secularism. Pope Benedict XVI on the Apostles Creed. Who Are You to Tell Believers What to Believe? What Judaism, Christendom, and Islam Have in Common: Theism. Divine Command Theories. Abraham and Isaac. The Story of Abraham in the Qur an. The Story of Jephtha. Adherents of Divine Command Theory. Command Ethics or Divine Command Ethics? An Assessment of Divine Command Ethics. Kierkegaard and Mill. Kohlberg and Moral Education. Religious and Secular Ethics. Worship. Kant s Struggle with Moral Autonomy and Free Speech. Kant s Legacy in Nineteenth-Century German Theology. Schleiermacher as the Father of Modern Hermeneutics. Armstrong s Plea for Liberal Interpretation. A New Way to Look at the Sacredness of Scripture? Classic Books and Sacred Books. Violating the Integrity of the Text. Is Hermeneutics the Only Way to Modernize Traditions? Is Islam Secularization-Resistant ? Two Kinds of Reformers: Liberal Islam and Secular Islam. Selected Reading. Index.

ABSTRACTThis article considers different kinds of moral perplexity in relation to the “moral dilemmas question,” focusing in particular on divine command metaethics. While I argue that there is no one definitive answer to questions about dilemmas from such a perspective, I also seek to show that whatever theory one adopts has specific benefits and costs for thinking about God's relation to morality, and also impacts how one addresses certain subproblems within the theorization of putative dilemmas. I make this diagnostic argument by assessing a debate between two Christian ethicists, Philip Quinn and Edmund Santurri, and I review and contrast these Christian accounts with Omar Farahat's recent retrieval of classical Ash‘arī divine command ethics. The article concludes by considering a specific connection between anti‐dilemmas theories and limits on moral responsibility that resituate the problem posed by moral remainders to a less moralistic consideration of the problem of evil.

A Christian-ethical metatheory for today: A classic Reformed perspective. The aim of this article is to contribute to the development of a metatheory of Christian ethics from the perspective of the classical Reformed Theological tradition. In contrast to the moral relativism advocated by modern liberal ethical patterns of reasoning, as well as the plea for an exclusive focus on divine command ethics characteristic of contemporary evangelicalism, this study proposes a biblical ethics determined by various contexts. These contexts include the cultural-historical context of Scripture, its canonical context, its congruent theological framework as well as the modern social context and a context of crisis. When all these contexts are considered, the Christian moral agent may discern moral norms through the implementation of the ethical theories of deontology, virtue ethics, and consequentialism. Christian ethics should therefore not be reduced to either moral relativism or sole divine command ethics. Contribution: Engaging Scripture within all its contexts and defining norms for modern social and crisis contexts leads to obedience to clear biblical norms, while also acknowledging the reality of adiaphora, the imperative to imitate the attitude of Christ, and living within the sphere of the freedom of a formed Christian conscience.

How can civic education in a liberal democracy give social diversity its due? Two complementary concerns have informed a lot of liberal thinking on this subject. Liberals like John Stuart Mill worry that "the plea of liberty" by parents not block "the fulfillment by the State of its duties" to children. They also worry that civic education not be conceived or conducted in such a way as to stifle "diversity in opinions and modes of conduct."' Some prominent contemporary theorists add a new and interesting twist to these common--concerns. They criticize liberals like Mill and Kant for contributing to one of the central problems, the stifling of social diversity, that they are trying to resolve.2 The comprehensive liberal aim of educating children not only for citizenship but also for individuality or autonomy, these political liberals argue, does not leave enough room for social diversity. Would a civic educational program consistent with political liberalism accommodate significantly more social diversity than one guided by comprehensive liberalism?3 Political liberals claim that it would, and some recommend political liberalism to us largely on this basis. This article shows that political liberalism need not, and often does not, accommodate more social diversity through its civic educational program than comprehensive liberalism. Section I examines the defining difference between political and comprehensive liberalism and suggests why we might expect to find a significant difference in the accommodation of social diversity by political and comprehensive liberalism through civic education.

This article surveys recent developments concerning religious education in the various states of what used to be East Germany. It discusses relations between church‐based education and the emerging state religious education in the former Communist schools, the choice between religious education and moral education in the state schools, and the possibility of development from a confessional approach towards one in which pluralism would be more fully recognised. ‘Church education’ (Christenlehre) in this context refers specifically to a form of Christian education developed by churches in the former GDR.

What does it take to be an active member of contemporary diverse societies? What are important competences for communicating and participating in such societies and how are they expressed by young people? In this chapter I address these and other related questions and discuss the usefulness of different approaches in addressing the liquidity and complexity of social relations in contemporary diverse societies. The chapter draws on research conducted in 2011–2014 with students from various ethnic backgrounds in upper secondary schools and universities in Iceland. A survey, focus-group interviews and semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. The young people were asked to reflect on the increasing diversity in Icelandic society, their communication and their participation in this society. The aim of the chapter is to explore which factors these young people see as being important for active communication and participation in a diverse society. Questions considered in the chapter also include whether these young people relate obstacles for communication to their different origins, cultures, values, religions or other factors, or whether they consider these as irrelevant factors. The theoretical framework of the chapter is in writings on critical multiculturalism, cosmopolitan citizenship, cosmopolitanism and liquidity in modern societies. The findings indicate that the young people see diversity as a normal or intrinsic part of their society and their daily life and do not describe different origins, cultures, values or religions as obstacles for communication. These views and attitudes indicate or connote that the young people share certain competences for communication in a diverse society, which may perhaps be defined as intercultural. Some of them describe themselves as cosmopolitan and discuss various competences which they see as important for participation and communication. Young people’s views on communication in a contemporary diverse society can provide indications on what competences are important for communication and participation in diverse societies more generally.

Virtue theory has occupied a place of relative prominence within the Christian intellectual tradition. But there is a problem facing it: how one contemplates the virtues and vices will ultimately depend upon deeper accounts of the good and the right. Accordingly, virtue theory is incomplete, at least when taken by itself. Our task in this paper is to show that neither of the standard approaches to explaining the metaphysical foundations of morality within the Christian tradition—natural law theory and divine command theory—are sufficient to fix this incompleteness. We thus propose a combination of natural law theory and divine command theory to remedy the matter. The upshot of our argument, then, is this: what counts as a virtue ultimately depends upon the natural law and divine commands.