Teaching theological anthropology through English literature set texts in Catholic secondary schools and colleges

David Torevell

doi:10.1177/2056997120944942

David Torevell

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/2056997120944942

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Abstract

Catholic schools and colleges are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain and sharpen their distinctiveness in a climate of secularism, indifference to religion and the shortage of practising Catholics. This article argues that one method of bolstering Catholic schools’ mission integrity is to highlight one important feature of its identity – theological anthropology – and shows how curriculum delivery outside Religious Education syllabuses might contribute to its teaching. I take examples from two popular set texts in A-level English Literature to highlight how they might be used creatively to stimulate discussion of a defining feature of personhood within the Christian tradition, imago Dei.

Highlights

The ‘culture’ in which Catholic schools and colleges currently operate in England and WalesThe aim of this article is to advance debates about how English Literature texts can support and bolster the aims of Catholic schools in relation to pupils’ moral and Before outlining the inalienable dignity afforded to the human person within Christianity, it is necessary to describe the ‘culture’ and zeitgeist in which English and Welsh Catholic schools and colleges are currently embedded
As I have expounded earlier, Catholic schools and colleges are under enormous pressure to balance the need to maintain a Christian ethos, and their own survival, with the daily pressures and demands of government policies and insistencies, explicitly aligned to market forces and academic success
I am not denying this is a tricky balance to maintain and is clearly a formidable challenge for senior managers to get right, but what I am offering is one pathway based on the teaching of theological anthropology centred on the richness of the texts students will study as part of their examination syllabus

Summary

Introduction

The ‘culture’ in which Catholic schools and colleges currently operate in England and WalesThe aim of this article is to advance debates about how English Literature texts can support and bolster the aims of Catholic schools in relation to pupils’ moral and Before outlining the inalienable dignity afforded to the human person within Christianity, it is necessary to describe the ‘culture’ and zeitgeist in which English and Welsh Catholic schools and colleges are currently embedded. The ‘middle ground’ is that space between those who do not hold a strong religious sense (the first category) and those who hold its opposite – a sense of God’s absence – resulting in feelings of alienation, ennui and even nihilism (the third category). Taylor suggests that a ‘post-Durkheimian dispensation’ has occurred, by which he means that a given religious adherence ‘closely linked to their insertion in their society’ is no longer evident (Taylor, 2007: 487, 491). His hypothesis is that there has been a post-war, post-Durkheimian slide in our social imaginary which has destabilized and undermined the social fabric. Conflict is provoked, advancing the collapse of a civilized order (Taylor, 2007: 488–492)

Objectives

Conclusion