Teaching and Learning > DOCUMENTS
Interfaith Teaching, Teaching Interfaith?
Rachel Muers, University of Leeds and Melanie Prideaux (University of Leeds)
We reflect on the specific issues that arise when interfaith relations are an explicit focus of Theology and Religious Studies teaching. We draw on the experience of two interrelated Level 3 courses on interfaith issues - 'Christian Theology and Judaism' (Muers) and 'The Theology and Practice of Interfaith Dialogue' (Prideaux), both offered at the University of Leeds. We consider the specific challenges to students' existing faith positions that arise when we teach [about] interfaith issues; ways of handling the multiple complexities of insider/outsider positions in classroom discussions/presentations of interfaith; the extent to which, in teaching [about] interfaith relations, we are advocates of particular approaches or relate to wider political and social agendas; and the implications of our experience with these modules for the teaching of Theology and Religious Studies more generally. Several of our students have taken both modules, and, in keeping with the participatory approach we both adopt in our teaching, we will ask some these students to contribute to the dialogue.
This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
