Terence Lovat* RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: ROBUST AND BOLD FOR A MULTIFAITH ERA Introduction status. As an instance, the rationale for the religion The events of September 11, 2001 are just a few of and belief strand in a newly-designed NSW Higher the many that, as well as summoning a new era School Certificate social science subject suggested: globally, offer a stark challenge for religious education as an area of school and post-school study. (The subject aims) ... to provide students While these events, when fully understood, should with a better . understanding of the part probably not be interpreted in overly religious terms, played by religion and belief in their own they were nonetheless taken up popularly in those lives and those of others. It aims to ... terms. Why else would characters with the politics of enable them, irrespective of their own John Howard and George Bush have, in each case, religious beliefs (or lack of them) to identity paid their first visit to a mosque within weeks of the and assess sympathetically the nature and events, and been so fulsome in their praise of Islam consequences of belief in others. (NSW, and the vital contribution it continues to play in the 1985:33) social histories of their two nations? As is clear from the aims specified above, public September 11 also demonstrated that, whatever the syllabuses of this type are devised essentially for the root cause of such violence, the religious card is the purposes of good social education, a social education best to play if one wants to exploit most fully the that recognizes that religious literacy and states of mind that can unleash violence's most understanding are vital features of overall social potent effect. In these circumstances, the more one literacy about a world in which the religious factor has been trained into a singular belief, the better. continues to be an inextricable component of social The less one has been forced to consider seriously the lives and social politics. Not least of all, the effective claims of an alternative ideology, the more easily one learning which should be the result of such syllabuses can rise to the level of moral certitude, and surrender is a crucial element in understanding Australia's to the degree of contempt of other, that allows such social landscape and its current status as one of the atrocities to be perpetrated. There is no doubt that most demonstrably multi-faith societies in the world. this can and normally does work two ways. The The assumptions behind these syllabuses are that it is current histories of Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and important for the personal , development of the Middle East are among the many cases in point. 1 individuals and for the social development of the The potential for any society to fall into these cycle~: nation that opportunities for the development of such of violence seems to be enhanced when the society is literacy be available in the public curriculum. made up of many cultures and, especially, of many faiths. The likelihood, therefore, for September 11 to The call I am echoing here is consistent with the have led to such a violence cycle in societie~ like position that I have taken over many years. those of Australia and the USA was very high during Religious education as an area of the curriculum must those weeks in September when Howard and Bush be freed to play its vital personal and social role for made their strategic visits and offered their olive the individuals and society it is serving. The freedom branch rhetoric. is from the overly intrusive and ultimately scuttling role played by those whose commitment to religious The ramifications of the events described, and the education for its truly educational purpose is scant, challenges for our society and world implicit within and whose tendency is to utilize it as a tool for them, can serve to strengthen the resolve of tl).ose proselytism, of either an explicit or more subtle type, religious educators who truly believe in the capacity or as a political tool to justify the distinctiveness of of their curriculum area to instill the kinds of their educational systems. Neither is a noble, proper understandings and tolerance that are necessary to the nor fulsome function for religious education. Such healthy growth of the multifaith society. It is the enterprises, which are inevitable features of our vision of the new religious studies, introduced polyglot education systems, should be described and progressively into the public curriculum over the past function in ways that clearly separate them from the 30 years, that it would work in just such a way for an more far-reaching educational and vital societal Australia whose healthy growth would increasingly purposes of religious education that have been rely on its multi-religious rather than mono-religious described above. JUBILEE VOLUME SPECIAL ISSUE B 29 Journal of Religious Education 50 (3) 2002 So, to some of the specificity about the general one comes to see oneself in the other. At the risk of claims being made. That is, in more precise terms, appearing overly facile about the potential resolution what are we asking of the kind of religious education of an age-old conflict, one wonders whether an of which I speak? I believe that the religious approach to religious education that took the same education I speak of has the potential to have its line on 'Islam versus the West' might not begin to students re-conceive old relations in order to restore achieve what nothing else has. The line would be them, re-position towards greater harmony in a new that we (let us assume we are speaking from the multi-faith society, and, in coming to these new Judaeo-Christian side) will only truly understand and conceptions and positions, overcome self-doubt and be at peace with Islam when we see ourselves in it. fear. These are bold and ambitious claims but I hope As an aside, one could have much to say here about below to offer some substance for them. In conceptions of knowledge, learning and the most attempting to do this, the task will be to identify potent positioning for gaining new, 'emancipated', some examples of the sorts of vital issues with which understanding (cf. Habermas, 1972, 1974; Lovat & a robust and bold religious education might deal that Smith, 1995), but that may have to wait to anbther would, in tum, make such a difference to the day. Suffice it to say that it would be informed well understandings, tolerance and self-identity of those by Habermasian conceptions of knowing being who studied it? ultimately about self-knowing. Re-conceiving and Re-positioning ·Historical If one W;ere a Jew or Christian wishing to study Islam Relations in the Way recommended above, most vitally one Too many of the world's religious conceptions are would attempt to study it from the Islamic rather than limited by lack of information, partiality and a prima the ,Judaeo-Christian side. One would attempt, in so facie intolerance of the conceptions of others. The far as it is possible, to put on the Islamic 'spectacles', result is seen on the News every evening, with to' walk in Islamic 'shoes'. The more one was able to religious factions of one sort or another seeming to do this, to shed at least momentarily one's own be responsible for an inordinate amount of the inherited and sometimes inevitably inbred world's grief. One of the most obvious areas of conceptions, the more successfully the goal of seeing factionalism, and one particularly relevant to the oneself in the other might be achieved. In brief, September 11 events, is the one that centres on the herein one might begin with the common story of claims oflslam versus those ofthe so-called 'West', Abraham but temper the premise of Genesis, chapter or what is often referred to spuriously by Muslims 17, that Isaac was the heir to the promise, with the (not to mention the occasional totally apolitical Qu'ranic view that Ishmael was the true heir. Once Christian evangelist) as the 'Western Crusade'. This one opened one's mind to this line of thought, one factionalism is so insidious and so responsible for so might well be challenged by the consistency of the many of the world's ills of the past millennium, that view with Genesis, chapter 16, itself, wherein it is it deserves being the subject of radical re-conception clear that Ishmael was in fact the first-born and in and re-education. circumstances that, relative to the mores and politics of the day (rather than those of the later generations The land currently known as Israel, and the holy city which overlaid the story as it has come down to us), of Jerusalem in particular, offers a sharp historical would likely have seen him as unchallengingly the and contemporary focus for studying and plumbing rightful heir to any Abrahamic heritage. the depths of the struggle between Islam and the Furthermore, one might be sympathetic to one of the (Judaeo-Christian) West. Broadly from the same more radical oflslamic views that Ishmael and Isaac tradition, absolutely worshipping the same God, and were in fact the same character, with the story of the with similar land theblogies that possess at least as birth of a 'legitimate' second son (from a centenarian much complementary as conflictual potential, the two no less) being a politically motivated invention well sides posture as powerfully against each others' after the events being purportedly recorded.