Religious education: robust and bold for a multifaith era

The events of September 11, 2001 are just a few of the many that, as well as summoning a new era globally, offer a stark challenge for religious education as an area of school and post-school study. While these events, when fully understood, should probably not be interpreted in overly religious terms, they were nonetheless taken up popularly in those terms. Why else would characters with the politics of John Howard and George Bush have, in each case, paid their first visit to a mosque within weeks of the events, and been so fulsome in their praise of Islam and the vital contribution it continues to play in the social histories of their two nations? September 11 also demonstrated that, whatever the root cause of such violence, the religious card is the best to play if one wants to exploit most fully the states of mind that can unleash violence’s most potent effect. In these circumstances, the more one has been trained into a singular belief, the better. The less one has been forced to consider seriously the claims of an alternative ideology, the more easily one can rise to the level of moral certitude, and surrender to the degree of contempt of other, that allows such atrocities to be perpetrated. There is no doubt that this can and normally does work two ways. The current histories of Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and the Middle East are among the many cases in point. The potential for any society to fall into these cycles of violence seems to be enhanced when the society is made up of many cultures and, especially, of many faiths. The likelihood, therefore, for September 11 to have led to such a violence cycle in societies like those


Introduction
The events of September 11, 2001 are just a few of the many that, as well as summoning a new era globally, offer a stark challenge for religious education as an area of school and post-school study. While these events, when fully understood, should probably not be interpreted in overly religious terms, they were nonetheless taken up popularly in those terms. Why else would characters with the politics of John Howard and George Bush have, in each case, paid their first visit to a mosque within weeks of the events, and been so fulsome in their praise of Islam and the vital contribution it continues to play in the social histories of their two nations?
September 11 also demonstrated that, whatever the root cause of such violence, the religious card is the best to play if one wants to exploit most fully the states of mind that can unleash violence's most potent effect. In these circumstances, the more one has been trained into a singular belief, the better. The less one has been forced to consider seriously the claims of an alternative ideology, the more easily one can rise to the level of moral certitude, and surrender to the degree of contempt of other, that allows such atrocities to be perpetrated. There is no doubt that this can and normally does work two ways. The current histories of Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and the Middle East are among the many cases in point. The potential for any society to fall into these cycles of violence seems to be enhanced when the society is made up of many cultures and, especially, of many faiths. The likelihood, therefore, for September 11 to have led to such a violence cycle in societies like those of Australia and the USA was very high during those weeks in September when Howard and Bush made their strategic visits and offered their olive branch rhetoric.
The ramifications of the events described, and the challenges for our society and world implicit within them, can serve to strengthen the resolve of those religious educators who truly believe in the capacity of their curriculum area to instill the kinds of understandings and tolerance that are necessary to the healthy growth of the multifaith society. It is the vision of the new religious studies, introduced progressively into the public curriculum over the past 30 years, that it would work in just such a way for an Australia whose healthy growth would increasingly rely on its multi-religious rather than mono-religious status. As an instance, the rationale for the religion and belief strand in a newly designed NSW Higher School Certificate social science subject suggested: (The subject aims) ... to provide students with a better understanding of the part played by religion and belief in their own lives and those of others. It aims to ... enable them, irrespective of their own religious beliefs (or lack of them) to identify and assess sympathetically the nature and consequences of belief in others. (NSW, 1985:33) As is clear from the aims specified above, public syllabuses of this type are devised essentially for the purposes of good social education, a social education that recognizes that religious literacy and understanding are vital features of overall social literacy about a world in which the religious factor continues to be an inextricable component of social lives and social politics. Not least of all, the effective learning which should be the result of such syllabuses is a crucial element in understanding Australia's social landscape and its current status as one of the most demonstrably multi-faith societies in the world. The assumptions behind these syllabuses are that it is important for the personal development of individuals and for the social development of the nation that opportunities for the development of such literacy be available in the public curriculum.
The call I am echoing here is consistent with the position that I have taken over many years. Religious education as an area of the curriculum must be freed to play its vital personal and social role for the individuals and society it is serving. The freedom is from the overly intrusive and ultimately scuttling role played by those whose commitment to religious education for its truly educational purpose is scant, and whose tendency is to utilize it as a tool for proselytism, of either an explicit or more subtle type, or as a political tool to justify the distinctiveness of their educational systems. Neither is a noble, proper nor fulsome function for religious education. Such enterprises, which are inevitable features of our polyglot education systems, should be described and function in ways that clearly separate them from the more far-reaching educational and vital societal purposes of religious education that have been described above.
So, to some of the specificity about the general claims being made. That is, in more precise terms, what are we asking of the kind of religious education of which I speak? I believe that the religious education I speak of has the potential to have its students re-conceive old relations in order to restore them, re-position towards greater harmony in a new multi-faith society, and, in coming to these new conceptions and positions, overcome self-doubt and fear. These are bold and ambitious claims but I hope below to offer some substance for them. In attempting to do this, the task will be to identify some examples of the sorts of vital issues with which a robust and bold religious education might deal that would, in turn, make such a difference to the understandings, tolerance and self-identity of those who studied it? 2 Re-conceiving and re-positioning historical relations Too many of the world's religious conceptions are limited by lack of information, partiality and a prima facie intolerance of the conceptions of others. The result is seen on the News every evening, with religious factions of one sort or another seeming to be responsible for an inordinate amount of the world's grief. One of the most obvious areas of factionalism, and one particularly relevant to the September 11 events, is the one that centres on the claims of Islam versus those of the so-called 'West', or what is often referred to spuriously by Muslims (not to mention the occasional totally apolitical Christian evangelist) as the 'Western Crusade'. This factionalism is so insidious and so responsible for so many of the world's ills of the past millennium, that it deserves being the subject of radical re-conception and re-education.
The land currently known as Israel, and the holy city of Jerusalem in particular, offers a sharp historical and contemporary focus for studying and plumbing the depths of the struggle between Islam and the (Judaeo-Christian) West. Broadly from the same tradition, absolutely worshipping the same God, and with similar land theologies that possess at least as much complementary as conflictual potential, the two sides posture as powerfully against each other's claims as if they had nothing whatever in common. In fact, both sides speak the same religious language, which seems in fact to be part of the problem but, if handled well, would seem to have potential to be part of the solution. One cannot help but think of the 'My Mother, My Love' syndrome which sees some of the most powerfully ambivalent personal relationships revolving around intense similarities, rather than difference. The resolution of the syndrome is seen in counselling towards a merger of simultaneous self-understanding and understanding of other, such that one comes to see oneself in the other. At the risk of appearing overly facile about the potential resolution of an age-old conflict, one wonders whether an approach to religious education that took the same line on 'Islam versus the West' might not begin to achieve what nothing else has. The line would be that we (let us assume we are speaking from the Judaeo-Christian side) will only truly understand and be at peace with Islam when we see ourselves in it. As an aside, one could have much to say here about conceptions of knowledge, learning and the most potent positioning for gaining new, 'emancipated ', understanding (cf. Habermas, 1972', understanding (cf. Habermas, , 1974Lovat & Smith, 1995), but that may have to wait to another day. Suffice it to say that it would be informed well by Habermasian conceptions of knowing being ultimately about self-knowing.
If one were a Jew or Christian wishing to study Islam in the way recommended above, most vitally one would attempt to study it from the Islamic rather than the Judaeo-Christian side. One would attempt, in so far as it is possible, to put on the Islamic 'spectacles', to walk in Islamic 'shoes'. The more one was able to do this, to shed at least momentarily one's own inherited and sometimes inevitably inbred conceptions, the more successfully the goal of seeing oneself in the other might be achieved. In brief, herein 'one might begin with the common story of Abraham but temper the premise of Genesis, Chap. 17, that Isaac was the heir to the promise, with the Qur'anic view that Ishmael was the true heir. Once one opened one's mind to this line of thought, one might well be challenged by the consistency of the view with Genesis, Chap. 16, itself, wherein it is clear that Ishmael was in fact the first-born and in circumstances that, relative to the mores and politics of the day (rather than those of the later generations which overlaid the story as it has come down to us), would likely have seen him as unchallengingly the rightful heir to any Abrahamic heritage. Furthermore, one might be sympathetic to one of the more radical of Islamic views that Ishmael and Isaac were in fact the same character, with the story of the birth of a 'legitimate' second son (from a centenarian no less) being a politically motivated invention well after the events being purportedly recorded.
Once one takes this line, rather than the more commonly held Judaeo-Christian line on the origins of the tradition, one is put on a different track altogether in interpreting the rest of the story. One might begin, for instance, to be more sympathetic to the Islamic view that Moses was the direct descendant of the 'Arabic' Ishmael, and that his separation from the Pharaoh's house was essentially that of an insider, rather than an outsider, and mainly about a rejection of the institution and institutional religions of the pharaohs in favour of re-discovering the ancient promise made to Abraham and Ishmael (Isaac). Furthermore, one might begin to contemplate the wisdom of the Islamic position that the people who finally entered the Promised Land, be they regarded in modem conceptions as Arabic or Hebrew, had rejected the spiritual interpretation of the promise provided by Moses after Sinai, in favour of the more tantalizing institutional interpretation. By this latter, the ancient 'Zionist' state was effected, complete with king, priesthood, army and, above all, the physical Temple, the supreme symbol of earthly statehood.
It is difficult to speak of a definitive Islamic view, just as it is of Christianity or any other world religion, for there are many views which fit broadly within the ambit of any major tradition. Nonetheless, it is certainly a dominant Islamic view that the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel were established around a mis-reading of the nature of the Promise. The Promise was about establishing a people within a people, a people imbued with godly vision and godly ways, who would live and establish communities in ways distinctive of their beliefs. According to this Islamic view, Moses foresaw the rejection of this view of the Promise, especially after the people's reaction to his Sinai message. The ancient prophets, whose constant cry was against the institutional interpretation, also understood the Promise in this way, as did John the Baptist, Jesus and even, according to the testimony of the Qur'an, Mary, Jesus' mother. These are all prophetic heroes in Islamic folklore and, of course, the supreme prophetic hero was Muhammad who, understanding keenly the spirituality which drove Judaeo-Christianity, established the perfect religion to recapture that spirituality while eschewing the institutional forms in which it was wrapped.
Six centuries on from Jesus' rejection of institutional Judaism, and for largely the same reasons, Muhammad rejected both it and post-Nicene Christianity which, for him, had fallen into even worse errors through its divinising of the great prophet, Jesus, and through its subsequent acquiescence to the earthly powers of Roman imperialism. In spite of the fact that the Islamic reforms have touched so much of the world, they have largely been rejected by 'the West'. This fact is symbolized well by a number of events, including especially the so-called Christian Crusades of the medieval period and never better than by the reestablishment of the 'Zionist state' in the period immediately following World War II. In spite of the role that the Holocaust had played in the politics that impelled this latter event, its advocacy by the West, and especially the role played by the USA then and ever since, is perfect proof to many Muslims that the Judaeo-Christian West still holds to an understanding of its heri-tage that is at fundamental odds with Islam and its prophetic heroes including, ironically, Moses and Jesus, the 'co-founders' of Judaeo-Christianity.
Such Islamic views are naturally challenging to those whose faith is wrapped around one of the traditions within Judaeo-Christianity. These views, however, are held by millions, including many who inhabit lands like Australia and the USA that have largely been formed under the inspiration of Judaeo-Christian beliefs and values. A religious education that took its personal development and social education responsibilities seriously would deal with these views, sensitively with their commonalities but robustly and boldly with their differences. Indeed, with reference once again to the notion that the supreme form of knowing is to be found in self-knowing, and that knowing other is often had best when one sees self in the other, one is inclined to say that grappling seriously with claims of this Islamic sort could well impel a more profound understanding of their own tradition than the Judaeo-Christian would normally have available to them. The fact that a religion of the import of Islam should employ the key heroes of Judaeo-Christianity to challenge its own institutional tenets is not to be rejected lightly. Especially when one considers that much of the critique provided by Islam is to be found within the Judaeo-Christian tradition itself (e.g., Natarei Karta within Judaism, the Reformation within Christianity), the Islamic critique may well be taken as an opportunity for Judaeo-Christians to ponder on the integrity and authenticity of many of their own claims. This would be a noble and mighty contribution of religious education to a truly educational end, not only in fostering an appreciation of an important alternative set of views in our multifaith society and so fostering enhanced dialogue, but also in deepening understanding of their own faith tradition. Seeing oneself in the other tends to have this kind of rebound effect. In this vein, I have spoken before (cf. Lovat, 1995cLovat, , 2000Lovat, , 2002 of the complementarity, rather than competitiveness, of a broad-based multifaith religious study with the goals of enfaithing religious education.

Re-conceiving and re-positioning about personal religious development
One of the most significant figures to show up in Australian census data over the past decade or two concerns the growth of non-Judaeo-Christianity as the religious base of Australian society. While the proportion of Jews held steady, and of Christians declined markedly, the Islamic population grew by over 100% in the ten years leading to the new century, the Buddhist population by something closer to 150%, and the Hindu population by 200%. It is difficult to get precise numbers, even from the census data, both because of the census construction and because of the way people respond to its questions. The indicators are, however, that there may be up to a million and a half Australians whose religious commitment now contributes to the non-Judaeo-Christian religious base of the country. Beyond the obvious impact of immigration patterns on these figures, research has uncovered some interesting patterns of conversion by former Australian Jews and Christians to non-Judaeo-Christian religions. Research by Bilimoria (1991Bilimoria ( , 1996 into Hinduism, Omar & Allen (1996) into Islam, and Adam & Hughes (1996) into Buddhism would, between them, suggest that by far the dominant recipient in this regard has been Buddhism. At the same time, Bilimoria's research identified a fast expanding interest in spiritual movements inspired by Hinduism. This portion of the population is to be found in what I refer to as a 'census gap' where there may be as many as a quarter of a million Australians who follow quite ardently a spirituality other than those of any of the mainstream faiths. Much of my own research of the past decade or so has been concerned with the broader non-Judaeo-Christian trends and some of the more specific trends towards non-mainstream faiths. My key exemplar in this latter category has been the Brahma Kumaris association.
My earlier work with the broader non-Judaeo-Christian religions centred primarily on the Sri Venkateswara Hindu Temple at Helensburgh, south of Sydney, the single largest Hindu centre in Australia. This work and the results are described in Lovat (1995aLovat ( , 1995bLovat ( , 1997b. During festival times like that of Lord Ganesha, followers of Hindu-inspired spiritualities tend to gather at Hindu temple sites. It was here that I first became acquainted with the followers of Brahma Kumaris (BK). Much of my work in cross-religious movements ever since has centred on this group as an exemplar of the kind of separation and adherence pattern that is revolutionizing the religious landscape of countries like Australia and the USA. This work and the results are outlined in Lovat (1997aLovat ( , 1998 and Lovat & Morrison (2000).
There are two related but different, though equally pertinent, points for religious educators to ponder about the results of the above investigations. In the earlier research, there was clear indication of the extent to which immigration patterns of the past few decades have changed the religious landscape, the majority of those responsible for the huge growth in Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism being from overseas or only one generation down. In the later research, however, there was arguably an even more challenging scenario for religious educators in that most of those who have moved to the non-mainstream, often called 'new', religions are Australian born and, for the most part, have been brought up as Christians or, in fewer cases, Jews. This is indicative of the fact that Australia is increasingly becoming the type of multicultural, multifaith supermarket, to which not only has mass immigration brought major new religious traditions, but in which more and more Australians of all persuasions and backgrounds feel free to shop around for a spirituality that serves their needs and aspirations. Where once the family, community and perhaps even political pressures would have made this kind of movement difficult if not impossible, an increasing number now feel free to search for their own religious fulfilment in this kind of way.
The latter research has uncovered, in part, how difficult it can be for someone who is genuinely disenchanted with the faith of their forebears and in search of something more fulfilling. It has confirmed earlier research into the conversion phenomenon (cf. Bromley, 1991;Gillespie, 1991;Rambo, 1993), including further insight into the array of conflict scenarios that invariably seem to accompany such movement. While many of the conflicts are internal and unavoidable, the external environment inevitably plays a huge part in facilitating or obstructing a satisfactory and ultimately peaceful resolution for the individual making this decision. It would seem that those who are finally most at peace with their move are those whose family and surrounding community accept and support the decision, while internal conflict is often exacerbated when one is surrounded by hostility or even indifference from those whose views matter. In a society where such movements are becoming more common place, there is clearly another major goal for religious education being spelled out. This goal is to deal in as fulsome a way as possible with the phenomenon of religious separation and re-adherence, to deal with both the extent of its empirical reality (the 'out there' agenda) and the feelings which such a reality impels in the individual learner (the 'in here' agenda). In my experience, it is rare that there will not be significant feelings evoked by this topic, feelings that range from a new-found sense of freedom about religious considerations all the way through to profound senses of threat and self-doubt. Either of these, and any positions in between, are vital to deal with if religious education is truly to work as a conditioning agent for individuals and their society.
At the one end, exploring the reality of religious movement can serve to excite the learners' interest in religious matters in ways that more enfaithing forms do not. This excitement may come from a new found sense of freedom about the topic of religion, especially for those whose experience of it has been hithertofore confined to enfaithing contexts. Exploring and appraising the experiences of others who have made choices to move from the religion of their forebears can work to give students a sense of their own choices, and so their own ultimate freedom in the matter of religion. Research would seem to indicate the importance of this sense of freedom in religious education, especially where its stereotype as an enfaithing agent is working to close the minds of the students and so obstruct the process of learning. Fowler (1981) would insist that not only will new learning be the casualty in this situation, but so will the process of true enfaithing itself. According to his research, any authentic coming to faith is necessarily preceded by a sense of freedom to choose, in the tradition of Habermasian 'ways of knowing' theory. So, once again, the enfaithing and interfaith literacy agendas are seen to coincide rather than compete (Lovat, 1995c(Lovat, , 2000. Some of the respondents in my own research pointed explicitly to both the retarding and emancipating potential of religious education in the process of searching and final conversion (Lovat, 1997a).
At the other end, are the feelings of threat and self-doubt that can be impelled by exploration of choice in the matter of religion. Emotions such as threat and self-doubt, left unattended, clearly are the stuff of which xenophobia, hostility and even violence are made. The BK is a group with remarkably strong credentials, including with the United Nations through its palpably good work in association with UNESCO in bridging cultural differences and working for cross-cultural understanding and global harmony. Additionally, my own research and that of others (Whaling, 1995;Howell, 1997) has uncovered that membership of and attachment to groups with the status of the BK is had for the most part by very ordinary people in search of a meaningful religious experience, and who, in every other respect, live regular lives among the business, professional, political, entertainment and working classes of mainstream society. The only thing unfamiliar about their profile is in the area of religious preference. This is their difference, and it is nothing to fear.
In spite of these credentials, it is my experience that the BK phenomenon can elicit some of the xenophobia about the unfamiliar that lies shallowly below the surface of Australian societal living. Even within the context of publicly funded research, I have experienced at least a measure of this, even within the university world. It is rarely explicit or nasty, but it is there: a suspicion that people whose lifestyle and values are different must be either a little odd or perhaps even oppositional to the hegemonic values of Australian life. In turn, that someone who fraternizes with such people, even for research purposes, might themselves be just a little threatening to the routine, the ordered and familiar patterns into which people were reared and that they now expect and need. My experience of it is mild, but I have felt it from time to time, even in my work context. Granted that someone doing unusual or unfamiliar research in a university context can be regarded with some suspicion, it hardly comes as any surprise that more explicit forms of xenophobia should manifest themselves so easily and so unilaterally across the country at times. The recent topical issue of the treatment of refugee people, fuelled inevitably by the September events, is a case in point.
Mind you, I confess that my first ventures into the world of other religions left me feeling a little in self-doubt about my own true identity and its capacity to hold up in an unfamiliar environment. The first time I drove into the grounds of the Sri Venkateswara Hindu Temple in Sydney, I would easily have run away, and this in spite of the fact that I had made a careerrelated and therefore strong choice to be there. Many years later, and as a far more experienced cross-religions researcher, I had similar misgivings as I drove up the perilous road to the BK spiritual headquarters at Mount Abu in Rajasthan, India. These feelings are natural, and if I feel them granted my strong intentions, no wonder they are felt so strongly when the intentions are not there, when people feel as though the unfamiliar has been foisted on them and is disturbing the patterned order of their lives. These fears and uncertainties should be a constant target for a religious education truly devoted to promoting its subject matter and to creating familiarity and understanding about its reality. Furthermore, a religious education designed for assisting individuals to live comfortably in their religious world, and to facilitating religious dialogue and literacy, would take great care never to exacerbate religious narrowness nor exploit the natural fears of people about the unfamiliar. It would fearlessly address the reality of religious choice and explore, as case studies, the lives of those who have made them.
I am eternally grateful for the educational perspectives and forces that helped me to overcome my fears for it was in the communication and understandings that have come as a result that, more than anything else I could name, have changed my perceptions of the world and of my own self-understandings. The work associated with this has taken me to parts of the world and among people that would have forever remained unknown to me. I recommend strongly overcoming the fears and self-doubt that impel even the mildest forms of xenophobia, for the bigger the world becomes for us, the more comfortable and ultimately enjoyable it is to live in.

Conclusion
No doubt, education can play its part in helping to form the understanding and attitudes necessary for cross-cultural literacy and harmonious living in the multicultural and multifaith society. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that taking this kind of robust and bold approach to religious education may. be threatening to many, be they students, parents or religious authorities. Even those teachers whose understanding, history and practice of the subject has been within the narrow confines of enfaithing into a particular tradition may feel that such an approach would place them in a compromising position. It is for them to self-reflect on whether this may be because they themselves are still subject to a measure of xenophobia about the unfamiliar, or may themselves have never truly grappled with the reality of choice, explored it, and made an authentic and sustainable life choice as a result of it. Perhaps they themselves are victims of the kind of self-doubt that impels a measure of hostility, at least of the heart. Or, it may be as simple as the fact that they have never really thought through some of the broader educational implications of religious education as a curriculum area. Again, on the understanding that the supreme form of knowing is to be found in a measure of self-knowing, it may be that these teachers have some work to do before they can be effective leaders of the kind of robust and bold religious education that a multicultural and multifaith society requires. I labour the point again that the robust and bold form that takes seriously the reality of multicultural and multifaith difference is equally essential whether one is speaking of religious literacy or enfaithment as the final goal for religious education. Indeed, my own final word on this subject is that, properly understood, the finest and most comprehensive form of religious education occurs when these two goals are conjoined in an integrated model (Lovat, 2002).

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