Religion and worldviews education and the paradox of inclusivity

Paradoxes of inclusivity occur when attempts at inclusivity clash with the exclusive claims of some of the positions they seek to accommodate. In this article I identify and consider how such a paradox manifests in multi-faith religious education pedagogies—what I call the ‘paradox of interreligious inclusivity’ or ‘PIRI’, for short. After presenting some relevant and illuminating examples, I consider PIRI in regard to proposals in England for ‘religion and worldviews education’. By defining the conceptual problem at the root of challenges posed by such an innovation and pedagogical models more generally, I suggest greater recognition of the deep implications of PIRI are essential in any context when educators seek to include those of all religions and those of none in programmes of religious education.


Introduction
A city council in England wants to include all religions in a festival around Christmas time to make the city more inclusive and to promote its cultural life.Extending the common ritual of switching on the Christmas lights, they combine all the winter festivals from the religious and cultural groups in the constituency: Diwali, Christmas, Hannukah, Chinese New Year, Eid al-Fitr (the lunar calendar happens to coincide that year).They give this festival an inclusive name, 'Winterval' and promote it through advertisements and billboards.The city council is surprised by the response.Some members and leaders of religious and cultural groups protest Winterval saying their festivals have been suppressed, censored or erased by combining them with other festivals.Although some community leaders and councillors participate in Winterval, many people boycott it and the national press makes fun of it.The city council finds itself in a dilemma.They want to be inclusive of all religious and cultural groups but in doing so they exclude the very people they wish to include.
The city council's dilemma, narrated here as a thought experiment based on the real events of Birmingham of 1998, presents an example of what can be identified as a 'paradox of inclusivity' -a term that has gained some traction in organisational studies as a way of conceptualising approaches to working with diversity.Paradoxes of inclusivity are said to occur when attempts to include socially diverse populations in communal practises risk exclusion of some of the constituencies they seek to include.Ferdman (2017) identifies three kinds of paradoxes of inclusivity, those of self-expression and identity; boundaries and norms; and, safety and comfort.All of these categories apply to the above example.To be inclusive, Winterval must preserve distinct identities and the means to self-expression yet at the same time foster a sense of togetherness and belonging.To do this the city must establish norms and boundaries of interaction, but these should be amenable to its constituent members.Winterval should be comfortable and safe for participants but also allow opportunities to go beyond constituent members' prior experience.The complaints are the result of Winterval failing to achieve an acceptable balance between sameness and difference in these regards for all constituencies.Combining festivals does not allow different communities to preserve their distinct identities.The boundaries of interaction cannot be altered in the participation in festivals that require certain beliefs and traditions, and so therefore, Winterval goes well beyond some participants' notions of acceptable boundaries, and even presents a desecration of traditions held dear.But that is not all, symbolically the festival becomes a contested marker of the identity of the city itself.
Organisational theorists see paradoxes as a useful way to conceptualise challenges for policy and management.Religion, a protected characteristic, presents dilemmas for institutions that can be approached through sociological or organisational lenses like Ferdman's.In this article I develop and explore a comparable paradox of inclusivity with a specialised focus on religious education pedagogy in religiously diverse contexts.In the construction of such pedagogies-which have a long provenance and strong pedigree in England-I identify a specific paradox of inclusivity which I call the paradox of interreligious inclusivity, or 'PIRI', for short.I argue that understanding, accounting for, and mitigating PIRI is vital for any kind of inclusive or open religious education.This is because although religious education includes those of all faiths and those of none, it is not unusual for religious adherents or communities to have particular beliefs about religion and/or education that clash with that very mission, when defined in a broad or particular way.That said, and certainly in the secular context of England, these clashes are not always obvious or recognised by religious educators.Before going on to explore PIRI further conceptually and specifically in the case of a 'worldviews' paradigm, it is pertinent to first consider an example of PIRI as it may manifest practically in a religious education classroom using a more established pedagogical model.

The paradox of interreligious inclusivity in religious education
Mrs X wants to teach about the world's religions to her class, which has some children who identify with various religions and some who identify with no religion at all.To do this she adopts a well-known approach adapted from the work of Ninian Smart (1989) which uses a thematic framework of 'dimensions of religion'.For every religion studied, her pupils learn about some of its myths, doctrines, buildings, and rituals and so on.When she teaches Islam, one of the children complains that only the Christian Bible is true and therefore the study of its counterpart in this schema, the Qur'an, is not necessary.When she teaches Christianity, however, the same pupil says that this lesson is incorrect.'Christianity is not practising rituals or believing myths or going to a particular kind of building.It is about loving and following Jesus', the pupil says.After this lesson, the parents of the pupil withdraw them from RE. Mrs X finds herself in a dilemma.She wants to include all the major religions in her lessons but in doing so one of the children she teaches is uncomfortable with her presentation of their religion and the inclusion of religions different to it.This is a fictional example, but one that resonates with reported experiences of some pupils (see Moulin, 2011).As in the example of Winterval, PIRI arises as a result of a mismatch between the intentions of the actor working for inclusion on one hand, and the outcome of their actions on the other.Mrs X and the city council share the assumption that religions are important, diverse and have certain features that make them comparable or at least identifiable as religions.They also believe that attempts should be made to treat them equally.For if they were to ignore the fact there are more than one religion, or only refer to one religion in their activities, they would not be inclusive of those who follow a religion or a different religion (leaving aside for the time being the important issue of people who do not identify with a religion).The consequences of implementing this intent proves contrary to their intentions, however, by including more than one religion they exclude another religion.
When multiple religions are included, identified, or are placed alongside one another, adherents of religions can be dissatisfied and do not feel their distinct and deeply held beliefs and practices are included, or even respected.This is because in grouping them together, the religions lose some of their exclusive characteristics and claims.The challenges experienced by Mrs X and the city council are not just disagreements about different ways of doing things for which vying arguments can be given.They are knottier.They are a tension inherent in what they are trying to do.It is because they include more than one religion that they exclude the religions they seek to include.In both examples, the public space is to be organised and maintained by an authority that seeks to be inclusive based on apparently good intent and acceptable reasoning, that yet results in paradoxical outcomes.There is even a risk that the kind of religious education, just as in the kind of winter festival, becomes a contested and symbolic marker of the identity of the space itself.
On the face of it, some common-sense solutions could apply to these two introductory examples.I suggest that expert teachers of religious education are already cognisant of one obvious solution, but the second is not so widely understood but to some extent is a fait acomplis in the development of inclusive pedagogy.The first is that acts of worship and any religious practice cannot be compulsory and therefore should not be mandated because they violate the principle of the freedom of belief.Practitioners of interfaith dialogue and interreligious education are aware of these issues and as a rule do not require interreligious events to muddle traditions or invite students to undertake practices of which they are not in full understanding or assent.The second is that quite often in interreligious education the overarching pedagogical frame is deliberately not equivalent with any one of the constituent traditions.Hence, the easiest solution to Winterval is to abandon it in favour of advertising and promoting a diverse range of events with no common epithet or cause-as indeed soon happened in the real-life context on which this example is based.In the case of religious education, as in the world religions approach in the example of Mrs X, one could background the views of a minority of students and parents of various traditions in favour of a pluralistic framework that does go some way in including different traditions without supposedly endorsing any one of them.
While there is some consensus in the European context that festivals and acts of worship sanctioned by mainstream religious organisations, at least, should not be syncretised, the question remains as to what is the best way of going about inclusive religious education for those of all faiths and of none.PIRI exposes a major conceptual problem with the world religions approach even though culturally it has appeared attractive in the context of secularisation and globalisation.While purporting to offer an objective view of more than one tradition it rather advances a tradition itself, and a liberal protestant or 'Western' view of religions at that.It therefore begs the question as to whether it is only a pedagogy of concern for a minority of fringe religious adherents or if it presents a more serious problem of paradoxically excluding some or most of the traditions that it may supposedly incorporate through its means of approaching them.By 'excluding' I mean it eschews the kinds of knowledge prioritised by a given tradition in order to offer its own gloss.It should be added that while a pluralistic and supposedly objective approach may be consonant with a majority liberal or secular worldview, it stands to reason that such a model of religious education may not do justice to the subject of religious education because it ignores the particular forms of knowledge peculiar to the traditions included under its umbrella.One way of understanding this issue is through the insider/ outsider or emic/etic dichotomy.Clearly, like many approaches to the study of religion, the world religions approach attempts to blend these distinctions by examining the experience of adherents.The point that is being made here is that by suggesting a universal approach to the study of religion presents a paradox of inclusivity because it does not pay due heed to the diverse ways in which learners may approach the study of their own or other traditions from within their own emerging positionalities.
Smart's world religions approach and the classroom practice it inspired have long been criticised by religious educationists.In the last 40-50 years in response to it, several pedagogical models have been advanced to either modify or replace it, which I refer to as the 'classic pedagogical models' (Moulin-Stozek, 2022).These include the human development approach (Grimmitt, 1987); the ethnographic approach (Jackson, 1997); and, the critical realist approach (Wright, 2015).Despite these newer models and other voluminous criticisms of Smart's model, the literature about multi-faith or interreligious education rarely attempts to recognise nor remedy PIRI per se.As discussed in the next section, potentially, the recent interest in 'worldviews' could be interpreted as a recognition of the plural ways of interpreting religions but this still falls short of gaining some conceptual purchase of an inherent paradox in positing a universalising approach to religious education in a plural context in the first place.I have previously made an argument that addresses the relationship between justice and the mode in which religions were interpreted and framed (Moulin, 2009).As each pedagogical model in effect advanced its own epistemology, that epistemological position itself was exclusionary because by their very nature, each epistemology foregrounded or excluded other ways of knowing.It therefore was reasonable to adopt an approach that drew upon more than one epistemology.This argument has subsequently been endorsed by Ofsted (2021) which also identified a weakness in only using one or other of the 'classic pedagogical models' because they may not adequately cater for the deeply-held positions of all students.

Pedagogic justice and the logic of the paradox of inclusivity
The relationship of pedagogy to justice has a long precedent in religious education and this line of thinking is valuable in understanding PIRI.Conceptually, PIRI has some relation to Popper's (1957) paradox of tolerance (A destroys itself by tolerating B) because it exposes a conceptual tension present in liberalism more generally: how can we include all positions, even those that reject the liberalism of inclusivity itself?In the case of PIRI in religious education, inclusion differs from tolerance, however.This is because religious educators do more than just tolerate opposing positions.Rather than A destroys itself by tolerating B, according to the established orthodoxy of multi-faith RE, A goes beyond putting up with B and actively seeks to know and engage with B. This is desirable, it is argued, because understanding B and garnering community participation from B is considered beneficial for A and B and does not result in the destruction of B (according to A at least).PIRI, as other paradoxes offer to other disciplines, presents an opportunity to think more deeply about philosophical problems that impact upon RE and religion in public life more generally.This is important to consider.Religious diversity is often invisible and is more prevalent than it may appear at first-indeed it is hard to think where and when there has been no religious diversity, aside in contexts where punitive laws are in place.Considering solutions to PIRI may help us innovate better ways to teach and cater in different ways for those of different religions.To begin this analysis, let us first state PIRI in its most simple and generic form: 1) We should be inclusive of religions.
2) Religions are exclusive of each other.
3) We cannot be inclusive of religions.
According to a liberal principle that has guided social and political thought in England arguably since Locke's Letter on tolerance (1689), we should seek to include religions in public life ( 1).Yet if we wish to include religions we must accept their claims to exclusivity at least some of the time (2).This leads us to the conclusion that we cannot be inclusive of religions, at least not all of the time (3).This is paradoxical as the conclusion seems to go against received opinion, and indeed our aims.
One way to solve paradoxes is to suggest how they may not be paradoxes at all.According to Quine (1966), a proposition could seem wrong but be in fact true (a veridical paradox), or it could just seem wrong and be wrong (a falsidical paradox).Let us consider the premises and conclusion to PIRI.Rejecting Premise 1 leaves us at the quandary of giving up laudable civic and educational goals of including all members of society, however it could be contested, and indeed is contested by some religious and secular exclusivists who argue that the public space should not include religions.Either it should be entirely or mainly the preserve of one religion, or as secularists would have it, religions should be restricted to the private realm.This is not a very useful position for religious educationists or arguably any civic enterprise in an increasingly plural world, however.Even within schools with a designated religious character, in England and many other contexts, there is religious diversity.Moreover, aside from sites of sectarian conflict, religions themselves are usually, in principle at least, open to the idea of religious freedom and teach to treat those of other religions with respect, justice and kindness.The same goes for secularists.It is only in the context of widespread institutionalised religious discrimination or oppression in which diversity is not present and the necessity for inclusivity is absent.So it would seem that religious educators should, and indeed do, uphold Premise 1.
Premise 2 certainly holds in the examples given above.In the case of Winterval, the religious festivals have discrete purposes and histories as well as communities.Just because the festivals share the basic common feature of being an event at around the same time of year does not make them similar enough to be considered one event.The same goes for Mrs X's approach to religions.Just because there are some apparent commonalities, it does not mean all religions may be understood through those common categories.For example, just because religions may have 'scriptures' it does not make sense to claim that those scriptures are at all comparable or provide the same entry point to understanding a tradition.However, that said about the two examples, does Premise 2 always hold? Are religions always exclusive to the extent and in the manner that they may never be included together?Indeed, there is a premise missing in the simplified presentation above, which concerns the assumption that religions are exclusive and therefore cannot be inclusive, inserted below in italics.
(1) We should be inclusive of religions.
(2) Religions are exclusive of each other.
(3) The exclusivity of religions precludes any attempt to include them together.(4) We cannot be inclusive of religions.
The new Premise 3 is contentious.While the examples of PIRI given above illustrate how attempts to be inclusive may contradict the exclusivity of religions, these do not demonstrate this is always the case.Let us consider the practise of scriptural reasoning, for example.This practise may be taken up by Christians, Jews and Muslims who introduce a passage from their scriptures on a common theme for discussion.It is important to note here that some Christians, Jews and Muslims may not join this activity, or may not value it, for religious reasons.It therefore cannot be considered universally inclusive.Those adherents that do practise it, however, enter into an agreement by which the assumptions of the sameness and difference between their traditions are regulated to some extent, for example, by the proviso that it should not be a space to proselytise.There are many other examples of attempts of interreligious inclusivity that appear to some extent to be successful.However, in each of these I argue they can only be successful if their claims to inclusivity are to some extent limited.A good example of this would be the transition of Remembrance Sunday from a solely Christian to a multi-faith ceremony.Its structure is largely civic in nature but it is also mainly of a Christian character and origin, to which members of other religions are invited to attend as representative guests.It is not an act of Jewish or Muslim worship in the manner or intent as that would take place according to those traditions at other times (arguably neither is it 'Christian' in this respect).In these kinds of events, guarantees of religious exclusivity are both a pre-requisite to them taking place, and a necessary condition to their ends.They are not supposed to be opportunities for syncretism.Thus, we may wish to suggest an initial solution to the paradox, that any attempt at inclusivity should take into account the exclusivities of a given participating tradition.By definition these conditions will vary according to the distinctive character of a given religion.It should be noted that this is only a partial solution offering inclusivity with certain limitations.It may be expressed as follows.
(1) We should be inclusive of religions.
(2) Religions are exclusive of each other.
(3) The exclusivity of religions precludes some attempts to include them together.(4) We can be inclusive of religions to the extent limited by their exclusivities.
There is certainly more to discuss about how civic institutions may avoid PIRI and how these conditions may be met.For the purposes of the present argument it is necessary to observe two important considerations raised until now.The first is that PIRI arises when assumptions about sameness and difference between the religions are not acceptable to religious adherents when religions are placed together.These requirements will certainly vary between individuals as well as traditions.(For example, a liberal Sikh may well be comfortable saying the Lord's prayer or a Unitarian Christian a Sikh one.But a conservative Christian may not.)The second is that the framework under which religions are approached may present a problem as to how sameness and difference are acknowledged and conceived.For example, 'Winterval' by virtue of its name and concept offended some Christians as it appeared to abolish Christmas by squashing all the religions into one, and attempted to give it a 'neutral' name.The Smartian dimensions of religion used by Mrs X did something similar.It assumed that all the traditions had comparable elements and these features were the principal hermeneutic by which to apprehend them.

'Religion and worldviews education' and the paradox of inclusivity
So far we have used the term 'religions' to refer to what we may imagine as fairly stable and distinct traditions of beliefs and practices, such as Christianity or Islam.Yet the label of 'religion' itself invokes the paradox of inclusivity.Firstly, it is clear in England that fewer and fewer people adhere to religions as we have come to understand them in the modern European sense.This means to claim the term 'religion' is inclusive of many people's beliefs, identities and affiliations is incorrect.Secondly, the term 'religion' has a specific provenance that can be attributed to a modern European worldview which is exclusive in terms of its conceptual and values-orientation.Studies show that what we consider to be the major 'world' religions all have to some extent been shaped by this mantle-for example, Brunner's (2020) work on Sikhism.Thirdly, 'religion' even fails to capture the nuances of the relationships of religious adherents to their traditions which arguably arises from a new kind of diversity-that of a condition whereby people can pick and choose all kinds of elements from religious and non-religious traditions in an exercise of bricolage (Skeie, 2002).Instead of 'religion', 'worldview' may be useful here as a term that does not just denote traditional religions but also allows for looser or more transitory affiliations, beliefs and practices that do not centre on religions but nevertheless may form a coherent way of understanding life.
It is perhaps for these reasons, the concept of 'Religion and Worldviews' education has been advanced in England (CORE, 2018).This is defined as a 'person's way of understanding, experiencing and responding to the world' (CORE, 2018 p.4).While the proposed name change from religious education is to 'Religion and Worldviews Education', I assume that a strict dichotomy is not intended between 'religions' and 'worldviews'-that what are commonly referred to as religions are also understood to comprise ways of 'understanding, experiencing and responding' to the world (ibid.).This granted, the suggestion of a dichotomy and the given definition of 'worldviews' would seem to suggest that while some religions are worldviews, not all worldviews are religions.It is not the remit of this article to satisfactorily state what this might mean or imply in educational terms.Rather the focus is to explore to what extent this proposed 'paradigm shift' may pose a solution to the specific problem of PIRI.Let us now consider a third example to illustrate how PIRI may manifest in such a project.
Dr M decides to conduct a project promoting wordviews education, using the idea of worldviews to teach about the lived religion/worldview of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Humanists.In order to develop materials to use in schools Dr M first convenes a working party of educators from each of the traditions.In his opening presentation Dr M begins by saying that each of the traditions is a worldview that provides the means to 'understand, experience and respond to the world'.He then invites each of the delegates to explain how their religion does this.After talking together for a little while the delegates begin to question this task.The Jewish educator likes the idea but is sceptical that the Jewish tradition presents one worldview.The Christian, an avid reader of Karl Barth, does not see the word of God as something that helps us understand the world, but rather a world of its own that begs questions of us.The Muslim also begins to object.He reasons that as Islam is surrender to the one God, religion cannot just be a human construct.The Humanist concurs with their Muslim colleague but for an opposing reason.Humanism is rational and scientific and thus the only way to know the universe and life as it really is.Dr M faces a dilemma.He believes everything that has been said in this discussion demonstrates there are different 'worldviews', different ways of 'understanding, experiencing and responding to the world', but his delegates do not see their own traditions as such.Rather their beliefs and practices are the means to truth and wisdom.They have a special status rooted a specific claim to knowledge, distinct from being just one view of things among many.PIRI arises in this example because of the framework suggested to appropriate religions.It is worth noting that in the case, 'worldview' could be swapped with 'religion' in this example.Though more longstanding in use, 'religion' would entail the same problems if we mean it to be inclusive of those who do not identify with a religion.Humanism is not a religion (although legally it is given the same status).Arguably, Judaism was not a 'religion' but became one in the context of the European diaspora in the nineteenth century.The central problem here is the concept used to group the 'religions' together.As with the world religions approach, this relies on a questionable assumption about the commonalities between the traditions.While the notion of 'worldview' may be inclusive in the sense of being a very broad definition, by its very virtue of positing the idea that there are many ideas among others, it presents an affront to some of the traditions it seeks to include.This would not be a problem for many adherents.Theological inclusivists and social constructionists would perhaps be comfortable with understanding their own tradition as a worldview.But even so their tradition will have its own name, its own way of describing and understanding itself in its own terms.This may or may not at all resemble Dr M's theory of what worldviews are and how they may come to be.By considering this third example alongside the previous two, we can see again how PIRI may arise on account of assumptions about religions' sameness and difference.However, while the Winterval example exposes the problem of sharing events with members of different religions, the examples of Mrs X and Dr M are problems about studying and knowing religions.One could call these epistemological, but this does not go far enough.In positing an epistemological framework for studying the religions, assumptions are made about what those traditions 'are' ontologically.An appropriating framework with strong epistemological commitments will inevitably clash with, and therefore fail to be inclusive of, some of the deeply held and reasonably distinct claims of traditions.Is, for example, the Church the body of Christ, or is it a group of people with a particular view of the world?A modern Christian might like to say both, but the idea of worldview in this context can only trivialise and diminish the grander ontological claim.Indeed it does not add explanatory potential unless one rejects the ontological claims of Christianity.This problem applies to the Smartian approach, worldview education and arguably any of the pedagogical models for the same reasons.However, in balancing or alternating between emic and eitc, inside and out, nomothetic and idiographic knowledges, it would seem the 'Religion and Worldviews' paradigm offers significantly less scope than other pedagogies in engaging with insider perspectives by virtue of the emphasis it makes on a particular overarching concept of 'worldview'.This problem may be stated formally as follows.
(1) To be inclusive we should understand all religions as worldviews.
(2) Some adherents do not understand their religion as a worldview.
(3) It is not inclusive to understand all religions as worldviews.
Premise 1 and 2 are contradictory.Premise 1 should be rejected on account of the brute fact of Premise 2.

Conclusion
In this article I have offered PIRI as a means to understand some of the conceptual complexities of interreligious education as they may relate to justice and different kinds of knowledge.Understanding the limits of inclusivity in this way would seem to be one hallmark of interreligious understanding and cooperation.This is because the examples of PIRI introduced here show how overarching concepts often clash with those they seek to appropriate in a way that excludes the very people that are sought to be included.
The brief analysis given in this short article raises the question, indeed the central problem of RE in the last half century, of what epistemological framework, or 'pedagogy' would be inclusive?Elsewhere I have argued that this is a redundant problem and I conclude with this same suggestion.As various traditions posit their own epistemologies and ontologies these are best left on their own terms.Understanding the positionality and diversity of these claims and counter-claims is the business of RE.The more strict, theoryladen and complicated our means of approaching them is, the more prone our study will be to PIRI.
Only the naïve could suggest that all of humanity's religious and non-religious identifications, ideas, rituals, cultures, beliefs and practices (or whatever you want to call them, or indeed whatever they are called) are reducible to one orientating framework and hermeneutic.Our experiences as religious educators in plural contexts and the pedagogical debates over the last half century show us that our greatest folly has been this fallacy.Why not simply resign ourselves to referring to things by their given names and explaining them according to their own logics?There are rich repositories of scholarship that do just that and they go back millennia.
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