Whereas previous research has focused on religious education (RE), teachers' religious attitudes, and personal religiosity, no studies to date have examined their experiences or discussion of positionality in a RE setting. The denominational-cooperative model of RE serves as a specific opportunity for such research since common denominational RE…

This paper initiates a novel discourse advocating for the anti-colonization of religious education (RE) in Africa South of the Sahara (ASoS). It illustrates how anti-colonial critiques can not only offer more precise theoretical perspectives but also generate a practical imperative for a paradigm shift in a school subject "still"…

Despite the growing awareness of child abuse, little academic research examines religious abuse and trauma during childhood. This paper constructs an interdisciplinary and intersectional heuristic of childhood religious trauma and abuse (RTA) by weaving together psychological and theo-philosophical literature with Rebecca Nye's theory of childhood…

The Synod of Catholic Bishop's 1971 document, "Justice in the World," articulates boldly that "action on behalf of justice is a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel." Fifty years old, it is timely to assess this document today especially as religious educators address the many forms of inequality in the world.…

An expansive understanding of ancestors is integral to the opening of imaginative spaces for religious education--particularly in university and adult faith formation settings--to grapple deeply with contexts of precarity and the hopelessness such contexts breed. More specifically, this essay considers how hauntings by one's past selves…

This article explores how religious education can access and embrace children with refugee/internally displaced people (IDP) backgrounds to address the issues associated with feelings of loss safely and to contribute to a socially just framework. This article makes practical recommendations for religious educators to respond better to the…

Introducing dreams of new centers for the guild, this article responds to the 2018 Religious Education Association's annual conference, "Beyond White Normativity." After remarks on embedded whiteness within religious education, I ask, "Can people of color be the center of the guild?" There is an opportunity if the guild focuses…

Critically reflecting on a "pedagogy of tenderness", this essay delineates how to build a liberative community of learning in the undergraduate classroom of sexual ethics. The learning community aims to help students understand religion's complex roles in shaping sexual ethics in society, challenge heteropatriarchal sexual ethics through…

This article examines identity development in light of Charles Taylor's notion of the "Buffered Self." Educating in faith toward the deconstruction of unjust identity norms requires finding a pathway out of this constrictive underlying structure. In particular, the manner in which religious educators address the promises and perils that…

African American Sunday school teachers in the early twentieth century were motivated by an ethic of care that was spiritual, historical, and political. This essay reconstructs the image of missionary educator as previously defined or experienced by missionary educators in white religiosity by utilizing the image of othermother presented in the…

This article examines the term "whiteness," providing a historical review for context. It uncovers whiteness using educational theory that identifies three aspects of curriculum--explicit, implicit, and null. A particularly unexamined biblical interpretation itself illustrates the explicit curriculum. Visual images that permeate the…

When a predominantly white organization decides to take on white normativity, it is cause for hope. However, havoc ensues when well-intended folks are caught enacting white normativity. Taking a performativity-inspired approach, this article analyzes what happened at the 2018 Religious Education Association annual meeting. By examining the…

This article explores the role of white comfort in sustaining white hegemony in institutional culture and classroom dynamics. The presumption of comfort and security in established social norms enacts an embodied commitment to white supremacy that operates concurrently with conscious, articulated desires to pursue equity, as it delimits how white…

The Underground Railroad is the first racially integrated civil/human rights movement in the United States. The basic concepts of "escape" and "travel" that undergird the movement offer a way of envisioning the teaching/learning exchange as leaving behind unhealthy ideologies, and as journeying with students from one place of…

Historically, Blacks have out of necessity prioritized survival in educating their younger generations for existence in the racially hostile and divided context of the U.S. This education and religious education has occurred formally and informally in homes, schools, community organizations, and in congregations. This paper examines three aspects…