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Religious Education:The official journal ofthe Religious EducationAssociationPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ANDCULTURAL PLURALISMDonald Miller aa School of Religion University of SouthernCalifornia Los Angeles , CA 90007Published online: 10 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Donald Miller (1979) RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND CULTURALPLURALISM, Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious EducationAssociation, 74:4, 339-349, DOI: 10.1080/0034408790740402

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RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ANDCULTURAL PLURALISM

Donald Miller

School of ReligionUniversity of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA 90007

Being a religious educator in an urban and culturally sophisti-cated context poses numerous questions regarding the goal ofone's professional role. The old agenda of embracing secularvalues in an attempt to be socially relevant presently seems asantiquarian as many of Harvey Cox's early writings on thesubject. To embrace culture at the expense of diminishedclarity regarding the unique identity which might be associatedwith being a member of a distinct religious community is tocontribute to the anomic quality of our time. The purpose of thisessay is to propose an alternative definition of the religiouseducator's task to that which implicitly prevailed in liberal circlesin the fifties and sixties. What I have to say focuses more on formthan content and for that reason may apply in both Jewish andChristian contexts.

In a word, my thesis is that the purpose of religious educationis identity construction. Although religious institutions havemany functions and goals, the purpose of the educative endeavorof the religious community is to nurture in individuals theformation of a unique and distinctive identity, one whichfaithfully represents the integrity and historical roots of thecommunity of which one is a member. The failure — forsociological, and not just theological, reasons — of an educationalprogram which invites each person to be his or her own sect is thatthe religious institution at that point ceases to be a religiouscommunity. Religion has always placed boundaries on the lifestyle models and thought patterns appropriate to members of thecommunity; communities, by definition, are comprised ofindividuals who share common goals and attitudes.Religious Education Vol 74 No 4 July-August 1979

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A half dozen years ago "expansiveness" was the hallmarkword. Robert Jay Lif ton was writing of the "protean" personalitywho simultaneously was everything and yet nothing. Liberationwas the vogue. The sensitivity cult flourished. And the church wasthe first to embrace the unleashing of Dionysian powers.1

Unbounded experience, however, proved itself to be anunworthy object of worship. Daniel Bell captures well theemergent sentiment:

The ceaseless search for experience is like being on a merry-go-roundwhich at first is exhilarating but then becomes frightening when onerealizes that it will not stop.2

The importance of boundaries is once again asserting itself. The"therapeutic," among the more thoughtful, has had its day.3

Identity is not built out of continual release and remission. Freudwisely announced that culture is built on repression;4 personality,likewise, is defined against boundaries.

Context

The questions before us are clear: But what is there to bebelieved? What is impermissible? Who are the heros and heroinesto image our aspirations? These are the questions put to us by apluralistic culture. It is within this context that the religiouseducator functions.

Among sociologists of religion there are several broad lines ofagreement with regard to the face of contemporary Americanreligion.5 First, religious monopolies — if there ever were any —are a thing of the past. The more industralized the country, themore pluralistic it is religiously. The individual is met with asmorgasboard of religious alternatives, each serving up a slightlydifferent offering of doctrine, community, and style.

Second, the religious pluralism of industralized societiessuggests a marketplace analysis in which authority is granted to

1 See Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic (New York: Harper and Row,1966), for an extremely perceptive treatment of the cultural shift to a remissive society.

2 Daniel Bell, "The Return of the Sacred? The Argument on the Future of Religion,"British Journal of Sociology 28 (December 1977):442.

3 See Donald E. Miller, "A Requiem for the Therapeutic," Religion in Life 47 (Spring1978).

4 See Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: Wiley & Sons,1967).

5 See Bryan Wilson, Contemporary Transformation of Religion (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1976); David Martin, A General Theory of Secularization (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1978); Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion (London: Collier-MacMillan, 1967);Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy (New York: Doubleday, 1967).

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the consumer, over against the prior circumstances in whichreligious institutions were the purveyors of authority. From arelatively early age individuals choose their religious option, asopposed to being socialized into a single dominant ideology andstyle of religious community.

Third, pluralism breeds theological and philosophicalrelativism. In the face of many contradictory truth claims, theindividual asks whether anything can be absolute. A jadedrelativism is often the response of intellectuals and clerics alike.

Fourth, there is a tendency towards the privitization ofreligion, with institutional commitments being perceived assomehow inauthentic. Personal experience becomes the finalauthority: reason and tradition are mistrusted.

Finally, religious institutions are viewed as being increasinglyisolated from political influence. With the advent of institutionaldifferentiation, the function of religion has been progressivelyremoved from its influence on the educational, familial andpolitical spheres.

Given this analysis, it is no wonder that religious educatorsquestion the definition of their task. As citizens of their own time,they are often as caught in the pressures of relativism and culturalquandry as is the very audience whom they are called on toeducate. In an unwitting escape from these dilemmas, manyreligious education programs have catered to two human needs:therapeutic release and sociability. For those habituated intochurch going, the religious institution was a logical place to meetfriends and to seek release from the burdens of everyday living.Religious educators rallied to the demand. They often were wellequipped in the art of counselling as well as the requisiteorganizational skills for carrying out a full social program.Occasionally a prayer would punctuate the event in order to giveit religious sanction.

Religious education programs also rose occasionally to aninformational plane. Speakers from Planned Parenthood, theLeague of Women Voters, and other assorted agencies werecalled in to supplement the nightly diet of television news. And ofcourse the omni-present psychologist was a frequent visitor,commenting in priestly fashion on the problems of living. In all,these programs have often been well-attended, interesting andhelpful. But what specifically they have had to do with religiouseducation few were moved to ask.

The failure of religious education programs which fit theabove caricature is that they facilitate a broad cultural amnesia to

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that cluster of questions which have always been central to thepurview of religious communities: How ought I really to live?;What ultimate meaning might there be to my life?. Part of thecontext, then, of religious education is that religious educationprograms run the risk of obsolescence on the grounds that theyfail to address their historic role definition: the cultivation ofmetaphysically and historically weighted models of how lifeought to be lived. I assert this on the conviction that essentiallyhumans are meaning seeking beings who distinguish themselvesfrom the animal kingdom by asking questions about the true andultimate nature of this world in which they live. All people strive,on however primitive a level, for an "ultimate" context in whichto define the worthwhileness of their commitments.

I disagree with the pronouncements of those writers6 whoassert that meaning is a simple function of demand and ideology— any ideology! They seriously underestimate the inquisitiveness(and the intelligence) of humankind. Individuals will notembrace that which is incompatible with their own lifeexperience, just because it is sufficiently demanding. What isdemanded must make sense: ultimate sense! Hence, religiouseducators — if they are doing their job as more than therapists andsocial organizers — must meet the (often subliminal) inquires intowhat is ultimately worthwhile.

Temptations

A variety of temptations face the religious educator who isprepared to meet the intellectual challenge of enabling in-dividuals to say what it means really to live. The first temptation,perhaps, is to lead individuals into a philosophical morass. Thetypical sequence of events is that the educator wants to beintellectually responsible, so he takes his students through Kant,Hume, Tillich, Bultmann — all the while laboring to accuratelyrepresent them in short compass, but aware that such landmarkfigures cannot easily be done justice in a non-academic setting.The general effect of such a course of events is that one's audiencebecomes vaguely aware that traditional religion is in trouble, butthey are not quite certain why, or whether or not there is anywayout of the morass.

Another temptation is to marry the spirit of relativism. This is

6 See Dean Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing (New York: Harper& Row, 1972).

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the view that one faith is as good as another; that no traditionpossesses the final truth, so why bother to know (or teach) one'sown tradition, its theological heritage, or the social forms it hasinspired. To assume this stance, however — that differenceswhich in the past have divided people will not also in the presentprove to be important moments of demarcation — indicates alack of sociological and historical awareness. Furthermore, therelativism posed by social pluralism does not imply philosophicalrelativism. Truth claims have as much intellectual integrity in anage of pluralism as they do within a monolithic religious period:the only difference separating the two eras being that the pursuitof ultimates is undoubtedly (and perhaps necessarily) moreharried in the present age — a factor too easily dismissed by somesectarian apologists.

A third temptation for the religious educator is (in the spirit of"honesty") to confess his or her own failure to achieve a settledreligious perspective (the loss of hypocrisy in public life is anunfortunate travesty of the prevailing therapeutic ethic).7 Inconfessing the ambiguities of one's religious identity one reflectsthe contemporary spirit more than his or her "calling" to a uniqueand priestly vocation. What is ironic is the pride with which somereligious educators betray their own confusions. If suchconfessions were made in the context of a serious religiouspilgrimage, they would be a most welcome entry in the religiouscommunity. But when they are the confessions of arrogance, onewonders if religious educators have not matriculated to theirpositions of responsibility somewhat too early.

Having noted these three temptations facing the religiouseducator, it is important to acknowledge the half-truth in each.First, religious education might, indeed, involve some familiaritywith the philosophical and theological debates which cir-cumscribe contemporary religious faith and practice. Second, tomake truth claims without some spirit of tentativeness orqualification often reveals a spirit of fanaticism, rather thanintellectual and experiential certitude. Third, genuine honesty isto be prized above all; the religious educator who is genuinely inpursuit of the Truth (a term I unashamedly use) will often betroubled in spirit and mind. A narrow-minded dogmatism is notthe counsel of these pages; a well defined structure to theformation of religious identity is.

7 On the virtues of hypocrisy, see Bryan Wilson, The Youth Culture and the Uni-versities (London: Faber, 1970), pp. 260-65.

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Goals

The goal of religious education is to enable the individual toachieve an identity which, because of its attention to questions ofmeaning and purpose, gives perspective and unity of life-plan tothe multiple activities in which an individual engages. Stateddifferently, the purpose of religious education is to create in theindividual an identity which transcends the particularity of thevarious roles which characterize an individual's life. Manycommentators have raised the question of whether there is a "self"which transcends the various roles which individuals mustnecessarily play in a highly differentiated society, or is one a mereassemblage of parts? The unique function of religious identity isthat it functions at the interstices between an individual's variousroles. From this perspective the self is always religiously defined;one's religious identity functions at the center of the personalitygranting order and meaning to the assorted roles in which oneengages. In this view, religious identity is not identical with anyone role; it is the integrating factor (often identified with anideological stance) which binds the individual into one holisticand unified being.8

The goal of religious education is not to fortify individualswith information — herein lies its difference with seculareducation. Rather, the goal is to transform consciousness — arather ominous task, indeed. The responsibility of the religiouseducator is to enable individuals to see the world through neweyes, the prisms through which one peers being the structures andsymbols of one's religious tradition. Identity is a correlate ofperception: as one sees the world, so is he. The goal of religiouseducation, therefore, is to transform perception according to acommunal world view which unites the past with the present andthe individual with the anticipated future of the community.

Identity is by definition based upon structure.9 The religiouslyinspired self does not weigh all experience equally. Valuecommitments structure both the projects which one enacts andthe responses which one makes to the world one encounters.Erikson argues that identity is shaped by ideological com-mitments.10 Although liberation may be the goal of religious

8 See the excellent work of Hans Mol, Identity and the Sacred (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1976).

9 The general perspective of Alfred Adler is instructive on this point; see The Science ofLiving (New York: Doubleday, 1969) for the most abbreviated discussion of his thought.

10 See Erik Erikson, Identity, Youth and Crisis (New York: W.W. Norton, 1968).

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experience, it is achieved through enslaving commitments — andperhaps ultimately through repression. For it is in conformity to aspecifiable hierarchy and structure of commitments that freedomis experienced. Communities are comprised of those who share acommon definition of the path to liberation and responsiblebehavior. To be a member of a community is to be self-consciousregarding the uniqueness of the perceptual schema which unitesmembers of the group into a homogeneous unit (the idea of aheterogeneous community being a contradiction in terms).Theological credos are consensus statements of commonsentiments which bind members to each other and which providethe structural form through which personal identity is crafted.

Communities, whatever their nature, are always repressive(noting that repression may be both life affirming as well aspotentially life denying). The distinctive quality of religiouscommunities in a pluralistic society is that one is free to choose thelimiting structure through which one seeks liberation, purposeand meaning. To reject the alternative of electing an historicallyconditioned community structure as the context for one's journeyis to be left to one's personal resources in crafting a limitingprinciple, or alternatively to wander through life with nodefinition of purpose.

The virtue of the religious community as a context for identityconstruction is the wealth of symbolic forms which it provides.Thus, one enters a religious community which is replete withimages — both ancient and modern — of what true existenceconsists. It is onto these symbolic forms that one imposes one'sown history of experience anticipatory of the imprint which theywill make as one strives for a centered self, one which is reflectiveof the depth of one's religious heritage.

Religious educators are purveyors of tradition. Their task is toimage the models which have been life enabling in the past. Andthey have a more subtle task — to incorporate individuals into thelife of the community in order that they may be shaped by thesymbolic forms (as well as the people) who comprise thecommunity. It is their task to make the weight of tradition acomfortable load — one which enables because it lights the way.

Methods

Identity is structured within the religious community on threelevels: the theoretical, the practical and the sociological. Theseare the three categories Joachim Wach, an early sociologist of

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religion, used to analyze religious community.11 The theoreticallevel refers to the role of reason and intellect in the life of acommunity. Theologians sometimes assume this to be theexclusive concern of religion, which it is not, but the ideationalside of religion is certainly important in that humans universallyseek to define conceptually both themselves and their world. Thepractical level of religion is the dimension of worship andpersonal communion with the divine. It is often punctuated byritual, rite and ritual being those time honored "forms" whichhave enabled individuals to experience the deepest qualities ofthe human and the divine. The sociological level makes referenceto the web of interpersonal relations which are often summarizedin procedural norms of various types.

Religious educators err in attending to only one or anotherof these levels. To do so is to deny that humans are holistic beings,for each level serves a different aspect of our being. Thetheoretical serves the intellect; the ritualistic (or practical) servesthe emotive; and the sociological relates to the communal.Identity is formed in an interpenetrating way on all of these levels.To focus on only the intellectual dimension is to exclude theemotive linkage which is so essential to the feeling of communalcommitment. Likewise, an educational program which deals onlywith the social and the emotive excludes the role of reason ingiving direction to the feelings.

The theoretical focus has been the traditional domain ofreligious education programs. Questions about curriculumusually refer to the "content" being taught. Older forms ofreligious education have involved children in learning catechismsand in memorizing scripture. For adults, religious education hasengaged men and women in Bible or Torah study, as well as alimited study of doctrine. Often there has been a "right answer" tobe learned (i.e. one which concurs with ecclesiastical authority).

Presently, because in many situations the theoretical dimen-sion of religion is in dispute, religious education programs run theincreasing possibility of having no assured content to teach. Thereis a positive aspect, however, to the present crisis in theology: thefact that in many contexts theological propositions have aspronouncements lost their authority presents the subsequentopportunity for religious educators to explore the reasons specificdoctrines or teachings have been important to the community.

11 See Joachim Wach, The Sociology of Religion (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1944).

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To recognize that theology is a human product — the humanattempt to understand its moral obligations in the face of a divinemystery which exceeds full human comprehension — invitesindividuals to contribute to the evolution of theology throughtheir own theological gropings. Surely theology and traditionbecome more real to individuals as their objectified status isdemystified and individuals have an occasion to further thereflective process

With the demise in the last century of many of the mostcreative theological minds, we are left in a vacuum whichencourages speculation on the nature of the divine. In this regard,the responsibility of the religious educator is to bring constantly tobear the tradition as a corrective to purely individualized flightsof imagination, but creative exploration is appropriate. In spite ofcontemporary philosophy being decidedly anti-meta-physical,the metaphysician is each of us yearns to define the finallyultimate, and this is a process which religious education, atwhatever level, may healthily encourage.

The practical element of religious education has been oftenignored by religious educators. Ritual has been conceived asbelonging to worship, and worship services temporally have beenseparated from religious education in the eyes of manyindividuals. Such a hiatus is unfortunate because it fails tounderstand the important role which ritual serves in formingidentity. Ritual performs several distinct functions relative toidentity formation. Durkheim, the early French sociologist, isperhaps our most articulate spokesperson on this point.12 In hisview, it is in ritual that the symbols through which the communityidentifies itself are displayed. It is also in ritual that individualsoften encounter a "presence" which is greater than the sum ofthose gathered for worship, perception of this "presence" beingthe bonding factor which unites individuals into one community.In addition, ritual performance carries with it a prescriptiveorder; to engage in ritual requires that one acknowledge thetradition which has made sacred certain objects and patterns ofbehavior.

Another use of ritual and rite in religious education is toformalize to the individual — and announce to the community —specific stages of religious development. Baptism, confirmation,Bar Mitzvah are three classic examples. Religious educators may

12 See Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (Illinois: The FreePress, 1947).

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profitably draw on these rites of passage as moments of identityconfirmation in the religious life of individuals. Ritual is also acommunal act of celebration. And a moment when in a structuredway the community addresses its center: the "presence" referredto earlier. It is this experience of the sacred which grantslegitimacy to the entire enterprise of religious education. Withoutthe affective experience of ritual, the theoretical dimension ofreligion is sterile — mere abstract philosophy, not religion.

In the religious context, it is the affective quality of worshipwhich provides the base for intellectual reflection. Theology isstructured reflection on the divine-human encounter. Hence,religious education which proceeds without an experience of thesacred in worship is dead, comparable, perhaps, to themusicologist who only studies scores and never witnesses a liveperformance. Religious education cannot be the mere catalogu-ing of others' experiences. To be meaningful it must be connectedto an ongoing encounter with the wellsprings form whichcommunal life comes. __

The sociological dimension of religion refers to the intricateweb of human associations which comprise community; it also isan important aspect of religious education. One feels committedto a particular way of life because of the affective bonds whichlink one with other individuals of similar persuasion. Thecommunity is a reference group, a body of "significant others."One's identity is gained as it is mirrored in the response of othersto one's presence and participation in the community. Thecommunity tells one who he is and what constitutes the limits ofpermissible behavior. Identity is always a product of socialinteraction, never the solitary ego contemplating itself.13

It is within the community that one may probe and explore thelimits of one's tradition and the flexibility of its symbolicexpressions. Heresy within the community is safe; it onlythreatens the community when one moves outside the corporatediscipline connoted by membership. Religious educationproceeds on numerous non-tangible levels, through informaldiscussions, conducting business, interacting with "mentors,"censuring deviants, and so on. Certainly as much is learned by"doing" as by studying.

What should be obvious in this survey of the methods whichundergird the educative function within a religious community is

13 See George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1934).

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that the traditional teacher-pupil model of education is much toorestrictive. Religious education embraces the whole experienceof religious life within community. Consciousness is seldomtransformed, nor identity constructed, in the limited verbalexchange between pupil and teacher. Religious education ismuch more a matter of acculturation, with formal moments ofinstruction being a link in the chain of the larger process. Hence,religious education occurs during worship, in the more mundanesocial interactions which occur within communal life, as well as informalized instruction.

Future

Religious education is not a narrowly defined task. In its broadestscope it is to teach people how to live — and how to die. The goalis to create whole people who have a self, a center, whichmakes the various facets (roles) of their life meaningful ("ul-timately" meaningful). First, religious education teaches inde-pendence, so that one is not dependent upon success in anysingle role; a more holistic reality embraces the particularity of asingle failure. Second, religious education grants people whatthey most desire — a place to stand, a set of values whichtranspose and order the world. Third, religious educationprepares one to engage in the journey of faith assured that there isa past from whence one has come and a meaningful future intowhich one may proceed.

Cultural pluralism threatens the religious enterprise, but onlyon the most superficial level. In fact, relativism opens up thequestion of truth in a fresh and pristine way; old dogmas invitefresh reply; new pronouncements wait to be stated. The loss oftraditional authority makes the pursuit of wisdom every person'sopportunity. The breakdown of old forms is frequently followedby periods of religious ferment, with new theological and socialforms being created. The relevance of religious institutions in anage of pluralism rests in their potential to forge identity. In aperiod when identity confusion is at a peak, the religiouscommunity, especially its liberal constituents, should not forsakethe historic function of transforming individuals' lives.

Donald E. Miller is an Associate Professor of the Sociology of Religion at theUniversity of Southern California in Los Angeles. His articles have been widelypublished in a number of journals.

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