This session is hosted by the Religious Education Association and explores the theme of "Religious Education and Freedom" in connection with the broader conference theme of "freedom." The session brings together scholars from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds to examine how religious education engages with various dimensions of freedom, such as freedom of belief and freedom in education. The presenters come from diverse cultural and educational contexts—Turkey, the United States, and South Korea—and explore how religious education engages with the theme of freedom in various ways, including its relationship to constitutional rights, its expression in digital environments, and its role within liberal arts curricula at faith-based universities. Together, these contributions offer a comparative and reflective perspective on how religious education functions across different parts of the world and how it navigates the challenges and opportunities related to freedom in various educational and cultural settings.
The digital revolution has dramatically expanded available forms of and opportunities for religious praxis, offering people significantly more freedom to practice their faith where and how they choose. As this trend continues, religious leaders will increasingly be called upon to provide leadership across diverse digital media. If the theological academy is to adequately equip future leaders, it must find ways to incorporate digital praxis into the curriculum. This need is greatest in practical theology and its subdisciplines, because these are the areas where students develop the knowledge and skills to guide praxis. Taking Mainline Protestant Christianity as the primary context for analysis, this paper presents a rationale and framework for incorporating theology and skills for digital religious leadership into practical theology classrooms. The presentation will illustrate pedagogical recommendations using digital tools developed by the author. Principles presented are generalizable across a variety of traditions.
This research presents the author’s firsthand experience teaching a mandatory Christian general education course at Yonsei University—a Christian-founded institution in Korea with a highly diverse student body. The study focuses on three key elements: the challenges encountered, the pedagogical approaches employed, and reflections on student feedback. The author examines how he navigated the ambiguities and tensions inherent in this educational setting through pedagogies centered on “teaching Christianity as it is” and fostering critical thinking. In doing so, he identifies the potential for this type of education to address the challenges at hand and to advance toward a model of (religious) literacy that seeks understanding.