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Teaching Religion / Teaching Violence in the Global Ecumene: Radical[izing?] Religious Subjectivity in the Classroom

Submitted to Program Units
1: Comparative Approaches to Religion and Violence Unit

W Miller, University of California, Davis, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

How does religion play host to violence, dispossession and erasure in the classroom, whether by directly enacting them or by informing youth with habits of mind that sanction such destruction and discrimination? In what contexts do religion and education map onto charges of, or anxieties about, “extremism”? In what ways can the study of religion and violence in educational settings shed light on religious communities’ shifting boundaries and/or changing understandings of religion? What opportunities does this approach offer to better understanding the multiplicity and relationality of religious groups or movements that are often thought to be distinct or separate? With these questions in mind, this CARV panel explores the ways in which educational goals and/or settings stage the naturalization of selfhood, bodies, places, social imaginaries and teleologies in ways that recruit religion toward violent and often political ends.

Papers

  • Jacob Cook, Eastern Mennonite Seminary

    Is Wokeness a New Religion? How Evangelical Worldview Theory Activates Fundamentalism against Critical Theories and Enables Misdirection about Religious Freedom

    Abstract

    As various critical-theoretical tools and vocabularies on offer within the academy made their way into public discourse, Right-wing activists have resisted not only progressive policy suggestions but the very terms and sources of their criticism of the traditional social order. In the Christian Fundamentalist activism along these lines led by Southern Baptist thinkers, Evangelical Worldview Theory (EWT) grants culture warriors the feeling that they are operating with their own “biblical critical theory.” EWT enables them to frame and criticize opponents’ worldviews over against “the biblical worldview” while rejecting out of hand any feedback coming from beyond the biblicist fold as poorly founded. This paper will demonstrate how EWT drives Right-wing Christians to see a “religious” worldview (rhetorically framed in various ways, ranging from secular humanism to “Utopian Judicial Paganism”) being established in public school curricula, setting up a religious freedom argument for channeling public funds to “other” religious K12 schools.

  • Lindsey Maxwell, Florida International University

    The Genesis of Guardianship: Historical Rhetoric in Evangelical Homeschooling and the Contemporary Language of Parental Rights

    Abstract

    This study investigates the historical rhetoric of American homeschooling and its impact on contemporary discourses over educational choices and parental rights. Through textual analysis of rare homeschooling periodicals from between the 1980s and 2020s, the research traces the homeschooling movement’s evolution from grassroots activism to a national force advocating for parental autonomy. It details how fears of changing gender norms  shaped the early activists’ resistance to public education. Central figures like Michael Farris and organizations such as the Homeschool Legal Defense Association are shown to have shaped the homeschooling movement’s ethos and its parental rights language. By dissecting their rhetoric’s evolution, the paper renders the movement as both a product and a catalyst of major educational and political trends, and reveals its lasting impact on educational policymaking in the United States.

  • Lauren Eastland, University of California, Davis

    Homeschooling, Children’s Rights, and Religious Freedom: Differing Ideals for Muslims and Conservative Christians

    Abstract

    This paper examines the ways in which Muslim and conservative Christian homeschooling practices in the US promote or impede widely held civil ideals. The rapid growth of homeschooling in the wake of COVID-19, combined with increased activism by powerful homeschool advocacy organizations, has led to greater public and scholarly scrutiny of the practice, and ensuing debates reflect the increasing divisiveness of political discourse and radically different visions of children’s rights and religious freedom. By comparing data from my ethnographic research among Bay Area Muslim homeschoolers to the body of literature on conservative Christian homeschoolers, I have uncovered critical, unaddressed differences in these groups’ practices. In this paper I argue that, because Muslim homeschooling parents seek to foster a faith-based identity that values critical analysis and intellectual curiosity without isolating their children from competing ideas, their practices are much more in line with pluralistic civil ideals than those of conservative Christians.

Responding
Chase L. Way, Claremont Graduate University
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes

Schedule Preference

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Schedule Info

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Tags

#homeschooling #religiousviolence #Christianity #Islam #MAGA #religionandeducation #religiousextremism
#Homeschooling
#AmericanEvangelicalism
#ReligiousRight
#rhetoric
#ParentalRights
#education
#LGBTQ+
#contemporary islam
#children

Session Identifier

A24-305