Controversial Issues, Criteria, and Religion

A Radical Perspective on the Criterion Debate and some Remarks on Its Relevance for Religious Education

Abstract

This text offers a radical perspective on the criterion debate and deals with its relevance to nonconfessional religious education. I start with the assumption that two different but related concerns are at the core of the debate. First, the issue of demarcation concerns how to discriminate between issues that are and are not controversial. The second is the issue of teaching, which is concerned with spelling out the normative consequences of the demarcation issue for the practice of teaching. With regard to the issue of demarcation, I argue that it cannot reasonably be construed as a problem that can be solved theoretically, fixed once, and for all by means of theoretical criteria. The stubborn assumption that one can derive from a single criterion what ought to be done in all possible cases is a persistent problem that hampers the debate from making progress and ought to be discarded. To move the debate forward, it would make more sense to view demarcation as an ongoing practical activity that might be pursued differently depending on the context. Regarding the issue of teaching, I similarly argue against the idea that a prioritized highest good exists in education. The upside of rejecting this conclusion is that it provides educators with the freedom to seize upon a variety of educative aims and experiences without seeking to fit them into any one unchanging, all-embracing vision.