International Journal of Christianity & Education最新文献

{"title":"Book Review: The Learning Cycle: Insights for Faithful Teaching from Neuroscience and the Social Sciences","authors":"Rhonda M. McEwen","doi":"10.1177/20569971211031497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20569971211031497","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing upon over five decades of intercultural educational experience in dialogue with relevant research, biblical and theological insights, and engaging illustrations, authors Muriel and Duane Elmer have provided an exceptionally practical and accessible text that is as applicable to formal educational settings in the classroom, as it is to informal ministry contexts, particularly with adult learners. Their overall emphasis is to explicate how teachers and facilitators can intentionally nurture learning that leads to life change—moving from knowing to doing to transforming practice and character. Utilizing their thoughtfully constructed Learning Cycle, adapted from Duane Elmer’s doctoral dissertation, the authors delineate five levels of learning with the goal of integrating cognitive, affective, and psychomotor elements of learning into a cohesive whole. While content recall is identified at each level, they also introduce additional features into the learning process including the role of emotion, speculation as to how to use new knowledge, identifying and overcoming barriers, the importance of practice, and developing habits which eventually lead to character transformation or the goal of Christlikeness. Recent discoveries from neuroscience provide additional validation for these time-honored principles. The authors write, “Only when stored in long-term memory do beliefs and behavior begin the fusion into integrity, character, and wisdom” (p. 194). Replete","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"27 1","pages":"110 - 111"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20569971211031497","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41539903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"For the birds: Absence and vision in teaching texts","authors":"David I. Smith","doi":"10.1177/20569971211031437","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20569971211031437","url":null,"abstract":"The most successful second language textbook in the history of the discipline, a text used in a wide range of countries for centuries after its publication, was the Orbis Sensualium Pictus (World of Sensory Things in Pictures) by John Amos Comenius (1658). It went through at least 248 distinct editions stretching from the late 17th to the mid-20th century (Pilz, 1967). Though the frequent claim that it was the first illustrated children’s book is false (Good, 1942), it was innovative, influenced later textbook design, and is still studied (Michel, 1992). The text was organized into 150 illustrated chapters, each offering a woodcut image of a scene with numbered items corresponding to words in the bilingual text beneath it. The Orbis Pictus includes no less than six chapters about birds. The first (“Living Creatures: and First, Birds”) begins with the sentence, “Animal vivit, sentit, movet se; nascitur, moritur, nutritur, & crescit; stat aut sedet, aut cubat, aut graditur” (A living creature lives, perceives, moves itself, is born, dies, is nourished, and grows; stands or sits or lies or walks). The living beings exemplified","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"259 - 264"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20569971211031437","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42239839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Digital Life Together: The Challenge of Technology for Christian Schools","authors":"Katherine G. Schmidt","doi":"10.1177/2056997121994752","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2056997121994752","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"244 - 245"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2056997121994752","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47927700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Called to Teach: Excellence, Commitment, and Community in Christian Higher Education","authors":"Julie Ooms","doi":"10.1177/2056997121994525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2056997121994525","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"250 - 251"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2056997121994525","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49632587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Jesus Christ, Learning Teacher: Where Theology and Pedagogy Meet","authors":"Yu-Ling Lee","doi":"10.1177/20569971211019256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20569971211019256","url":null,"abstract":"Mark Chater is a former teacher and policy maker who presents a fascinating thesis for this book. He proposes that an educational perspective can help bring greater understanding and love of Jesus Christ. Chater asks, “can the Son of God be a learner?” (p. xix). Moreover, how did Jesus grow in his understanding of ideas, or how was he metacognitively aware of his own learning? By contrast, Jesus is held as the ultimate teacher exemplar. How does this relationship between teaching and learning combine into the life and teachings of Jesus? Perhaps a bigger challenge is that recounting Jesus’ many pedagogical acts results in “a record of a puzzling teacher who on occasion misleads and perturbs, and is not a uniformly useful or admirable example” (p. 106). The book addresses these questions in three parts: First born; Learning teacher; and How our hearts burned within us. In the first part, I appreciate that Chater begins autobiographically. He is a teacher observing the “dance of theology and pedagogy” (p. 20) within his own life, as well as the broader Christian history. Theology, and specifically Christological thought, can learn from pedagogy’s questions by asking “how are we breaking down knowledge? What do we expect learners to do?” (p. 32). These questions give life to our theological praxis. In part 2, several chapters are devoted to the exegetical and historical-critical explorations of Jesus as teacher. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the different chapter themes in this section. One chapter amusingly suggests a pedagogical dimension of Jesus as “trickster teacher” (p. 55). Another provocative chapter asks whether Matthew portrayed Jesus as a good teacher (p. 98). In Matthew’s gospel, we see how often Jesus’ followers fail to understand his parables (i.e. Matthew 13:36). Educators would rightfully critique such a teacher if their students continually misunderstand the lesson taught in class. Yet the resolution by theologians like Kierkegaard suggest that there is a “causal relationship between unsuccessful teacher and savior” (pp. 98–99) within the duties of Jesus as teacher versus Jesus as Savior. Instead of accepting such a binary, we are called in part 3 to engage the Christian pedagogical imagination with an “educationalization of theology” (p. 183). This last section is certainly imaginatively re-reading scripture International Journal of Christianity & Education","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"357 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20569971211019256","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45873298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"White Jesus: The Architexture of Racism in Religion and Education","authors":"C. Iluzada","doi":"10.1177/20569971211020665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20569971211020665","url":null,"abstract":"The four authors of White Jesus: The Architecture of Racism in Religion and Education, all scholars in higher education, seek to differentiate between the White Jesus of American civil religion and the real Jesus of Nazareth. They point educators and administrators to evidence that reveals two rivaling notions of Christian faith in colleges and universities. The former is often oppressive and distinctly aligned with White American culture, and the latter predates and supersedes that narrow definition with a historical, transcultural, and self-sacrificial faith. The book calls educators and administrators in higher education out of silence to examine and reckon with historical and systemic racism within their Christian institutions. White Jesus describes American civil religion, in which Christianity became enmeshed with the ethos of the nation. The marriage of Christianity and state has had historical precedents, such as Constantine’s Roman Empire, and this marriage becomes dangerous when adherents justify the country’s practices through misinterpreted Christian texts. The myths of Manifest Destiny or Americans as God’s chosen people, for example, are problematic both because they misinterpret Scripture and because they overlook the experiences of marginalized groups in America, such as Native Americans and African Americans. Also, in this American-Christian syncretism, White cultural values become as weighty as biblical values. The book provides a brief history of Christian culpability in systemic racism in America. For example, after Reconstruction, White Christians thought that African Americans threatened their culture because they weren’t sufficiently educated or evangelized. Also, for nearly a hundred years after Reconstruction, many Christians taught that God created distinct races; therefore, those races should be maintained and not mixed or unified. Additionally, even in today’s discourse, White Christians usually deny the existence of systemic racism because Protestant individualism (emphasizing individual accountability and salvation) International Journal of Christianity & Education","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"365 - 367"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20569971211020665","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47729336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Connected Learning: How Adults with Limited Formal Education Learn","authors":"Valerie K Phillips","doi":"10.1177/20569971211019272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20569971211019272","url":null,"abstract":"A variety of resources exist for cross-cultural educators, providing how-to tips addressing attitudes and methodologies for the teaching process. The focus of L Lynn Thigpen’s unique and valuable book, Connected Learning: How Adults with Limited Formal Education Learn, asks the deeper and more significant questions that concern the learning process of the cross-cultural learner. The author points out a disturbing “grave inequity in the learning realm” (p. xvii) for a majority of the world who are “adults with limited formal education” (ALFE) (p. 6). As a result, Thigpen considers Walter Ong (Orality and Literacy, 2002) and the growing literature on orality, challenging the adoption of oral methods of teaching as a strategy for communicating information to learners who are not functionally literate. By pushing orality into a broader scope of “general learning strategy” (p. 7) or “learning format” (p. 144), the author ties orality to a learning process that has relational significance for the communicators of information—a value which emerges as her central theme of “connected learning” (p. 100). As a long-term worker in Cambodia with the International Mission Board, Thigpen uses her field experience as the ethnographic basis for researching how Cambodian Khmer ALFE, as oral learners, learn best. The author collects and analyzes data discovered through observation and interviews with numerous Khmer contacts to develop grounded theories on how her ALFE “learn or acquire new knowledge, beliefs/values, or skills” (p. 78). Thigpen’s personal investment in and concern for her learners is apparent, and research helps her to recognize her own need for “empathy” (p. 150) in order to connect to and better understand her learners. Thigpen’s findings provide a fascinating introduction into Khmer culture and history as she gathers quotations and knowledge from interviews with her study participants. My personal overseas experience has been primarily in Africa, and I found myself wanting to know more background on Cambodian culture and the Khmer people, partly from curiosity but more importantly to be International Journal of Christianity & Education","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"361 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20569971211019272","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44102046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Governance and Christian Higher Education in the African Context","authors":"J. Jusu","doi":"10.1177/20569971211021342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20569971211021342","url":null,"abstract":"“Should Christians form their own political parties, take the helm of government and solve all the problems of society?” Governance and Christian Higher Education in the African Context is the third in the series of The Africa Society of Evangelical Theology and provides insights toward Christians and governance. The contributors build a case for the constructive engagement of Christians with secular leadership toward good governance. To this task, the book explored two major themes which are treated in two parts. In part 1, the writers treat Christian relationships and responsibilities to secular authorities, and in part 2, they present the integration of faith, life, and learning in Christian higher education. For the first purpose, part 1 presents four chapters of well-researched, balanced, and appropriately documented arguments about the Christian’s role in promoting good governance in society. Chapters 1 and 2 present an in-depth biblical analysis that informs the Christian response to bad governance. Chapter 3 provides a case study of church political engagement in Kenya, while chapter 4 offers a prescription for promoting biblical principles of good governance. I find this first part relevant to African Christians—especially those at the helm of secular authority. I was elated when Burk (p. 15) remarked that Christians should not build a theocracy but rather strive to strengthen the existing structures for all religions to flourish. Notwithstanding, Oketch (p. 41) recognized that the Church needs to do some introspection and first remove the proverbial log in its eye before attempting to do the same for society. For the second purpose, part 2 presents seven chapters of credible application of well-researched findings on the relevance and integration of Christian higher education. Often, we speak of the rapid numerical growth of the church in Africa but fail to examine the impact of such growth on pastoral care. The report in chapter 5, which paints dire pictures of the strain this rapid growth has on pastors and offers suggestions on how to minimize the strain, is worth our attention. Four chapters examine the integration of faith, life, and learning in higher education. Chapter 6 examines worldview issues in integration, while chapters 7 International Journal of Christianity & Education","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"368 - 369"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20569971211021342","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48117235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Positive Psychology in Christian Perspective: Foundations, Concepts, and Applications","authors":"Brian Mills","doi":"10.1177/20569971211022588","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20569971211022588","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"370 - 372"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20569971211022588","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45390296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding Faith Formation: Theological, Congregational, and Global Dimensions","authors":"Anne-Marie Ellithorpe","doi":"10.1177/20569971211019652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20569971211019652","url":null,"abstract":"In Understanding Faith Formation, North American evangelical theologians and educators Mark A Maddix, Jonathan H Kim and James Riley Estep seek to articulate an integrated and holistic approach to faith formation. Through this work they aim to provoke conversation about matters of faith and faith formation and help readers grow and mature in their faith. The authors encourage readers to recognize faith as being expressed and lived out in particular contexts. Ideally such awareness provokes the re-examination of presuppositions about one’s faith and the recognition that ‘people from other cultures may mature in their faith in different ways’ (p. x). This book is divided into three parts. Part 1 focuses on theological dimensions of faith formation and acknowledges biblical, traditional and theoretical diversity. Intriguingly, the authors identify a study of faith in the First Testament as revealing more about God than about the faith of the people. They acknowledge personal and corporate dimensions of faith as expressed in diverse church traditions.Maddix,Kim andEstep revisit James Fowler’smodel of faith formation and present a model of faith formation comprised of four stages: converging faith, consolidating faith, conforming faith and contagious faith. The authors describe evangelical Christians as moving through these stages in a ‘non-mechanical fashion’ (p. 45). As noted, this model, based on qualitative research with 429 evangelical Christians aged 18 to 66, is ‘in an incipient stage’ and requires further development along with validation through replicating the study with ‘a different Christian population’ (p. 46). However, there is no indication of what subset/s of the US evangelical Christian population these initial participants have been drawn from, nor of other characteristics of participants. The outcome of the final stage of contagious faith is presented as selfless service. This stage would benefit from further description and exploration, including acknowledgement of terminology challenges, given that the language of self-sacrifice has been misused to the detriment of marginalized populations. Part 2 acknowledges congregational dimensions of faith formation. The authors identify biblical illiteracy, Moral Therapeutic Deism and the rejection of religious faith among the nones (those who self-identify as having no religious affiliation, International Journal of Christianity & Education","PeriodicalId":13840,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Christianity & Education","volume":"25 1","pages":"363 - 364"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20569971211019652","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45209938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}