The contribution of RE to active citizenship
- developing an european perspective
• Paradoxes and questions• Religious Education: about, from within, into, out
of?• Active Citizenship: right or merit?• Religion and Citizenship: in secular democracies• European perspective: idea, territory, culture,
shared history• Citizen of Europe = Citizen of a non-existing
state
My question
• How to become post-national citizens? • The only analogy I know is a religious one:• Children of the Kingdom are Citizens of the civitas dei (Augustine) • Children because they share a common Holy Spirit
My (beginning of) an answer
• Citizens of Europe = Children of a shared European Spirit• I.e. analogical contribution of Religion to the Public Political Sphre
Presentation• Introduction
• 1. Heuristic part: Zeus and Europe – analogical interpretation of a founding myth– Collective reflection
• 2. Analytical part: Lacking a political Euroepan state – European State permanently under construction – Collective reflection
• 3. Synthetic part: Towards a community of Spirit– religious education as in-ducation into an European Spirit– Collective reflection
• Conclusion
1. INCARNATION (reduction)Jove laid aside his glorious dignity,for he assumed the semblance of a bulland mingled with the bullocks in the
groves,his colour white as virgin snow, untrod,unmelted by the watery Southern Wind.
His neck was thick with muscles, dewlaps hung
between his shoulders; and his polished horns,
so small and beautifully set, appearedthe artifice of man; fashioned as fairand more transparent than a lucent gem.His forehead was not lowered for attack,nor was there fury in his open eyes;the love of peace was in his countenance.
Ovidius, metamorphosis, II book, Vv. 834-75
2. SEDUCTIONWhen she beheld his beauty and mild eyes,the daughter of Agenor was amazed;but, daring not to touch him, stood apartuntil her virgin fears were quieted;then, near him, fragrant flowers in her handshe offered,--tempting, to his gentle mouth:and then the loving god in his great joykissed her sweet hands, and could not wait her will.
Jove then began to frisk upon the grass,or laid his snow-white side on the smooth
sand,yellow and golden. As her courage grewhe gave his breast one moment for caress,or bent his head for garlands newly made,wreathed for his polished horns.
The royal maid,unwitting what she did, at length sat downupon the bull's broad back.
3. ABDUCTION
The royal maid, unwitting what she did, at length sat down upon the bull's
broad back. Then by degrees the god moved from
the land and from the shore,and placed his feet, that seemed but
shining hoofs,in shallow water by the sandy merge;and not a moment resting bore her
thence,across the surface of the Middle Sea,while she affrighted gazed upon the
shore--so fast receding. And she held his hornwith her right hand, and, steadied by
the left,held on his ample back--and in the
breezeher waving garments fluttered as they
went.
4. Domestication
When Minos reached Cretan soil he paid his dues to Jove, with the sacrifice of a hundred bulls, and hung up his war trophies to adorn the palace.
The scandal concerning his family grew, and the queen’s unnatural adultery was evident from the birth of a strange hybrid monster. Minos resolved to remove this shame, the Minotaur, from his house, and hide it away in a labyrinth with blind passageways.
Daedalus, celebrated for his skill in architecture, laid out the design, and confused the clues to direction, and led the eye into a tortuous maze, by the windings of alternating paths. …
Moment of collective reflection
• Choose in the next painting your symbol inder to explain how you feel / think about or believe in the Idea of Europe.
Co-existence of communities (M Walzer, J-M Ferry)
Legal communityGeographicalEconomicJuridical
Political CommunityCitizenshipParticipationLegitimacy
Moral communityHistoryCultureEducation
Euroscepticism
and
neo-nationalism
Citizens through Spirit
European Community of Spirit
Legal communityLiberalism
Procedural Justice -> Legal normsNegative freedom Vertical exclusion (Private / public)
Cosmopolitan Republicanisme
Kant
Political community…?
Moral communityCommunitarism
Values -> Legal normsPositive freedomHorizontal exclusion
National Republicanism
Rousseau
Your camera’s are German!
A shared European reflex (?)
1. Refusal of stigmatization (Manicheism)
2. Identification with and responsability for the position of the other
3. Searching for an outlet by confrontation with an new element
4. Awareness of what has passed.
Spirit = drive for self-transcendence L’homme est fait par ces rêves. … Nous sommes une espèce zoologique qui tend d’elle-même à faire varier son domaine
d’existence.(Paul Valery)
Dynamics of Self-transcendance1. Myth 2. European Spirit Non-European
Spirit3. Contribution of rel. educ.
Incarnation Ambiguity (lving with paradoxes)
Manicheism / Monism Perspectives with totalising tendency
Seduction Reflexive identification (I am the Other)
Individuality-stress / Model-reproduction
Religious flexibility (functionalistic secular approach)
Abduction Dialectics of the incommensurable
Calculation Religious creativity
Domestication Auto-critique (Durcharbeitung)
Social constructionism / Tabula Rasa
1. Hermeneutics
2. Cultural memory 3. Forgiveness
Collective reflection
• What kind of functional reductions of religiosity do think your students are sensible to?
(Psychological, sociological, existential, economic,
philosophique etc.)
Conclusion
Contribution of Religious Education to European Citizenship:
• Idea of Spiritual Citizenship (to prepare a political citizenship)– Children through the Spirit
• Experience with singular-universals:– Forgiveness– Trust and belief (instead of ‘tolerance’ and ‘contract’)
• Living with paradoxes– Absolute perspectivism
• Hermeneutics of history and culture