A Response to Wolfart’s “Religious Literacy”: Some Considerations and Reservations

Abstract

This text addresses three related aspects of Wolfart’s article on religious literacy: the critique of assumptions on the outcome of increased religious literacy, questions about the purpose of religious education, and the suggestion that religious studies are ex-theological. Although the predictability of the results of certain classroom activities presents a fundamental problem, I argue that the tentative and generic abilities highlighted in the religious literacy discourse may function as a starting point to elaborate on a better definition of religious literacy in religious studies. Moreover, based on Biesta’s educational philosophy, I argue that the religious literacy discourse is about learnification in rhetorical disguise as value-based education. Instead, I suggest that the purpose of religious education should be (re)considered from Biesta’s three dimensions of qualification, socialization, and subjectification. Finally, I problematize Wolfart’s suggestion that religious studies are ex-theological and conclude that, although there are a theological dimension and a genealogy to be observed in the religious literacy discourse, other kinds of scholarly aspects are also worth exploring further.