Welcome to my church: faith-practitioners and the representation of religious traditions in secular RE

Abstract

The paper notices that faith-practitioners’ involvement, as visiting speakers or study-visit hosts, is a recommended teaching strategy in secular RE. It examines problems of authentic representation of religious traditions in secular RE and evaluates the extent to which faith-practitioners’ involvement as a learning strategy can address authentic representation of religions as a learning principle. Empirical data for the paper is drawn from four qualitative interviews with faith-practitioners from different Christian denominations about their preferred representations of Christianity during secular RE study-visits to their churches. The paper finds that faith-practitioners’ preferred representations can be categorised as insider-institutional (denominational) and insider-personal. Together, these types of representation can complement authenticity in the representation of religions in RE because they offer particular, rather than generalised, accounts of religious traditions.