Edward J. Newell

"Education Has Nothing to Do with Theology"

Edward J. Newell

Does education have any relation to theology? How do the educator's worldview commitments speak to his or her practice of education? James Michael Lee brought a definite answer to these questions–a firm no to the relations question, and an advocacy for empirical findings over and against any speculative or theoretical positions in reply to the commitments question. Lee claimed to have a universal, neutral metatheory for all religious education, a theory that would apply to all religious educators in any and every religion. But in proposing his theory he overlooked the way that empirical facts express worldviews. This book is a detective story, tracing commitments that lay underneath empirical «neutrality.» In the process the reader will see avenues that unmistakably link education to theology. Education turns out to be a thoroughly worldview-conditioned process. This new work is essential reading for professors and students in both religious and general education.