Edward J. Newell

Education Has Nothing to Do with Theology: James Michael Lee's Social Science Religious Instruction (Princeton Theological Monograph) Edward J. Newell

Description: 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. About the Contributor(s): Edward J. Newell is Assistant Professor of Education at Atlantic Baptist University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. He received his Ed. D. from Columbia University.