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Labour and the Free Churches, 1919–1939. Radicalism, righteousness and religion

emphasis on reason and truth claims, which among other things distorts understanding of Dharmic traditions. In spite of previous attempts to make links between the experience of the pupil and the religions studied, RE has mostly been the transmission of knowledge, however conceived, and the individual pupil’s intellectual response. An existential recasting of ‘religion’, and an understanding of education which really enables children to think, speak and act together should result in something exciting and new appearing in the world rather than the achieving of expected ‘learning outcomes’. Pupils should be able to grasp why living religiously matters, what difference it makes, and come to be the subjects of their own lives. Such an RE requires much more from the teacher than the delivery of predigested content and predetermined results. It is good to examine assumptions that may lurk behind what we are saying about RE. It is good to hear female voices that challenge the knowledge transfer model of education, stress the importance of experience, and empower the individual pupil while valuing collaboration. I appreciated the critique of an instrumentalist education deadened by predetermined outcomes, and the importance of the creative teacher who does far more than ‘deliver’ curriculum or facilitate the development of skills. However, compressing such a wide-ranging discussion into such a small space means that at times the argument needed more elaboration. It is hard to avoid some oversimplification when summarising the thought of others so briefly. I found myself wanting to conduct a defence of the scholars and approaches critiqued, in that their work is more nuanced than can appear here. There is some mismatch between criticising phenomenologists of religion for emphasising the experiential, whilst championing an existential understanding of being religious. I would have appreciated more practical examples of how an RE classroom that was ‘bringing the child to action’ would differ from ones I have experienced hitherto. Nevertheless, there was much food for thought here and a welcome re-examination of our complex but fascinating field. I would recommend scholars, teacher trainers, teachers, student teachers and anyone interested in the interface of religion and education to engage with the challenges provided by Hannam’s analysis.