By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Religious Wars
Clive Shepherd may refer to my contribution to SURF Education days as part of a "religious war", but I would point out that it's only a religious war to the side that's got religion. "I don't feel under any pressure to take a position on one educational approach or another," writes Shepherd. "Am I missing something?" Well yes, Clive, you are. And that is, the discipline of educational technology is not - or at least, it should not be - a matter of faith. What really bothered me about the paper I criticized was the poor reasoning and the poor understanding of science. Apparently some people think I was being therefore unreasonable and unfair. Yes, many teachers - including Clive Shepherd, apparently - govern their classes according to what they want (and pretend it's the value-free neutral ground that they're taking), where what they want is informed by superstition and myth (left-brain right-brain indeed). More...
Religious Wars
Catholic Contraception? Get the App
By Lilah Burke. Two Catholic colleges, Georgetown University and Marquette University, have been helping to create apps for natural family planning. More...
Protecting Faith-Based Colleges
By Elizabeth Redden. The U.S. Education Department says its newly proposed rule would "level the playing field" for religious institutions applying for funding from the agency. But critics question the motives and assumptions underlying the rule. More...
Persistance des religions et nécessité de relire l'Histoire
Les religions sont de plus en plus présentes sur la scène internationale. Elles constituent notamment le facteur explicatif des principaux conflits contemporains. Partout dans le monde, on assiste de nos jours à une vaste recomposition du lien entre le politique et le religieux. Plus...Torah on Tyne: how Orthodox Jews carved out their very own Oxbridge
The finest religious education, affordable housing and a dynamic rabbi have given Gateshead a shot in the armOn a residential street in Gateshead, an unexpected sound drifts from open windows. It is the murmurings of hundreds of young men as they read aloud from the Torah or explore the meaning of the religious texts.
Not so long ago, the soundtrack of this city on the river Tyne was the noise of heavy industry: shipbuilding, engineering, coalmining. It was all gone by the 1980s and 90s and, like so many other places, Gateshead struggled with unemployment, deprivation and loss of identity. Now it is home to the fastest-growing strictly Orthodox Jewish community in the UK, fuelled by the reputation of its educational establishments and cheap housing. More...
The Christians I Know
I’m at a conference of mostly moderate evangelical Christians in the Pacific Northwest, and virtually everybody I have met is doing something that helps humanity and inspires me. More...
Power Battle
By Elizabeth Redden. A lawsuit at Saint Anselm is centered on the question of powers held by members of the religious order versus those held by the Board of Trustees. More...
SMU Sued for Severing Ties With Church
By Elizabeth Redden. Church body files suit after Southern Methodist amended its governance documents to separate itself from church authority. The move follows actions by the United Methodist Church to strengthen prohibitions on same-sex marriage. More...
Monks Sue Saint Anselm College
By Elizabeth Redden. Monks at Saint Anselm College have sued the Roman Catholic institution, asking the court to prohibit the trustees from changing the college's bylaws without the consent of the monks, whose Benedictine order founded the university, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported. More...
Strange Ed Fellows
Rabbi Daniel Lehmann describes how very different institutions -- for example, a secular, global university and a graduate theological consortium -- can come together to confront climate change and other pressing societal issues. More...
