TY - JOUR
T1 - The council of newton
T2 - A pedagogical exercise for understanding conceptual and historical difference with respect to intra-religious notions of divinity
AU - Karapanagiotis, Nicole
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2015/4/1
Y1 - 2015/4/1
N2 - In this essay, I examine the following pedagogical question: how can we unlock students' mistaken notions that religious "traditions" are monoliths, and instead help them to recognize, puzzle over, and appreciate the complex multiplicity and vibrant set of doctrinal and ritual conversations that characterize religious traditions? More specifically, how can we teach students to recognize these differences with respect to a religion's notions of god? And how can we do so even when students are particularly stuck on, invested in, or trained to see homogeneity? In answer to these questions, I present an exercise that I have used in my World Religions courses. This exercise - which I call the "Council of Newton" (named for the building in which I first taught it) - is particularly effective because it helps students uncover and wrestle with this diversity at two levels: conceptually and historically.
AB - In this essay, I examine the following pedagogical question: how can we unlock students' mistaken notions that religious "traditions" are monoliths, and instead help them to recognize, puzzle over, and appreciate the complex multiplicity and vibrant set of doctrinal and ritual conversations that characterize religious traditions? More specifically, how can we teach students to recognize these differences with respect to a religion's notions of god? And how can we do so even when students are particularly stuck on, invested in, or trained to see homogeneity? In answer to these questions, I present an exercise that I have used in my World Religions courses. This exercise - which I call the "Council of Newton" (named for the building in which I first taught it) - is particularly effective because it helps students uncover and wrestle with this diversity at two levels: conceptually and historically.
KW - Christology
KW - Classroom learning activity
KW - God
KW - History
KW - Learning through group work
KW - Metaphor
KW - Multiplicity
KW - Ontology
KW - Philosophy
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U2 - https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12283
DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12283
M3 - Article
SN - 1368-4868
VL - 18
SP - 149
EP - 158
JO - Teaching Theology and Religion
JF - Teaching Theology and Religion
IS - 2
ER -