Religious education and the new cosmology

James Michael Lee (in Forging a better religious education in the third millennium, Religious Education Press, Birmingham, AL, 2000, p. 3) suggests that “religious education visions a broad sweeping future and then makes that future happen earlier than it would have happened if religious education were not there.” Religious Education thus has a prophetic role to play in society. The current generation is between stories—the religious and the scientific. How might religious education be developed in the Catholic school to reflect the growing convergence in theological discourse of the Christian Story with the New Universe Story? How might it energise young students with images that empower them to develop a prophetic stance towards their future and the future of humanity? We first consider the need for a paradigm shift in the way we tell the Christian Story. Then, taking our lead from the theology of Karl Rahner which allows us to take a cosmic view of Christian religious experience, and from various writers who apply such a view to different areas of Christian life, we attempt a synthesis of current theological thought. Lastly, we suggest how this shift might be applied to the religious education curriculum in order to provide an answer to the questions posed above.