Abstract

There are a number of paradoxes to the notion of evangelical Christian education. Learning faith takes place in the privacy of the heart, is taught as if public knowledge, yet still learned privately. Learning faith involves an important element of unexpectedness, or discontinuity, which cannot be produced on demand, a characteristic which is inimical to teaching; yet faith is taught. Third, the ideals of the religion cannot be taught by socialization, for they are rarely embodied in communities sufficiently; yet the ideals persist. Fourth, idealistic Christian communities promise to persist in their radical form indefinitely, yet rarely persist; neither generally succeeding nor necessarily failing. ;The four paradoxes are resolved by viewing Christian religious education as an instance of education as initiation into a practice. Practices are communities employing authority and power to promote their own ends, produce their own goods, made up of individuals in community relationship taking action, exercising personal agency. A practice can be viewed as having a number of characteristic elements which learners must appropriate, including propositional content, narrative, skills, habits and virtues, emotions, judgment, legal frameworks, metaphysical frameworks, form of rationality, and taste, in a historical social context. Initiation into practices can require substantial personal transformation like conversion. As social groups, practices are subject to social laws and tradition. Practices that deny their historical nature render themselves incoherent. Educational problems introduced by multiculturalism are discussed and a strategy for pluralistic communication is suggested, including the notion of covenant. ;An argument is made that an idealistic community of practice will generate an institution to attend to necessary supports, and which can potentially renew the community in its ideals. A form of community government and education is suggested which promises to benefit both the idealistic community and its institution. ;Resolutions to the four paradoxes are argued based on the proposed model. The paradoxes of religious education are resolved as characteristic of education generally and as following from the social, political and historical dynamics of practices