THE REPRESENTATION OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION: A CRITIQUE OF JOHN HULL'S INTERPRETATION OF RELIGIONISM AND RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

Abstract

This paper evaluates the contribution of John M. Hull, now Professor Emeritus of the University of Birmingham, to the question of what schools should do to foster harmonious relations between the disparate religious and non-religious groupings that constitute the population in most of our liberal, democratic Western nations. Professor Hull is one of the most important religious educators, whose contribution to scholarship and to educational policy is recognized internationally: he was editor of the British Journal of Religious Education for over twenty years, which is the leading international journal in the field; he has published widely; and he has held the position of Visiting Professor in a number of universities in Western Europe. In a series of influential articles in the nineteen-nineties, he articulated both an interpretation of the nature of religious intolerance and a proposed strategy for challenging intolerance in schools. In this response Hull’s position is carefully set out and then critically assessed using a range of critical philosophical and social arguments. In light of weaknesses in his account, a different psychological and philosophical understanding of the nature of religious intolerance is developed along with an outline of a different educational strategy that draws on liberal social philosophical thought for responding to religious and cultural differences in schools. To date this paper represents one of the most serious and influential critical engagements with the work of Professor Hull. Its originality lies in its rigorous uncovering and criticism of the epistemic and religious commitments that inform Hull’s position.