Author Archives: robertabowie

A reposting of the blog I wrote recently on my university blog site The final report of the Commission for Religious Education is about to be published. The independent commission was established by the Religious Education Council, the lead organisation and … Continue reading →

  Should Religious Education (RE) debates begin with a generosity of spirit toward the contributors who may argue for quite opposing and diverse visions and conceptions of the subject? What makes someone who feels so strongly about a particular conception … Continue reading →

These days, if you are a secondary RE teacher doing GCSE, your language of learning will be filled with notions like ‘logical chains of reason” and a lot of stuff about what good evaluation looks like. This is a product … Continue reading →

Doing RE Hermeneutically – Learning to become interpreters of religion  Dr Robert A. Bowie bob.bowie@canterbury.ac.uk (Published in REToday, Autumn 2016, Vol. 34. No 1,Birmingham: RE Today, pp.60-62) This is an old piece I wrote a couple of years ago but I … Continue reading →

 In GCSE Religious Studies exams, students are often asked to debate questions. The kind of question follows a rough formula: ‘If God were loving, there would be no suffering in the world.’ Evaluate this statement. In your answer you should: refer … Continue reading →

4Bs: Belonging, being, believing, behaving  The conversation around religion and non-religion, belief and non-belief, theism and atheism sometimes treat these terms as interchangeable. I don’t think they are. Religion / non religion is about participation in and commitment to organised communities … Continue reading →

In Religious Education we often focus on trying to ensure we cover different positions both between and within traditions. But there is another ‘diversity’ that is related to religious ways of knowing, not just positions held. So you could approach … Continue reading →

I asked my students to write a short reflection on ethics or values from their early years that they hold on to or think about now. Then I thought I would have a go at my own attempt at it … Continue reading →

One of the questions raised by the Commission for RE is about the possible change in subject title. Maybe RE is old fashioned and we need something like Philosophy, Ethics and Belief. I am agnostic to the value of subject … Continue reading →

So we spent the weekend with my Mum and Dad by the sea. Said our goodbyes and drove home. Once home did the traditional ‘ring to say you got home safely’. No UFO abductions on the way back on this … Continue reading →