Theological Underpinnings of Australian Catholic RE: A Public Theology Proposal

Abstract

This chapter will begin with an appraisal of Religious Education (RE) as it has functioned in Australian religious and public school settings over the past century and a half, with especial reference to the Catholic setting. Such appraisal will be shown to reveal a paucity of theological underpinning and directionality in RE, rendering it weakened against other school subjects by means of a gap in its disciplinary underpinnings. This chapter will move to propose a public theology perspective as one highly suitable to redressing this weakness and providing RE with the theological infrastructure necessary to its role as agency of both informing and enfaithing. This chapter will justify this move against a range of prominent scholarship in theology, including that of Newman and Aquinas, and will utilize a key feature of Habermasian epistemology that fits well with the intentions of both public theology and an informing and enfaithing RE.