RELIGIOUS IDENTITY FORMATION: AN EDUCATIONAL APPROACH

Starting from the current debate regarding the aim of religious education, the article states this aim in terms of religious identity formation. With the help of Ricoeur’s narrative approach to identity formation, the process of religious identity formation is, first of all, described as a hermeneutic task. Next, the process of religious identity formation is described as an educational task. The authors posit that the formation of a religious identity calls for a specific educational approach: i.e., action learning. Subsequently, the value of this specific educational approach is demonstrated by using it to re-evaluate the effects of a religious education curriculum concerning the problem of theodicy. The analysis shows that the limited effects of this curriculum are due to a predominance of guided learning as opposed to action learning. This finding supports the main thesis of this article, that the formation of a religious identity calls for action learning as an alternative to guided learning.