Articles linked to Sacred Text Classroom Hermeneutics

Gathered here are the key academic journal articles related to sacred text hermeneutics.

Charting the hermeneutical turn, its impact on religious education curricula and developing principles for pedagogy

Bowie, R.A. Charting the hermeneutical turn, its impact on religious education curricula and developing principles for pedagogy. j. relig. educ. 73, 431–446 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-025-00270-7

This article develops a Catholic tradition educational understanding to religious education (RE) classrooms through the application of hermeneutical approaches to sacred texts. This is part of a historic intellectual clarification in how the Church expresses the relationship between reason and faith, identifying disciplinary methods of meaning that contribute to faith and understanding. These methods constitute an integration of disciplinary knowledge practices and personal-spiritual dimensions from the field of Biblical hermeneutics, into RE pedagogy and didactics. A hermeneutical turn in education is responding to critiques that traditional RE approaches to text engagement were detached from the natal (inherent and disciplinary) ways of knowing embedded in the subject and tradition.

A meta approach to texts in religious education: researching teachers’ engagement with sacred text scholarship in English secondary schools

Bowie, R. A., Panjwani, F., & Clemmey, K. (2022). A meta approach to texts in religious education: researching teachers’ engagement with sacred text scholarship in English secondary schools. British Journal of Religious Education, 44(3), 271–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2022.2054773

This article reports findings from a sacred text scholarship project in Religious Education/Religion and Worldviews (RE/RW) lessons. In the Texts and Teachers project secondary school teachers found that RE became more meta through a more scholarly treatment of texts, and led to leap moments with pupils who could accomplish multidimensional engagement with texts. This article contributes to an improved understanding of how classroom textual hermeneutics addresses concerns with teaching sacred texts.

The collective consciousness of an RE department during curriculum change: scripture, representation, science, fear and anger

Bowie, R.A. The collective consciousness of an RE department during curriculum change: scripture, representation, science, fear and anger. j. relig. educ. 68, 305–318 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-020-00111-9

This article reports a seed corn pilot study that presents a moment of the collective consciousness of an RE department in the midst of curriculum change. It records their concerns about the impact of increased content on depth in a new exam course, and the particular consequence this has for the kind of learning happening around texts. It reveals concerns about the representation of religion in the curriculum, the distance between that representation and teachers’ perceptions of pupils’ spiritual and religious lives. It also identifies teachers’ sense of fear and guilt about the challenge of fulfilling their duties to pupils, the secular authorities and the Catholic authorities, and reveals insights around the question of science and religion. In this single focus group, the collective consciousness of an RE department captures and illuminates many key issues of significance in RE today.

We reap what we sew: perpetuating biblical illiteracy in new English Religious Studies exams and the proof text binary question

Bowie, R. A., & Coles, R. (2018). We reap what we sew: perpetuating biblical illiteracy in new English Religious Studies exams and the proof text binary question. British Journal of Religious Education, 40(3), 277–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2018.1493270

This article draws on three sources of evidence that together indicate hermeneutical weaknesses in exam courses on Christianity in English Religious Education (RE). It scrutinises a single exam paper and an associated text book from a recent authorised course. It conceptually explores features of a new style of long Religious Studies (RS) exam question that is commonly set for the majority of students studying for a RS qualification at 15–16 years old. It combines these documentary sources with a focus group interview of teachers in the first year of teaching the new GCSE Religious Studies. The findings from the document analysis, conceptual analysis and focus group interview, together concur that there is a problem related to the use of fragmentary texts and the promotion of a particularly propositional conception of religion.