How colonialism still colors our ideas about who gets to teach religion

[singhbj singh]

Here’s the thing. There are many people in our field who do not teach the religions they practice or that are associated with their family background. It’s actually a norm in our field: One can study and teach a tradition as an insider or an outsider. Where we stand in relation to religious traditions does not preclude our ability to study them.

When it comes to the study of religion, both of these perspectives, the outsider’s and the insider’s, have important insights to contribute.

Full article available at

https://religionnews.com/2019/11/26/the-scandal-of-a-minority-american-teaching-a-religion-not-his-own/

[jkvlondon]

On 7/15/2020 at 11:02 AM, singhbj singh said:

Here’s the thing. There are many people in our field who do not teach the religions they practice or that are associated with their family background. It’s actually a norm in our field: One can study and teach a tradition as an insider or an outsider. Where we stand in relation to religious traditions does not preclude our ability to study them.

When it comes to the study of religion, both of these perspectives, the outsider’s and the insider’s, have important insights to contribute.

Full article available at

https://religionnews.com/2019/11/26/the-scandal-of-a-minority-american-teaching-a-religion-not-his-own/

yep appararently only a white anglosaxon protestant can teach oriental faiths , the white privilege and prejudice strikes again . I had no problem as a kid to correct the fallacies about other faiths my RE teacher wanted to expound about other faiths including mine  and have taught my kids to be the same - to have interest in learning about others without sacrificing faith in our dharam . The more we learnt , the more we realised what the others taught was not fair or unifying i.e. was against the nature of Akal Purakh.

Everyone can learn and teach at any stage of spiritual life as it is dialogue that creates understanding