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Founded in 1836, Union Theological Seminary sought to be a school where moderate theological views could be taught in the heart of America’s most important city, New York City. Scholars have recognized Union’s role in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the 1920s, but few have noticed its impact in Chinese Protestantism. From 1911-1949, 196 Union alumni - an average of five students for each graduating class - went to China. Thirty-nine of these former students were Chinese nationals. Many of these Chinese graduates became key leaders in China’s Young Men’s Christian Association, the Christian colleges in Republican China and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Men such as Y.T. Wu (Wu Yaozong), K.H. Ting (Ding Guangxun), Timothy Tingfang Lew (Liu Tingfang), William Hung (Hung Ye), and Andrew Y.Y. Tsu (Zhu Yuyue) provide interesting case studies into how Union influenced Chinese Christianity. I apply insight from two sociologists, James Davison Hunter and Mark Granovetter, to new archival findings to contend that Union Seminary developed a dense network of influential Chinese and American Christians in the Sino-Foreign Protestant Establishment. The New York seminary acted as a social hub where Christian leaders established and strengthened their relational ties. Over time these ties formed a dense social network that influenced Sino-American relations and Chinese Protestantism. Union advanced the indigenization of Christianity in twentieth century China, helping “Christianity in China” become “Chinese Christianity. Union's role in China has been largely unnoticed until now.

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Mainz, Universiẗat, Diss., 1999.

The present thesis is a contribution to an unresolved debate in philosophy of education about the logical coherence of a particular account of Religious Education. The account of Religious Education at issue, which I call the liberal account, prescribes the teaching of religious understanding without religious belief. It stipulates that the aim of Religious Education is to teach pupils the meaning of religious propositions while leaving open the question of their truth. Underpinning the account are the assumptions that (i) no religious proposition is known to be either true or false and (ii) it is morally objectionable to teach questionable propositions as if they were known to be true. Opponents of the liberal account argue that it is logically incoherent. Their argument rests on two premises: (i) that religious propositions constitute an autonomous epistemological class or 'form of knowledge', and (ii) that understanding a form of knowledge involves holding certain propositions of that form to be true or false. If both premises are sound, it follows that religious understanding necessarily involves religious belief. The aim of the present thesis is to show that this challenge to the logical coherence of the liberal account of Religious Education is unsuccessful. I argue that the second premise is sound but the first is not. The second premise, that understanding a form of knowledge involves holding certain propositions of that form to be true or false, is an extension of an argument about language in general made by Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein claims that 'If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments' (Wittgenstein, 1953, Section 242). That is to say, language-users must reach agreement not only on how words are connected to each other (agreement in definitions) but also on how words are connected to experiences (agreement in judgments). The process of fixing experiential criteria necessarily involves accepting the truth of certain contingent propositions. I contend that Wittgenstein's argument can properly be extended to individual epistemological classes, with the exception of the class of necessary propositions. The validity of the first premise, that there is a religious form of knowledge, turns on the method of verification of religious propositions. I argue that religious propositions are propositions about divine persons and, as such, are verified in exactly the same way as propositions about human persons. Gods, like other persons, comprise minds and bodies (or minds and a relation to the material world analogous to 'having a body'), so religious propositions can be distributed without remainder over the familiar epistemological classes of mental and material propositions. Pupils can be taught what religious propositions mean with reference to other propositions of the same epistemological kinds and without reference to distinctively religious experiences. It follows that the aim of teaching for religious understanding without religious belief is logically coherent.

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The distinction between catechesis and religious education in Catholic schools is an important theme in contemporary Catholic educational thought. A firm and nuanced understanding of the nature of this relationship and its historical roots is essential to understanding both fields of study. The nature of this debate has been recognised by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church as crucial to the mission of the Catholic school. While Religious Education is vital to the unique identity of the Catholic school, too close an association with catechesis can lead to a blurring of distinctions. Contemporary Catholic thinking on this matter suggests the following accommodation: religious education is focussed on knowledge of Catholic thinking in theology and related cultural issues; catechesis explicitly focuses on faith development. The theology of communion (communio) assists Catholic educators to harmonise both concepts. Religious Education is thereby understood as a ‘shared project’ between catechesis and Catholic thinking on education.

Universiẗat, Diss., 1999--Mainz. / Auch als gedr. Diss.