Coming Out Religiously! Religion and Worldview as an Integral Part of the Social and Public Domain

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1 This article was downloaded by: [Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam] On: 16 February 2015, At: 11:02 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: Coming Out Religiously! Religion and Worldview as an Integral Part of the Social and Public Domain Siebren Miedema a a VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands Published online: 03 Jun To cite this article: Siebren Miedema (2013) Coming Out Religiously! Religion and Worldview as an Integral Part of the Social and Public Domain, Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 108:3, , DOI: / To link to this article: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content ) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or

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3 COMING OUT RELIGIOUSLY! RELIGION AND WORLDVIEW AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE SOCIAL AND PUBLIC DOMAIN Siebren Miedema VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands Born in 1949 in a small town in the northern part of the Netherlands as a child of a Dutch Reformed family I grew up in a completely pillarized setting. Till the age of five the family offered a secure and clear Protestant base with praying before and after the meals and before going to bed, and bible readings by my father and in his absence by my mother after every meal. From the age of four I went to a Dutch Reformed church in the next town (because the church in our town was a liberal Reformed church) every Sunday first once and later on twice a day with my father, mother, brother, and sisters attending the whole service that lasted at least 75 to 90 minutes. During my elementary and partly my secondary school years I attended Protestant schools. Such schools had an outspoken religious identity that was fully in agreement with the doctrines of the Dutch Reformed church and thus also with the religious beliefs of my parents. Religiously speaking there was a complete correspondence between the family, the church, and the school in these days. What did that precisely mean, growing up in a country characterized by pillarization? The pillarization of the Dutch society got a strong impetus after 1917 when the controversy about school funding was settled by the Pacification Act: the equal financial treatment within the Dutch dual educational system of state schools and denominational (private) schools. It stimulated further economic and political emancipation and resulted in a total segregation of public and political life, a fragmentation or a split of almost all societal institutions and groups along religious or worldview lines. Each pillar had its own universities, schools, political parties, trade unions, welfare work, hospitals, youth organizations, sporting clubs, musical associations, and so on. Pillarization as a form of vertical segregation was a particular way to deal with the plurality of religion and worldview within a monocultural society. This so-called politics of pacification or pacification form of democracy (see Lijphart 1968) led to a more or less peaceful Religious Education Copyright C The Religious Education Association Vol. 108 No. 3 May June ISSN: print DOI: /

4 SIEBREN MIEDEMA 237 and harmonious co-existence in society. However, it also blocked the way for value exchange, for sharing and mutual construction of values, and for encounter and dialogue between people from different pillars. It resulted in social isolation of each group locked up in their own organizations and institutions. At the top of the pillars there was the co-ordinated co-operation of the leaders, the elites. This system has also resulted in a sharp division between state schools that interpreted themselves as religiously neutral and denominational schools that positioned themselves as dealing explicitly with religion. What was in hindsight most crucial in my experience of such a pillarized environment? My father was a successful policeman and nearly every four or five years he could get a promotion, but the consequence for the family was that we had to move. From my Dutch Reformed context there were in every new town different others seen from a religious or worldview point of view. They were attending different churches or were not even part of a religious community and as students we then called them pagans, and their school was sometimes a Roman Catholic school or a State school. But for me, for us, they were different, others, real strangers and I did not meet them in school, in my gym club, or in our Protestant brass band. So, there was no encounter, no dialogue, and no possibility for a growing understanding of each other. Our worlds were completely separated. During the last years of secondary school, sixteen to eighteen years old and in the midst of the roaring sixties, all Protestant secondary schools had opened their admittance policy for students. It was enough if parents and students respected the particular religious identity of a school. Teachers were allowed to doubt openly in class some of the Christian doctrines and spoke frankly about their membership of non-christian political parties. Difference and diversity entered into my world, and next to that I became a member of a peace movement and a Third World movement and joined forces there with all kinds of Christians Mennonites, Lutherans, Remonstrants, Roman Catholics but also with humanists, atheists, agnostics, pacifists, and communists. Then I realized and experienced for the very first time in my life that besides being part of our own particular organization, community, or church we also needed to cross our borders and join forces in the social and the public domain for a better, that is, a more humane world, on the basis of our different and at some points even conflicting worldviews. However, there was also the question: Could I take such a broader perspective without alienating gradually from my own group?

5 238 COMING OUT RELIGIOUSLY! This experience and insight has become exemplary for me: being a member of a particular organization, group, or community should strengthen the identity of persons and should support them in making them ready and prepared for living, working, and learning together with these others in the social and public domain instead of locking them in. These others should no longer be perceived as a threat but as an enrichment. In the strong theologically articulated Dutch Charismatic Movement a movement not next to but in service of the different Christian churches I learned from Jean-Jacques Suurmond s beautiful book Gifts of the spirit are ordinary people (1995) on living and learning in the presence of the other that the experience of transcendence or God s reality is a fruit of the Spirit. This presence of the Spirit comes to light in the encounter of people in ordinary life situations and relations. Within the space of a real face-to-face, heartto-heart, soul-to-soul, spirit-to-spirit encounter the partners also experience the Holy, the Eternal, the Full. In the encounter partners can become spiritual gifts for each other. They experience the anthropological structure in reality that people need other people in order that their uniqueness as persons could flourish and could be fostered. In openness and reciprocity the source of tears, the vulnerability, and dependence in the persons lives can become transparent, and the fear of death and the urge of self-preservation may disappear. In Christianity we point here to Jesus, the man anointed with Spirit. In his life the permanent indwelling of the Spirit of God has come to life in an exemplary way. Suurmond s statement that every other person, regardless her or his particular religion or worldview, can potentially become a gift of the Spirit for the other (Suurmood 1995, 71), became a disclosure to me. And for me as a Christian this might mean that I become more and more transparent up to God. Based on these experiences and insights I am pedagogically speaking in favor of multi-religious, inter-religious, inter-worldview or cooperation schools. Learning to live, to work, to learn, and to play (!) together should be possible and start at a very early age (Miedema 2000; Miedema and ter Avest 2011). Our dual Dutch educational system is often praised abroad for the equal financial treatment of denominational schools and state schools and for the possibility for parents to have free choice between these schools. In my recent valedictory lecture I stated that I fully support the freedom of education of our system but that I am very critical on our strict dual system. The earlier-mentioned sharp division between state schools

6 SIEBREN MIEDEMA 239 being religiously neutral and objective in their core curriculum and denominational schools dealing more or less explicitly with religion(s) and worldviews is especially at the side of state schools hindering the full religious and/or worldview development of pupils in my terms (Miedema 2012). This aspect has primarily to do with the social domain or the zone of interference where the school is located, but from a view on citizenship education it has immediate repercussions for the public domain too (Miedema and ter Avest 2011). The dramatic events of 9/11 and especially the strong criticism on Islam and Islamic schools have given an extra impetus on the debate about the place of religion in the public sphere. In the Netherlands this was reinforced by Geert Wilders in his hate campaign against Islam, but the impact on serious liberal and social-democrat parties has been tremendous too. It is still openly questioned whether religion is something just for the private sphere or whether it might play a legitimized role in the public domain. This is part of a global discussion on the place of religion and worldview in societies. Based on my own experiences and my pedagogical view on the place of religion/worldview in all schools, I feel myself strongly supported by the philosophical argumentation of, for example, Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor, who are in favor of a justifiable role for religions in the public domain within the playing field of liberaldemocratic society. Coming out religiously to me means that students in all schools are supported in these embryonic societies to develop their religious or worldview personhood, and that it should be fully accepted in society at large that citizens show and communicate their particular commitments instead of hiding these away. Siebren Miedema is Professor Emeritus in Educational Foundations in the Faculty of Psychology and Education and Professor Emeritus in Religious Education in the Faculty of Theology, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. s.miedema@vu.nl REFERENCES Lijphart, A The politics of accommodation: Pluralism and democracy in the Netherlands. Berkeley: University of California Press. Miedema, S The need for multi-religious schools. Religious Education 95 (3):

7 240 COMING OUT RELIGIOUSLY! Levensbeschouwelijke vorming in een (post-)seculiere tijd [Worldview formation in a (post-) secular age]. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Miedema, S., and I. ter Avest In the flow to maximal interreligious citizenship education. Religious Education 106 (4): Suurmond, J. J Geestesgaven zijn gewone mensen [Gifts of the spirit are ordinary people]. Baarn: Ten Have.