In my most recent post, I argued how important it is to teach narrative skills, in particular in religious education. Jerome Bruner refers to narrative skills as the ability to understand and apply the methods of ‘narrative fields of knowledge’. He points to literature, poetry, historiography, etc., as examples of such fields, but I think it is obvious […]
Christmas, Creation and Education (Follow up on two Twitter discussions)
The last few days I have witnessed what you could call a parochial version of the war on Christmas, which is raging, according to some at least, in the US. A city council in Flanders decided that it was inappropriate to have a nativity scene on display in the city hall, since that would imply a […]
Planetary Knowledge is Self-Knowledge
One of the most critical house rules we must learn is that we are not lords over the planet, but products of its processes; in fact, we are the product of a fifteen-billion-year history of the universe and a four-billion-year history of our earth. We are an intimate and integral part of what we want […]
Religion & Science and Education
Yesterday I gave a lecture on science and religion, as part of a series on Reason and Religion. My part of these evening lectures is supposed to draw a conclusion from the three previous ones. Because I didn’t have the time to read the other three lectures in detail – and I only had the […]
Death and Religious Diversity
My current job is really fascinating. I work for the “education authority” Catholic Education Flanders, offering support to Catholic schools on the theme of Catholic dialogue schools. This results in an interesting mix of theology, educational theory, and practical concerns. One example of that mix is a letter that was forwarded to me by my […]
Hammurabi
What do you go see at the Louvre museum in Paris? Most people would probably put the Mona Lisa, the Nike of Samotrache, and the Venus of Milo on their todo list. At least, that’s what we – my wife and our two kids – noticed when we visited the Louvre ourselves in August 2016. […]
That which is untouched, is unloved
How we define ‘nature’ defines our relation with nature, Emma Marris argues. She invites us to take a different perspective on environmental care. In a way one could say she advocates for a child’s perspective on nature. I think the point she makes is worth considering. We need to get back in touch with nature, […]
Knowing the Past to Co-Create the Future.
Last week, I received an e-mail with the delightful news that my abstract for the next IRAS-conference , titled: “How Can We Know? Co-creating Knowledge in Perilous Times”, has been accepted. Moreover, the organizing committee awarded me with a Fellowship to enable me to join them. Obviously, I’m thrilled about this: a perfect way to end my […]
CFP for “Relation, Vulnerability, Love: Theological Anthropology in the 21st Century”
September 2016 is an important month for the Anthropos Research Group, since we organize a conference that should allow us to bring together different strands of our research. The title, “Relation, Vulnerability, Love: Theological Anthropology in the 21st Century”, expresses both the ambition of the conference and the three concepts that we think are essential to […]
Debate on Niche Construction
I recently discovered an older (2014) article in Nature debating the value of the concept ‘niche construction’. The article nicely offers room for advocates and opponents of this concept. Niche construction is, briefly said, the notion that the relation between organisms and their environment is a feedback relation: organisms alter their environment through their actions, with […]
Weekly Gardening 