International Journal of Christianity & Education

IN EARLIER WORK on the hermeneutics of charity, the author explored the relevance of Augustine's insistence on charity in reading Scripture for interpreters of non-biblical texts. This article shows how one might bring such charitable reading into the classroom and reframe the teacher's task in its light. The article discusses some implications for our understanding of teaching “methods,” close attention to students, the nature of syllabi, and the role of attentive playfulness play in learning.

I SUGGEST THAT, in universities, we often use the word ‘understanding’ when we mean ‘overstanding’. This is connected to relying on limited approaches to reading, ones that are forgetful of religious ways of reading. I offer a critical retrieval of religious ways of reading, practised in the past, and suggest how they might be included in the university today, thereby providing a richer form of educational experience for students.

THE CONFESSIONS OF Augustine of Hippo can be read as a lesson in reading, one in which Augustine teaches by example as well as precept. Throughout this work, the relationship between faith and reading is clearly on Augustine's mind, as is his desire to teach others what he has learned. As we consider our own approaches to the confluence of faith, reading, and teaching, we have much to learn from Augustine's narrative self-portrait of himself as reader. After reviewing aspects of this self-portrait, its implications for Augustine's approach to reading and for our own reading and teaching practices are considered.

THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES some instances of students offering eccentric interpretations of literary texts under the apparent influence of elements of their Christian assumptions and identities. It suggests that rather than viewing such incidents in terms of either error or self-expression, it might be more fruitful to regard them as representing a kind of interpretive interlanguage (a concept current in applied linguistics) that draws imperfectly upon more developed models of Christian interpretation. Four such models are identified and related to students' interpretive practices.

WORLD LITERATURE COURSES reflect both the academy's and the Christian community's interest in a global education, but what theoretical assumptions inform the teaching of world literature? The oft-cited rationale for cultural diversity may prove insufficient if it leads merely to the assertion of difference as a self-justifying good. This essay claims a richer model of diversity, drawing on biblical themes as well as recent definitions of world literature and cosmopolitanism, to open up a hermeneutical space for transcultural understanding. The essay also argues that the study of world literature in the Christian classroom should be informed by a hermeneutic of charity which directs our reading toward love of God and neighbor.

THIS ARTICLE ADDRESSES how Christians can read wisely and well as citizens of both God's kingdom and an increasingly secular society. I suggest that focussing on reading as a transaction between reader and text rather than on the morality of texts or the maturity of readers can provide a biblical approach for Christian educators seeking to invest reading experiences with Christian faith. I also contend that reading is one of the ways Christians should invest in a secular society and that when readers sow their faith and invest their spiritual lives in their reading transactions, they can grow spiritually.

EDUCATORS ARE OFTEN frustrated when students appear not to have completed reading assignments carefully or attentively and seem unwilling or unable to give a fair and balanced critique of what they have read. This essay suggests that incorporating the practice of reading aloud may help both to point out where students are stumbling and to create an environment in which they can learn to pay close, careful, just attention to a text.