Following staff proposals, the Unit II Commission affirmed Christian Religious Education in Religiously and Culturally Pluralist Societies as a priority concern and recommended that work in the area be coordinated with the Gospel and Cultures study. Subsequent Commission meetings (Trinidad 1993, Coventry 1995, Salvador, Brazil 1996) affirmed the direction of the programme.

The programme began with a Global Workshop in Salatiga, Indonesia, October 1992, entitled ‘Christian Religious Education in Multi-Religious Societies.’ The workshop was co-sponsored by the Satya Wacana Christian University and staff collaborated with the Office for Inter-Religious Relations (OIRR), and with the Gospel and Cultures programme in its development.

The meeting articulated a programme for the education and formation of Christians living in pluralist societies. This programme had the following goals:

• to identify models of effective teaching and resources for Christians living in pluralist contexts;
• to assist curriculum writers (both in educational institutions, Sunday schools and parishes) to revise their syllabi in order to respond to the needs of interreligious, intercultural education;
• to prepare an educational resource to accompany the guidelines proposed by the WCC document, "Ecumenical Considerations in Christian-Muslim Relations";
• to study women’s experiences in interreligious and intercultural living and identify issues and methods for educational models;
• to enable women to develop educational methods and resources from their learning/teaching experiences.

The following areas of concern should be considered in education:

1. Teaching and Learning one’s faith in a multi-religious society: How is religion learned? Does learning one’s own religion make a person more open to other religions? What attitudes produce distorted images of others and their faith?

2. Learning the faith of my neighbour: How do Christians learn more about their neighbour’s faith? Would planned educational activities help them to understand and appreciate the faiths of others? What are some of the difficulties involved in planning educational activities? What experiences do the churches have in this field?

3. Identifying specific issues: How can the WCC documents "Ecumenical Considerations for Jewish-Christian Dialogue" and "Ecumenical Considerations in Christian-Muslim Relations" help identify specific issues in Christian-Jewish and Christian-Muslim relations and explore how Christians and churches may deal with these issues?

4. Meeting the specific needs of the churches through education programmes: Are the existing educational activities, educational materials and methods helping Christians to understand better how to live in pluralist societies? What further steps can the Council and the churches take to follow up this issue?

In carrying this programme forward, I organized further workshops covering five regions: Africa (a continental meeting in Kenya and a sub-regional workshop in Ethiopia), Asia (three sub-regional consultations and workshops for the Central Asian Republics, Southeastern Asia and the Indian Sub-Continent), Europe (regional workshops in Austria, Hungary and Switzerland) the Middle East (a consultation) and North America (a preparatory meeting in the USA). These gatherings were attended by experts on dialogue issues, people who simply wanted to live in harmony with their neighbours of other faiths, and educators who wanted to move beyond dialogue and promote education for interreligious, intercultural living.

The Global Workshop and all subsequent activities emphasized information sharing. Participants briefly introduced every topic on the agenda from the perspective of the experiences in their own countries. The presentations formed the basis for wider consultation among the participants, both in plenary and group discussions. These discussions led them to identify both their prejudices towards their neighbours of other faiths and their positive views and hopes for future harmonious living. During all the activities the participants visited representatives of other faith communities in their own centres or places of worship and discussed educational issues with them.

Networking was another important aspect of this programme. In every workshop, persons from different regions were invited along with the local representatives. Educators from other faiths were also invited as resource persons and as ‘sounding boards.’ The WCC organized workshops in cooperation with the Office of Interreligious relations from the WCC and in partnership with regional and national organizations.

The programme was focused, yet flexible. It was focused, in that all regional and sub-regional workshops were based on the goals of the programme, and in that it appropriated the two educational models that had been developed in Indonesia and discussed the questions proposed by staff for study and action. It was flexible in that each workshop carefully considered the following factors:

• the specificity of the context (socio-political and economic) where the meeting would be held;
• the religious diversity in the country and region;
• the size and nature of the WCC membership in that context.

In 1994, a consultation was held in India on "Christian Education in Multi-religious Societies." It was organized jointly by the National Council of Churches of India, the WCC Education Desk and the Office of Inter-Religious Relations. Following the consultation, the All-India Sunday School Association designed a new curriculum for Sunday Schools. Textbooks and the Teachers’ Handbooks were produced entitled Being God’s People. The books, which were written for the nursery, primary, intermediate and senior levels, were translated into 12 Indian dialects and were published in 1997 with WCC support.

The continental workshop in Kenya in 1995, entitled "Health and Healing in Religiously Pluralist Africa: Women’s Health," determined that by learning to prepare educational materials relating to health and healing, women could be greatly helped to identify the common elements in their faiths and traditions and thereby strengthen their common identity. The workshop participants decided that the programme should begin on the grassroots level and include the training of multipliers. The Women’s Desk of All Africa Conference of Churches and the Women’s Programme of the Project for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA) were partners at the workshop and became the implementing partners.

A workshop was held in 1994 in Cyprus for Christian educators of the Middle East, organized in cooperation with the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC). Moslem educators were invited as resource persons. Discussion and analysis of textbooks during the workshop centered on the false images and perceptions that exist among people of different faiths in the Middle East. The participants extended their work beyond the workshop through an MECC-sponsored research project on the theme ‘rereading each other’s histories.’ The project was intended to help reinforce the peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and to correct the Moslem perception that Christians came to the region only with the Crusaders.

In 1995, WCC Education and the Office of Inter-Religious Relations organized a consultation in Uzbekistan for the five Central Asian Republics. The consultation was entitled, "Living Together Under One Sky." As an outcome of this experience the Christian leaders and the Imams of the five Central Asian Republics agreed to work together against the influence of outside agitators (Moslem and Christian fundamentalists and the sects coming to their region) by strengthening their teachings of religion. One of the important components in this teaching process was the inclusion of the other’s faith. One could observe an openness in the practice of Islam and in the attitude of the people in these countries that contrasted strikingly with Islam in other regions. While they were part of the Communist system, they had been isolated from outside influences. Perhaps this explains their eagerness to avoid any kind of fundamentalist trends.

In Europe the programme was rooted in the work of regional women’s organizations and lay academies working on women’s issues. Workshops, organized jointly with the Boldern Academy in 1995, set the process for developing an educational model based on women’s experiences at the grassroots. The educational model we developed and tested in different workshops led to a collaborative effort between Dr. Reinhild Traitler (former WCC staff and currently Programme Director of the Boldern Protestant Academy in Zurich), and myself, in which we wrote a curriculum for women and interfaith living.

Teny Pirri-Simonian is Executive Secretary for Orthodox Relations with the World Council of Churches.

Notes

1. Christians and Education in a Multi-Faith Milieu: Implications of Interfaith Dialogue for Theological Education, July 1991, Salford, UK, Organized by the Sub-Unit on Education and the Sub-Unit on Dialogue with Peoples of Living Faiths and Ideologies (WCC), and The Centre for the Study of Religion and Education in the Inner City, Sacred Trinity Centre.