Children and young people deserve to learn the roots of their own culture to be able to understand the world they live in. Religions represent traditions, continuity, and long lines. Conventions, habits, rituals, rules, values, and worldviews are most often rooted in and can be explained by religious traditions. Religions represent the collective memory in the culture, often not verbalized. Although media have many strengths, media can also bombard children and young people with a popular culture of short horizons. The turnover can be so quick that every decade creates its own words, literature, music, films, fashion, food, and values – see for instance: https://www.thetoptens.com/decades-since-1900-live/.
As an antidote, religion can offer more long-lasting patterns and horizons to understand life within. During the pandemic, the use of media has generally increased and has often functioned as a sort of ‘escape’ from a restricted daily life. The pandemic has demonstrated to us how quickly global order can come out of human control. For many children and young people, the pandemic has challenged their understanding of purpose in life. They are now gradually turning back to school with the need to understand their experiences from a wider perspective. Religious education in schools and churches ought to address their experiences and make use of them to explore human living conditions from a religious perspective. Children and youngsters need religious education to work on their experiences, especially after this pandemic when their daily lives have been put to test.
We wish you a relaxing summer break and a good start of the new school year!
Dr. Tania ap Siôn and Prof. Heid Leganger-Krogstad (ICCS)
Michael Jacobs and Piet Jansen (IV)