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Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction -- The Contributors -- Part One: Religions -- 1. World Religions: the Boundaries of Belief and Unbelief -- NOTES -- Freedom and Authority in Particular Traditions -- 2. Freedom and Authority in Buddhism -- FREEDOM -- AUTHORITY -- The sangha's authority -- The dhamma's authority -- The Buddha's authority -- The Three Jewels: a single authority structure -- NOTES -- 3. Freedom and Authority in Christianity -- THREE TRADITIONAL SOURCES OF AUTHORITY -- Biblical authority -- Ecclesiastical authority -- Individual authority

This is a very significant publication. If it's dangerous falsely to concretise religion and religions, it's no less so non-religious and atheism. Similarly, it's arbitrary to exclude any engagement with atheisms from inter-religious dialogue or to characterise humanism as necessarily anti-religious. By contrast this book brings Religion and Atheism together into the same room in a common universe which is their shared home. They may be mutually challenging, but categorically, in their respective preoccupations with questions of human meaning, they show a degree of shared intimacy which is remarkable. The book is edited by Anthony Carroll of Heythrop, in Jesuit guise, and Richard Norman from Kent, kitted as a Humanist philosopher. In its background shaping it also owes much to Brian Pearce, renowned as the enabler of the Inter Faith Network, and here in the Foreword identifying questions at the heart of both the book and ongoing challenge. The two editors are joined by 19 others in producing individual chapters. Their perspectives are diverse ranging across literature and poetry, continental European philosophy past and present, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, medical and political sciences, Humanisms and secularity.

In the period between its publication as a draft Bill and the final version as the 1988 Education Reform Act it tripled in length. The additional sections on RE and Worship are part of this expansion. Overall however they represent but one controversial aspect of the legislation amongst many. The others include pupil admissions and parental choice; schools becoming responsible for managing their own finances for staff, buildings and resources; a new category of school permitting those presently maintained by an LEA or Diocese to be opted out from such control; the reorganisation of Higher Education with greater control exercised by the Funding Councils for Polytechnics and Colleges, and for Universities; and the abolition of the ILEA. These add up to quite massive shifts.

The project "Religious Education at Schools in Europe" (REL-EDU), which is divided up into six volumes (Central Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe), aims to research the situation with regard to religious education in Europe. The second volume outlines the organisational form of religious education in the countries of Western Europe (England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands). This is done on the basis of thirteen key issues, which allows specific points of comparison between different countries in Europe. Thereby the volume focusses the comparative approach and facilitates further research into specific aspects of the comparison. Biographische Informationen Prof. Dr. Robert Jackson teaches Religions and Education at the University of Warwick. Prof. Dr. Martin Jäggle teaches Religious Education and Catechetics at the University of Vienna. Dr. Martin Rothgangel is Professor of Religious Education at the Protestant Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna. Reihe Wiener Forum für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft - Band 10.2.