What does it mean to "be church"? How can we foster a sense of collective faith identity through religious education? What resources can we draw upon in this endeavor? I propose that the authentic early Irish Church offers insights that add to the field of religious education by suggesting that religious educators focus on forming persons in faith to be Christians both within a community of believers and in the world. Doing so not only enriches the individual, but also invigorates the Church and allows it to reclaim its voice in the twenty-first century public square.
This thesis suggests an approach to religious education rooted in the example of the early Irish tradition yet pertinent to the contemporary desire for faith, spirituality and community. The faith of the early Irish centered upon the triad of Christ the King, covenant, and community. Together these three Christian principles foster holistic lives where faith and life become inseparable, what I term abiding faith.
My approach to this task is threefold: (1) To survey the original texts and practices, and catechetical efforts of Early Christian Ireland (5 th - 10 th centuries) in an effort to recover an authentic understanding of the Early Irish Church. (2) To place the prominent Early Irish Christian understandings of (a) Jesus Christ, (b) covenantal relationship, and (c) community of believers, into conversation with modern theology. (3) To bring the Irish recovery into conversation with the field of contemporary religious education.
Chapter 1 contextualizes the research by sketching the historical setting of pre-Christian Ireland through the arrival of Christianity with Palladius in the early fifth century. Chapter 2 continues the historical survey concentrating on the Christianization process, pedagogical practices and the subsequent transformation of Irish society. Chapter 3 turns to the content of the evangelization of Ireland first examining the Irish use of the heretics Pelagius and Theodore of Mospsuestia. I demonstrate that their influence in Ireland was primarily exegetical and that Irish use of their texts did not render the Irish Church heterodox. Secondly, I focus on the texts produce by the Irish Christians with an eye towards their christological and ecclesiological motifs. Chapter 4 engages the wisdom of the early Irish Church, their emphasis on Christ the King, covenant, and community with modern theological understandings. Here, I liberate these understandings from unnecessary tangential concepts that are detrimental to forming persons for an integrated, life-giving, abiding faith. I then take these recovered Christian foci into a conversation with contemporary religious education text.
Chapter 5 demonstrates the viability for religious education for abiding faith through the shared Christian praxis approach of Thomas Groome. I offer a description of shared Christian praxis followed by a discussion of its use in both the formal educational setting and the liturgy. Chapter 6 offers, as the title states, some concluding thoughts on the development of the work as a whole.
