Churches and Education

Studies in Church History 55 explores the theme ‘Churches and Education’. Christianity has always been involved in education, from the very earliest communities’ teaching of those about to be baptized, to present-day churches’ involvement in schools and higher education. Christianity has a core theological concern for teaching, discipleship and formation. However, the dissemination of Christian ideas and positions is not necessarily an explicitly didactic process. This volume reflects the long and complex history of the relationships between churches and education. Under the presidency of Morwenna Ludlow (University of Exeter), it explores the multi-faceted ways in which churches have sought to educate, catechize and instruct and clergy and laity, adults and children, men and women, boys and girls. Education projects have served not only to support but also to question or even to reconfigure particular versions of the Christian message, and the recipients of education have also both received and subverted the teaching offered. This volume brings together the work of a wide range of scholars including Caroline Bowden (QMU London), Mark Chapman (Oxford), Sarah Hamilton (Exeter), Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe (Cambridge), and Lucy Pick (Chicago) to consider these and other questions relating to the churches and education.