Teaching Sacred Texts in Religious Education
Studying sacred texts offers much more than learning quotes for argumentation. Find out what we learnt from a study of teachers who taught them hermeneutically.
One of the most common things I am asked to speak about to educators is teaching sacred texts, specifically the Bible and taking a hermeneutical approach in the classroom. This came out of a concern that approaches to sacred texts in classrooms in English schools had become focussed on the memorisation of quotes as proof texts for argument style questions which are a key feature of secondary school external examinations. This approach to texts suffers from an approach that takes students away from the scholarship that has developed over centuries, around how texts are interpreted academically, and how they are engaged spiritually.
Of course there are proof text style debates where people play a kind of quote-fu ping pong, but when engaging something like the Bible, a sophisticated library of documents and wisdom that developed over perhaps a thousand years by over a hundred authors in different times and places in the ancient world, and which came to be an inspiration for art, culture as well as faith and discussion for millennia, proof texting does not scratch the surface.
Times have changed and in recent years there is new found interest in delving more deeply into the Bible, among people of very different faiths and beliefs, including scholars who hold no faith but see the Bible as a key source of wisdom, such as Tom Holland a British Historian and Jonathan Haidt, an American Social Psychologist, both atheists who see great significance in the impact the Bible has had on the world. I will write more about this interesting development of atheist scholars seeing value in the Bible, but another fascinating development has been the new educational interest in hermeneutics in the classroom, and how this has come to influence the school curriculum for over 800 000 children in Catholic school RE classrooms in England and Wales with the Religious Education Directory which I was delighted to be invited to give advice about in its development.
Here I want to reintroduce the work that launched my own interest in hermeneutics in religious education on this platform.
This is the story of the Texts for Teachers project.
This project was a collaboration between Professor Bob Bowie and Ms Katie Clemmey of the National Institute for Christian Education Research (NICER) and the Centre for Research Evaluation in Muslim Education with Dr. Farid Panjwani at University College London (now the Centre for the Study of Education in Muslim Contexts (CEMC). It sought to support teachers in seven contrasting secondary schools, teach RE more hermeneutically. Teachers are busy people and in England Religious Education teachers come from all walks of life, and may not have had prior education in sacred texts or hermeneutics. We were delighted that a team of really fabulous teachers offered time to engage the project.
Previous research I was involved with and research others had done (for instance see here with Coles, and, by Panjwani and Revell, see here, and the work of Carswell here and here) shows that the use of sacred texts in RE classrooms is and has been an ongoing problem, especially at secondary school level, and not just in the UK. This problem is found in resources and the structures of exams which do not draw on good scholarly ways of engaging texts.
We were inspired by the thought that a more hermeneutical approach in the subject might help both the transition to Religion and Worldviews education and also the development of a stronger disciplinary knowledge base. It was grant funded by Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and supported by Bible Society.
What the project found was fascinating and is revealed in two reports, the findings report which summarises in lay terms the findings of the project and the practice guide inspired by the project team and its advisors with advice for teachers.
What we found was that the experience of engaging with hermeneutics led to changes in the way teachers taught texts, with positive benefits for teachers and pupils, for those of faith and those of no faith.
I recently asked a room full of teachers to give feedback on how their experience of teaching texts in the classroom has changed and their response was overwhelming positive with almost all of the people who gave feedback identifying positive changes, both for themselves and pupils.
Summary of findings
The teachers described a sense of agency that hermeneutical tools gave students in activities around the interpretation of sacred text.
The teachers reported that pupils were positive about engaging with longer extracts of sacred text including students who they had thought would struggle or lack motivation in such activities.
Hermeneutical approaches in these cases led to a deeper quality of conversation in lessons about texts.
Hermeneutics was seen as a valuable dimension in curriculum design allowing for progression through multi-religious study.
Almost all of the teachers developed competent hermeneutical lessons, some with excellent examples of student work.
From their key stage 3 changes, several teachers thought that hermeneutics would lead to better GCSE responses, particularly in explaining differences within religions. They also felt that a better space for hermeneutics could be included in exams.
In conclusion, we thought:
“Sacred text scholarship allows students to investigate the layers of meaning that people find significant. In making the hermeneutical process more explicit teachers help students become conscious of the process of reading sacred texts, and the place of the reader in making sense of a text, as well as the senses held by communities, and those held at different times and places. “
“There is a greater possibility for change and for reform of religious education if the idea of inhabiting the place of a sacred text scholar becomes part of Religion and Worldviews in schools. It offers one pathway to unlocking a disciplinary study of how people find significance and read meaning through worldviews.”
If you want to know more about the project and want to read the advice we produced for teachers see below. I have added a YouTube conversation I had with Dr Carswell and also a list of references to further literature you may find helpful.
Texts for Teachers Project details
Date: From 9/2019 - 9/2020
Institutes: Canterbury Christ Church University, UCL
Researchers: Dr Bob Bowie, Katie Clemmey, Dr Farid Panjwani
Funding body: Culham St Gabriels
Grant £38 000
Dr. Margaret Carswell was a great advisor to the project and is an expert in sacred text education. Watch the Message wrapped in words Youtube to hear a wonderful conversation I had with her about teaching RE hermeneutically
(This interview was with the loverly and most dearly missed Dawn Cox.)
Academic Literature linked to the project
Some of these articles are available open access through the links given here. If you have difficulty accessing them reach out and I will see if I can help.
Bowie, R.A. Charting the hermeneutical turn, its impact on religious education curricula and developing principles for pedagogy. j. relig. educ. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-025-00270-7
Bowie, Panjwani and Clemmey, 2022 'A 'meta' approach to texts in Religious Education: Researching teachers’ engagement with sacred text scholarship in English secondary schools' British Journal of Religious Education Published online: 24 Mar 2022 https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2022.2054773
Bowie, R 2021 'Multidimensional competence and the space between faith formation and Scripture study' In G. Byrne and S. Whittle (Eds)Catholic Education: A Lifelong Journey.Dublin: Veritas, pp.261-276.
Bowie R. 2021 The implicit knowledge structure preferred by questions in English Religious Studies public exams. In G Biesta, P Hannam (Eds)Religion and education: The forgotten dimensions of religious education? Leiden: Brill | Sense, pp.112-123.
Bowie, R 2020 The collective consciousness of an RE department during curriculum change: scripture, representation, science, fear and anger. Journal of Religious Education. 2020, 68(3), 305-313; doi:10.1007/s40839-020-00111-9. [The seed corn funded project that led to the T&T project]
Bowie, R and Coles, R 2018 We reap what we ‘sew’: perpetuating biblical illiteracy in new English Religious Studies exams and the proof text binary question British Journal of Religious Education 2018, 40(3), 277-287
Bowie, R 2017/18 ‘Interpreting Texts More Wisely: A Review of Research and the Case for Change in English Religious Education’ In Christian Faith, Formation and Education, edited by R Stuart-Buttle, Ros and J Shortt. Palgrave (sole-authored chapter in a peer-reviewed academic book)
Bowie, R. 2017 ‘Stepping into sacred texts: How the Jesuits taught me to read the Bible’. In Reenchanting the Academy, edited by A Voss and S. Wilson, Rubedo Press. (sole-authored chapter in an edited academic book)