Graceful Agnosticism: A Pedagogy for Religious Life and Learning Today

A long-dominant approach to religious life and learning is driving people away from involvement with their meaningful questions, hopes, and practices. As educators, we may need to rethink what constitutes religious life and learning, and how religion enters people's lives. To help discern this way forward, this article reviews the "problem" facing religious institutions and suggests the real problem is a theology of affiliation that restricts the ability to learn with religious others, or from the unexpected movements of the Divine. The article proposes a pedagogy of graceful agnosticism that presents particular religious traditions as partial and contingent, and accepts theological uncertainty and diversity as formative for religious identity and practice.