What is meant by 'religious understanding'?

Abstract

This article sets out to explore what might be meant by the term ‘religious understanding’. Although not often talked about, this term appears in a number of significant RE documents. Nowhere, however, do any of these documents explain clearly what it means and what it has to do with RE. The result is that there are many different ways of understanding the term, each with implications for RE. Essentially, the question has to do with whether the ‘understanding’ is ‘religious’ because it has something to do with understanding religion or whether it is ‘religious’ because it is, essentially, a particular kind of understanding. This article will take a brief look at some of the key ways in which the term has been understood and will begin to explore what ‘religious understanding’ might mean for religious education.