Hanna de Jong-Markus

Summary 171 since these are assumed to influence professional beliefs and teaching practices at the educational, didactical and psychological levels. Because beliefs are activated by context demands, attentionwas also paid to the actual interactions of teachers with religious others. Dutch law requires primary schools to pay attention to important religious movements in society and to teach children respect for people’s differences of opinion. Religious schools often do so in line with their religious identity. The mono-religious characteristics of OPPSs are—when it comes to religious diversity and the soteriological categories— mostly related to exclusivism (only those who explicitly confess Christ as Saviour can be saved) and, occasionally, inclusivism (Christ is involved in the process of salvation, but a personal confession regarding Christ is not necessary). Exclusivism and inclusivism are regularly perceived as not taking the religious other seriously enough, while pluralism is often seen as the best starting point for interreligious dialogue or acknowledgment. However, pluralism denies the particularity of faith commitments, while the proposed alternative of the irreducible particularity of religions does not provide much room for interreligious dialogue. Instead, it is important to recognise that the religious will always experience a tension between particularity (faith commitment) and diversity (openness) and that it is not possible to find a precise balance between the two (Moyaert, 2011). Based on the interviews, first, the concrete interactions of teachers with religious others were examined. The teachers described several kinds of interactions with religious others in daily life, for example, with neighbours or during sports matches. They did not deliberately create interactions with religious others, except during missionary activities. Some teachers explicitly stated that they had little to no contact with religious others because they did not believe that religious others were present in the area where they lived or because they themselves worked in an orthodox Protestant setting, which was regularly considered as a possible shortcoming. Other teachers highlighted that it was impossible to have no contact with religious others. Teachers applied the following types of evaluations to their concrete interactions: whether it was pleasant and/or difficult, whether they got more insights into the ideas of religious others or themselves, and whether they deliberately referred to God or faith. Secondly, teachers’ beliefs about the particularity and distinctiveness of the Christian faith in comparison with that of other religions were addressed. These beliefs were remarkably unequivocal and could be divided into three categories. The first concerned the view that Christians did not need to do good works in order to receive salvation. Second, it was mentioned that there was only one God according to the Bible and that the qualities of God described in the Bible (e.g., grace, love and the possibility of having

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