17 Teaching and the Art of Living Together I deepest motivation to be involved in (citizenship) education. With regard to ‘the art of living together’, the core elements referenced in Prideaux’ talk— that is, the recognition of the Creator of all and the ensuing respect for the interconnectedness of all living things—are still important to these teachers and teacher trainers. However, as a faith community, they are concerned about how they should relate all this to the changed societal reality. Can the Bible still be considered a ‘handbook of citizenship’ in a context of high cultural, ethnical and directional diversity, especially one in which the Bible has consequently, for the vast majority of people, lost its authority? Has the gap between ideal and practice, as already indicated in 1940, now grown so wide in the 21st century that the old ideal has become unrealistic or even undesirable in the context of today’s pluralism? In summary, does Prideaux’ Biblically comprehensive approach regarding ‘the art of living together’ still apply to citizenship education today? In light of the high levels of diversity and complexity that countries in Western Europe currently face, Prideaux’ (1940) talk may come across as anachronistic. Due to rapid cultural change during the last eight decades, his ideal of the Christian country has largely disappeared from sight. For Christian teachers, the loss may lead to a certain nostalgia that incites them to refrain from providing adequate contemporary citizenship education, or to just concentrate on the bare cognitive necessities of such education. In the most extreme situation, this would cause them to turn their backs on (active participation in) broader society. In other situations, it implies that their personal, faith-based ideals become somehow detached from their citizenship education practices. This may lead to a reduction in their educational effort to just certain areas of life and to the subsequent loss of what Donner (2012, p. 19) termed a ‘Christian cosmovision’, which is an ordered conception of where the whole of life comes from and what it is meant for. If such a loss were to occur, citizenship would no longer be defined broadly and positively as ‘the art of living together’, at least not in terms of the strict connection Prideaux (1940) made with the Biblical command to love God and your neighbours. This study investigates a completely different, almost opposite approach to citizenship education for Christian teachers in contemporary society. To accomplish this, it draws on the central themes of unity and interconnectedness in Prideaux’ talk and searches for an approach that is both theological and holistic. Theological, because it deliberately includes the spiritual (vertical) connection between the teacher and God, without obscuring the importance of this connection or placing it in brackets. Holistic, because it connects the vertical to the horizontal relationships, envisioning a network
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