Peter van Olst

302 Chapter 10 The challenges of a fragmentated world and society for (Christian) citizenship formation present themselves on the macro-level of the world in the form of a disintegration of a dominant ordered framework into a multitude of differing frameworks, which causes alienation between persons and—through a loss of sense of purpose—from the self as well. On the meso-level of society the same trend leads to atomisation, which is a radical individualisation, through a process of detachment between different persons and social groups that, in the end, threatens peaceful coexistence. On the micro-level of the person, fragmentation presents itself in the form of—again—atomisation and alienation of others and the self that hinder the (relational) flourishing of the person. What the conceptual scheme shows is that attempts to increase social cohesion and foster the art of living together should simultaneously aim at (re) connecting persons (micro-level), at healing civic allegiances (meso-level) and at (facilitating) communication between different frameworks (macro-level). The second sub-question formulated in the introduction asked: How can WCD, approached from the perspective of Christian anthropology, be used to enrich the citizenship formation of trainee teachers? The (w)holistic approach of WCD, as studied in Chapter 2, represents a clear and relatively new attempt to intregate the abovementioned level in a pedagogical intent to connect the whole child to itself, to others and to the world. However, when assessed from the perspective of Biblical Christian anthropology, pedagogy and theology, WCD needs to be enriched with a clear spiritual teleology, connecting its (w) holistic approach to the Christian view of life and sense of meaning. Chapter 3 clarified that this teleology should be connected to stronger attention paid to the heart as the transcendental root entity of the human being coram Deo and, therefore, of the Christian cosmovision. By adding these insights to the WCD approach, the necessary space is created for especially the first two of the three theological elements found at the end of Chapter 1, which aligned with what is necessary on the different levels of fragmentation—namely, to foster personhood as communion (micro-level), heavenly citizenship that inspires earthly civic allegiances (meso-level) and a relational epistemology instead of a modern one (macro-level). Approached from the perspective of Christian anthropology, WCD can be endorsed as a means to correct reductionism and fragmentation as it shows itself both in secular and in Christian education. Nevertheless, WCD needs a clearer spiritual and theological focus to invite the student not only to connect to the self, the other and the world, but to do so first and for all in God, taking into account the theological nature of these connections in Him. Christian anthropology needs to abide by Prideaux’ (1940) claim presented at the start

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