53 Fragmentation and Subjectification 1 as has been made clear in Section 1.1. Van de Beek (2022) observed how Protestantism preceded modernity in this respect. Luther and his quest for personal faith preceded Descartes’ philosophy. Puritans criticised the reliability of human perception earlier than Kant did. Moreover, before the French Revolution overthrew traditional authority, Wesley had already undermined church authority with his strong accent on faith as a highly personal choice. Van de Beek (2022) showed how this spiritual turn to the subject leads in both Reformed and Evangelical Protestantism to spiritual isolation, individualism and alienation, and also to individual judgment and evaluation of others (Chapter 5). The latter leads to an ongoing discussion of spiritual truth and the reproduction of new denominations typical for Protestantism. As Ryrie (2017) stated in his description of Protestantism as the faith that ‘made the Modern world’: Protestants love the truth so much that they will always fight themselves on it. A key takeaway from this brief exploration of modernity and Protestantism can be that Protestantism, as a religious belief, is especially interwoven with modern culture. Christian citizenship formation for a modern, fragmented society should be, at least, aware of this interwovenness if it is to be selfcritical. If culture is, as Hofstede (n.d.) claimed, the collective programming of the mind, then Protestant Christians should ask themselves whether their conceptions of reality, diversity and complexity are solely influenced by their Christian faith or also by modern culture. If what van de Beek (2022) claimed is true—that in at least one respect Reformed Christians (‘reformatorischen’ in the Netherlands; p. 72) are not modern, that is, with regard to the great importance they assign to faith—then it is also true that in other respects it is very probable that they will find modern influences. In the area of epistemology in particular, of how they think to find and know the truth, they might find a very modern rationality working towards all the tendencies of fragmentation: disintegration, alienation, atomisation and detachment. 1.2 CONSEQUENCES OF FRAGMENTATION FOR EDUCATION AND SCHOOLS Drawing on the lines of reasoning in Sub-Section 1.1.2, which presented a raw conceptual scheme, it is possible to identify at least three consequences of fragmentation for education and schools. First, students are thought to be affected by fragmentation in their own intrapersonal and interpersonal lives. Thus, it is to be expected that they somehow exhibit the features of isolation and the struggle with meaninglessness. Second, education itself has
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