Public Theology and Liberal Education

This essay explores the conditions necessary for religious and nonreligious worldviews to facilitate dialogue across difference in the public discourse of diverse democracies, and for a pedagogy that prepares citizens to participate in that discourse. Following Nel Noddings, I call those prepared to learn from one another through this sort of dialogue 'intelligent'. They acknowledge the possible fallibility of their beliefs and behaviors and the human capacity to change course when one has strayed from a chosen path. By way of illustration the essay considers how such an intelligent viewpoint might be conceived from the perspective of my own Jewish faith.