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Abstract

A Problem to Every Solution

The Corrymeela Community, René Girard and the ambiguous pluralism

The main purpose of this study is to examine how Girard´s ideas of society, culture and

religion have become part of the reflexion in the praxis of Corrymeela Community through the work of Roel Kaptein and how this praxis can shed light over the work with dissonances of faith and values in education in RE, Social Studies and other subjects.

In earlier publications I have studied how dissonances of faith and values can be

understood in educational settings and in connection with issues of interreligious dialogue.

The extensive discussion of how differences in culture, religion and value in a pluralistic

society are to be analysed and treated in pedagogical reflexion seems to increasingly occupy

actors in different parts of the educational system. It is obvious that these issues also are

brought into focus as an important field of research. My main interest in this paper is to study how a reconciliation group in the middle of the conflict in Northern Ireland has developed a view of conflict reason and conflict resolution under the influence of the French researcher René Girard and what aspects of this study that can improve the reflection over pluralism and dissonances of faith and values in everyday praxis in education.

For a period of more than a decade I have been in contact with actors in the peace process in

Northern Ireland in connection to different educational projects. The attempts to analyse the different aspects of ”The Troubles” and the efforts to find ways out of conflicts and civil war are many and the literature on subjects related to these tragic history of social, cultural and religious conflicts is difficult to survey. An interesting and continuing reflexion on conflicts in relation to dissonances of faith and value has been carried out by the ecumenical group “Corrymeela Community”. It has its main centre in Belfast and the members are mainly lay people in different professions. The community is dispersed but meet regularly in the centre of Belfast or in a centre in Ballycastle up at the northern coast.

René Girard is a member of the French Academy. In his books that touch upon Anthropology,

Literature Theory, Philosophy and Theology he defends a hypotheses about “ Things Hidden

Since the Foundation of the World”, as the title reads of one of his books. The conflicts

among men must be understood in the light of a elaborated mimesis-theory, where the desire

to acquire what the Other desires leads to rivalry and scapegoating. Cultures arise through

rules and rituals as a way of structuring social life and thereby avoid the otherwise inevitable

crises that lead to repeated scapegoating of individuals or groups. From analysing myths,

literature of fiction and biblical texts he has developed the hypotheses to illuminate how

conflicts are related to culture and religion.