Religious education in epistemic superdiversity: combining pluralism with truth-seeking in a shared world

Counter-secular religion and worldview education scholars are fighting old battles. Their challenge to secular epistemic dominance remains an important front. But now a new and urgent front of the same battle has emerged: the threat of post-truth. Worryingly, some of the arguments developed at the first front may inadvertently weaken the second. Securing both fronts by combining epistemic pluralism with epistemic reliability is a difficult but necessary task. A post-truth world where might make right is unlikely to benefit the vulnerable students that counter-secular religion and worldview education scholarship seeks to empower. In this article, I develop a double anchor to counter post-truth in contexts of epistemic superdiversity, using Norway as one key example. It consists of mature scientific literacy and dialogic pedagogical language. I defend this approach against two objections: that it maintains problematic secular hegemony, and that it reproduces colonial epistemology. Religion and worldview education should be anchored in a physical and social shared world that gives us feedback. Such truth-tracking is necessary for democratic education and social justice.