adult religious education as a lifelong learning process. Edited by

364
Adult Religious Education: A Journey of Faith Development
Marie A. Gillen and Maurice C. Taylor, editors
New York: Paulist Press, 1995. iv + 262 p.
professionals and academics reflect on
education as a lifelong learning process. Edited by Marie Gillen
(St. Xavier University) and Maurice Taylor (University of Ottawa), the contributors
address the praxis of adult religious education in three areas: Part 1, &dquo;Understanding the Need for Adult Religious Education&dquo;; Part 2, &dquo;The Many Dimensions of
Adult Religious Education&dquo;; and Part 3, &dquo;Improving Practice in Religious Education.&dquo; Part 1 provides personal understandings of the need for adult religious
education; Part 2 is an elaboration of the many contexts in which it takes place;
and Part 3 offers resources and practicalities for facilitators in the field. The collection, however, limits the voices of the academy. There is no contributor from the
field of religious education as it is found in Canadian and American theological
schools. Thus the focus of the text is primarily the educational dimension of adult
learning and fails to speak to the contemporary questions of faith and theology
which draw individuals to activities described as adult religious education.
In this collection of 12 essays Canadian
adult
religious
Lorna M. A. Bowman
Faculty of Theology,
University of St. Michael’s College
The Birth of Popular
R. J. Moore
Heresy
Reprints for Teaching, 33
University of Toronto Press, 1995. viii +
Medieval Academy
Toronto:
Theological
wisdom is
never
easy.
Apart
from
166 p.
subjective opinion
reflection, it requires careful and serious engagement with written
.
’
and
spiritual
R. I.
Moore’s gift to the scholastic endeavour is his attention to the latter. In his work
The Birth of Popular Heresy, he offers a very thorough collection of original texts
and commentaries dealing with medieval heresies. According to his own admission, he has reduced his own evaluation to a minimum, allowing the voices of the
Middle Ages to speak for themselves. The reader is held responsible for evaluating
the depth and importance of any heresy which arises from the texts. In a brief but
very helpful introduction, Moore sketches the history of medieval heresy through
four historic periods which correspond roughly to four themes within many Christian heretical movements’ progress and to the four sections of his book: 1) signs of
popular dissent in the llth century, 2) the emergence of relatively coherent and
evangelistic anticlericalism of the 12th century, 3) the beginning of infiltration
into Europe of an Eastern dualism in the same century and 4) the institutionalization of that heresy in the form of the Cathar church which finally precipitated the
Albgensian crusade. The Birth of Popular Heresy is not a comprehensive history for
the novice, but it is an excellent source book for the scholar and, more precisely,
for the well-seasoned traveller within the medieval world. In that sense, it may have
a misleading title. Heresy was not birthed within the medieval period, as the
sources.