Bridging the divide: casuistry and the integration of religious and philosophical ethics in RE

Religious traditions encompass integrated norms and values that shape individual and societal life, often expressed through beliefs and behaviours with moral and ethical implications. In Swedish schools, however, the treatment of these normative dimensions in non-confessional religious education has been widely criticised. Studies point to three core issues: a lack of theoretical grounding in moral discussions, a disconnection between ethical content and religious worldviews, and reliance on the reductive World Religions Paradigm. This paper explores these challenges as arising from the intersection of religious education and philosophy, particularly the tension between the lived realities of religious traditions and abstract ethical theories. Inspired by a reflective practitioner methodology, I explore casuistry—an ethical approach grounded in practical cases and narratives—as an alternative pedagogical model. Casuistry respects the internal complexity and interpretive richness of religious traditions while facilitating analytic and structured ethical reasoning. By integrating narrative-based moral deliberation into religious education, this approach can address key shortcomings in current curricula and foster deeper ethical engagement without reducing religious ethics to simplified philosophical categories.