Critical Spiritual Pedagogy

Khwaja Muhammad Rida b. Sultan Husayn was a native of the village of Ghuriyan,
a dependency of Herat in present-day Afghanistan. He lived in the 10th/16th
century and commonly referred to himself as ‘Khayrkhwah,’ the ‘Well-wisher.’ The
following is an extract from the beginning of one of his works, entitled simply "The
Epistle" (Risala). The passage delves into the importance of spiritual edification, or
ta'lim, and the role of the Ismaili hierarchy, the hudud-i din, in leading the adepts
to a recognition of the divine. It also elaborates the existence of three categories
among creatures. In the spiritual world, those of the first category testified with
knowledge and conviction to God's sovereignty over them; the second category
also testified to God’s sovereignty, but only in imitation of the first category; and
the third category denied the sovereignty of God altogether. The physical world
was created so that those of the second category could attain true recognition and
certainty. Meanwhile, the first category manifested in the world as the hujjat or
'proof'’ of the imam so as to nurture the souls of the second category and to lead
them to God by spiritual edification (ta'lim), while the third was manifested to
nurture the physical life of the second category.

Political grace insists on an ethic of radical risk because the times require it, because the divine plane of creation that offers life is at risk itself from the holocaust of global plunder. Wes Rehberg (2012) The risk of global plunder is evident around the globe, as corporations exert their rule over the material world, poverty intensiNies, and complicit governments justify the denial of social welfare to oppressed populations. We live in an era where neoliberalism has made kowtowing to the interests of the wealthy and powerful above reproach and few courageous oppositional forces have garnered the means or public will to persist in campaigns of public protest. In many instances, the lethal combination of oppressive neoliberal policies and the veneration of technology have effectively ushered in the disposability of a lion share of the working class. No longer are the liberating promises of the enlightenment project, which sought to overcome the tyrannies of autocratic rule and incontrovertible abuses of professed Divine authority able to interrupt the ravages of capitalism at any level. Ecologically, the planet is suffering from what may well be irreparable colonization of the life's sphere, with its unmerciful and heedless destruction of forests, wildlife, soil potency, and water supplies. This ravaging of the earth, indeed, only echoes the violent estrangement and domestication of our own colonization, as the cultures and languages of subaltern populations are rapidly disappearing. It is in the midst of grave economic exploitation and rampant disregard for the lives of the many that Freirian educators, scholars, and activists are called to risk a liberating praxis that embodies a new sense of revolutionary subjecthood and challenges our domesticated tolerances for societal injustice and human oppression. Simultaneously, emancipatory objectives of our pedagogical labor call for building a political solidarity that acknowledges the spiritual oneness of our humanity, while embracing the cultural differences in our expressions, as necessary biodiversity for our human survival and evolution. This entails that, rather than falling into us/them binaries that demonize and segment, we seek to retain the dialectical tensions that forever persist between the universalism of our humanity and the particularisms born from the survival of distinct Political Grace and Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy

There is scant research literature on the interconnection between spirituality and anti-oppressive pedagogy in the higher-education classroom. In this paper, based on a broader qualitative study that examined spiritually-minded activist scholars in the Canadian university context, I focus on how four such scholars integrate spirituality into their teaching practices. Two themes are presented in this paper: (1) toward a pedagogy of hope; and (2) affirming different ways of knowing. I conclude with the argument that teaching from a spiritual paradigm is fraught with challenges and risks yet has positive implications for developing anti-oppressive pedagogy in higher education.

Political grace insists on an ethic of radical risk because the times require it, because the divine plane of creation that offers life is at risk itself from the holocaust of global plunder. Wes Rehberg (2012) The risk of global plunder is evident around the globe, as corporations exert their rule over the material world, poverty intensiNies, and complicit governments justify the denial of social welfare to oppressed populations. We live in an era where neoliberalism has made kowtowing to the interests of the wealthy and powerful above reproach and few courageous oppositional forces have garnered the means or public will to persist in campaigns of public protest. In many instances, the lethal combination of oppressive neoliberal policies and the veneration of technology have effectively ushered in the disposability of a lion share of the working class. No longer are the liberating promises of the enlightenment project, which sought to overcome the tyrannies of autocratic rule and incontrovertible abuses of professed Divine authority able to interrupt the ravages of capitalism at any level. Ecologically, the planet is suffering from what may well be irreparable colonization of the life's sphere, with its unmerciful and heedless destruction of forests, wildlife, soil potency, and water supplies. This ravaging of the earth, indeed, only echoes the violent estrangement and domestication of our own colonization, as the cultures and languages of subaltern populations are rapidly disappearing. It is in the midst of grave economic exploitation and rampant disregard for the lives of the many that Freirian educators, scholars, and activists are called to risk a liberating praxis that embodies a new sense of revolutionary subjecthood and challenges our domesticated tolerances for societal injustice and human oppression. Simultaneously, emancipatory objectives of our pedagogical labor call for building a political solidarity that acknowledges the spiritual oneness of our humanity, while embracing the cultural differences in our expressions, as necessary biodiversity for our human survival and evolution. This entails that, rather than falling into us/them binaries that demonize and segment, we seek to retain the dialectical tensions that forever persist between the universalism of our humanity and the particularisms born from the survival of distinct Political Grace and Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy