Special free offer for instructors of methods classes! 

We are offering free to college instructors of methods courses in history, social studies, science (or other subjects in a teacher education curriculum) this hardback edition of Professor Gerald Larue's text Freethought Across the Centuries. If you are a methods teacher in some other discipline than the three listed, you may also qualify.  You will need to advise us how you envision using the text.  

This special offer is made in order to provide valuable background to instructors who work with prospective teachers.  The offer is an affirmative gesture to remedy a shortcoming in how most educators have learned to conceptualize the topic of "Religion" as it relates to the school curriculum.

Behind the Offer

An oft-neglected aspect of the subject of "religion in history and society" is the important history of freethought.  Larue's college textbook is one that brings this disregarded domain to front and center.  It imparts background that will enlighten methods instructors concerning their handling of religion as subject matter.

OABITAR is committed to religious pluralism, and we seek to influence methods teachers to deal with the potentially divisive subject of religion in a manner that keeps a "level playing field" for the various human worldviews and strives for harmony across the citizenry.  In fact, we would like to change educators' conceptualization of Teaching about Religion to one of Teaching about Worldviews.  Such a shift overrides what is otherwise a dualism (belief/nonbelief) and can empower teachers to civic inclusiveness while reducing tendencies toward a partiality that is, in the United States, unconstitutional. [For elaboration, visit Teaching about Religion with a View to Diversity, a Web resource that is dedicated to a professional presentation for educators regarding the arena of worldview education.]  

The idea that Teaching about Religion is to focus only on religious worldviews is entrenched.  The notion that such teaching must also include teaching about the nonreligious worldviews is essentially counterintuitive.  However, for sound civic and academic reasons, methods teachers need to accept that Teaching about Religion in public education must follow an approach that is genuinely impartial and inclusive in its conceptualization. 

To date, in our culture, individuals who hold nonreligious worldviews tend to be stigmatized and shunned, or at least marginalized.  Hence, the nonreligious worldview is often not taken seriously in collegiate religious studies and/or in classes on teaching about religion except by the most serious and impartial of academicians.  Objective scholars recognize that one must go beyond the intuitive (limited by the language) to what is academically responsible in imparting sound understanding concerning the religion (worldview) domain.  

Please feel free to make this offer known to your colleagues. You may also want to consider the paperback version for use as a student text. Different Drummers: Nonconforming Thinkers in History is an ideal companion for the Larue text.

We will continue this offer until our supplies of the hardback version of the text are exhausted.  Orders will be processed in the order received until we run out.  Incidentally, if you are interested in buying additional copies of the text (e.g., for the library or for class use), it is available at Amazon.com for $19.95 (soft cover).  The hardback version of our free offer here must be purchased direct from the publisher, The Humanist Press ($27.95).

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