The Political Theology of Education: A Research Program for Education in Iran

پژوهش نامه مبانی تعلیم و تربیت

Article 2, Volume 15, Issue 1 - Serial Number 29, July 2025, Pages 33-57   

Document Type: پژوهشی

DOI: 10.22067/fedu.2025.90337.1378

Author

Morteza Noghrei^*

Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies and Instruction, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran,

Abstract

Abstract
This essay proposes a research program aimed at reinterpreting and reconstructing the educational problem in Iran. To this end, it seeks to articulate both a conceptualization of the current educational predicament and a speculative pathway from the present condition to a desired future state. The analysis is structured around the central themes and foundational concerns of the proposed research program, titled The Political Theology of Education. This research program is grounded in two fundamental assumptions. The first, referred to as West-Awareness in the Political Theology of Education, addresses the need to reform prevailing scholarly perspectives on the West within the field of education. This assumption draws upon critical studies of secularization, highlighting the theological underpinnings of modernity and offering a theological genealogy of modern Western thought, particularly as it pertains to secular education. By framing Western education through a theological lens, this perspective fosters a deeper and more critical understanding of Western educational paradigms. As such, West-awareness constitutes a foundational pillar of the research program outlined in this essay. The second assumption, termed Self-Awareness in the Political Theology of Education, underscores the importance of interpreting Iran’s educational reality from a vantage point that lies outside the historical horizon of modernity. This alternative horizon, informed by Iranian-Islamic intellectual traditions, is referred to in this essay as Iranian existence. It serves as the ontological and epistemological basis for developing a historically and culturally grounded self-understanding within the Iranian educational context. Together, these two assumptions establish the conceptual framework for a renewed investigation into the theory and history of education in Iran. This essay thus argues for both the necessity and the possibility of reconstructing Iranian educational thought through the lens of political theology.
Synopsis
This essay presents a research program titled "Political Theology of Education" for education in Iran, based on two fundamental pillars and assumptions. These assumptions, which can also transform our understanding of the concept of "research program," are: (1) West-awareness Political Theology of Education and (2) Self-awareness of Political Theology of Education. Explaining these two assumptions as the foundation of this research program can clarify the intended outline of this essay.
(1) West-awareness Political Theology of Education: In contrast to the common perception of secularism as self-founded, critiques of Secularization introduce a Theological Genealogy. Unlike contemporary genealogies, such as those of Nietzsche and Foucault, which immanence the history and nature of phenomena, critiques of secularization demonstrate that the historical horizon of modernity exists within a theological history. The theological genealogy fundamentally carries such a mission. Through theological genealogy, one can embark on the path of reinterpreting the theological meaning of history. Therefore, theological genealogy represents an effort to extract the theological history and the theological lineage of history from within secular history. Here, politics should be understood as equivalent to, or at least closely linked with, metaphysics and as a form of ontology in which a new image of modern history, culture, and society can emerge and develop ) Vadén, 2021; Voegelin, 2021(. Based on this, although in this essay, theology—whether secular theology or divine theology—precedes politics, politics is the most important and powerful domain that practically allows for the organization and determination of the order of social systems. In this way, it gives theology, regardless of its meaning, a concrete form (Schmitt, 2006; Voegelin, 2021). Thus, West-awareness finds its meaning for us in theological genealogy and political theology. Here, we encounter at least two interpretations: one is a delegitimizing reading of modernity, which views modernity primarily as the "secularization of eschatological thinking" or as a hidden factor that conceals these theological origins (Gillespie, 2019; Hashemi, 2017; Lowith, 2021; Milbank, 2017) The second reading regards modernity as "secularization through eschatological thinking" and praises the self-foundational nature of secularism as a conscious decision of modern humanity (Blumenberg, 1985). In this essay, drawing on the first interpretation and emphasizing the perspective of Hossein Kachuyan as the theorist of this narrative line in Iran (Kachuyan, 2020), the West-awareness political theology of education can be considered as "a correct understanding of modern West through its theological genealogy or, in other words, the theological genealogy of modernity and secular education. Therefore, West-awareness here are interpreted and understood not based on what Westerners express in theories of the social sciences and humanities, including theories of education, but rather on what modernity and secularism establish for themselves by referring to the theological traditions of the Church Fathers. For example, how the developments between theology and the natural sciences in the 17th century led to a new understanding of school education centered on the growth of natural reason, even among church members, or how it weakened the ties between natural science and theology, further intensifying the process of secularization and the secularization of school education in the 18th century, finds an explanatory basis rooted in theological genealogy (Hamilton, 2002).
(2) Self-awareness of Political Theology in Education: If we consider the first assumption as the ontology of the encounter with the West, the second assumption places our ontology in a perspective outside of modernity for understanding ourselves and the West from our own desired perspective. The concept of "Iranian Existence" is the chosen term in this essay. The Iranian Existence can be realized not in another world but within this objective and real world; however, it requires an experience that goes beyond sensory or constructed experience. This experience, as Kachuyan puts it, can be referred to as a type of "existential-rational experience," which, based on and within the specific existential condition that is the Iranian Existence, enables us to have a different understanding of phenomena (Kachuyan, 2020, p. 175). Conditions and possibilities are necessary for this ontological and theological shift to occur in the project of the Iranian thinker and researcher. At least two essential conditions are presented here: first, the presence in a specific academic community, which can be facilitated within the institution of educational sciences, namely the Faculty of Educational Sciences, by creating an educational and research environment outside the current system of knowledge[1]. In this regard, a specific system of knowledge based on the ideals of development governs both the discourse level and its thematic determination in the curriculum of the educational sciences. Critique and questioning of this system could serve as a precursor for the emergence of the Iranian Existence. Second, the necessity of attachment to a specific historical community is essential. This means that in a distinct horizon, a new meaning of emerging realities can be discovered, and the possibility of the Iranian Existence is potentially open for discussion and study. For example, the capacity of Shia wisdom and thought to perceive reality and to look into the essence of reality as a phenomenon that is veiled and must be unveiled can itself provide the basis for a kind of phenomenology aimed at achieving meaning and truth or a theological genealogy (Fadaei-Mehrabani, 2012, p. 17). From this perspective, the Iranian scholar's effort to emerge from being an object of secular history and to write Iranian history can be considered a form of the unveiling of the Iranian Existence. For this reason, the extension of the concept of the Iranian Existence in the second assumption leads to the possibility of forming a new paradigm regarding the history of education in Iran, a paradigm that depicts our encounter with the West, particularly in education, in a new way. In this theological genealogy, at least two topics can be considered for theological genealogy that reflect our encounter with the West along two important axes: 1. The institution of science, and 2. The educational system and the school education institution, both of which have been influenced by our encounter with the modern world and are also considered crucial pillars for the continuity of this situation. Regarding the theological genealogy of the institution of science, unfortunately, we have understood the education of science in the institution of science through West-awareness, not as challenged in the later period with a critique of secularization, but rather in the way it has been portrayed in the humanities and social sciences by the West (Kachuyan, 2020, p. 10) Therefore, it is essential to challenge the field of educational sciences with this important question: the question of its genealogy and origins and its relation to the Iranian Existence. In better terms, we are studying educational sciences that have occurred within a framework of modern self-awareness rather than a theological genealogy of modernity. Although we have pursued the concerns and foundations of religious education in the theoretical domain, this effort and theoretical confrontation have accepted the existence of the secular nature of Western educational theory. In this case, it is not surprising that there is no critical understanding of the context of the emergence of Western secular education in our educational institutions. This critical understanding is not merely a critique of the theoretical foundations of education; rather, it signifies a re-recognition and reinterpretation of the institution of educational sciences and the theory and history of education from the perspectives of the first and second assumptions. Regarding the theological genealogy of the educational system and school education, the research program of political theology of education seeks to strengthen certain studies and reflections conducted from the perspective of the Iranian Existence to initiate a new chapter in the history of education in Iran. Therefore, from this perspective, political theology of education can be seen as an effort to unveil the sacred in the contemporary cultural life of the Iranian educational system. Various studies exist, although with differing positions, that are close to this notion, and a detailed examination of them requires further study. For example, some studies indicate that our initial encounter with science, both in form and content, is influenced by the theological concept of Kont, which defines a linear view of time and the issue of worldly progress. This matter is, on one hand, connected to the intentions of Iranian politicians in introducing modern education and, on the other hand, related to the nature of new sciences, which presents the possibility of a new self-awareness (Badamchi, 2022). Some studies also address how the ideas and foundations of modern sciences and arts have influenced Iran (Islami et al., 2018) or seriously deconstruct the authenticity of modern history and the significant role of Kont's progress ideal, which is a key element in the official narrative of contemporary education history in Iran, by emphasizing the principle of historicity and the temporal context of the historian in Foucault's genealogical approach (Karimkhanezand, 2012).
Conclusion: Political Theology of Education and New Theory and History
Political Theology of Education, as West-awareness, allows for the examination of the project of critiquing secularization and its connection to the field of education for "us" in the context of understanding and critically representing modernity and its various aspects. One of the most important of these aspects is the realm of education and the modern educational system. Based on this, it seems that there is a possibility of proposing new hypotheses regarding the West and the educational history of the West. For example, understanding modernity not as a universal concept, but rather as a specific history with its particular historicity, shows that education has also taken on a very specific form in the history of the Christian West. As a result, its particular manifestation in the analysis of the history of education in contemporary Iran, framed within the struggle of science, modernization, and renewal against religion and our intellectual traditions as Iranians, is seriously questioned and challenged from the perspective of the Iranian world. In any case, what we are seeking is to establish a relation with modernity in this new narrative.
In the political theology of education as a form of self-awareness, it seems that the discovery of this emerging new narrative could ultimately lead to the creation of a framework for proposing a new concept for analyzing educational history and rewriting our history of engagement with modernity within the dialectic of self-awareness and West-awareness. The possibility of presenting a new narrative challenges the official account of our contemporary education history, which we hope will provide a basis for the contextualization of our social philosophy concerning how educational ideas are realized within the realm of the institution of education and the educational system.
 
[1].The term "knowledge system" here refers to an indeterminate yet powerful domain of knowledge that simultaneously guides questions and topics toward solving issues within a specific subject area, while also excluding certain items from the agenda of knowledge and shaping a particular historical community.
 

Keywords

Political Theology of Education; Secularization; Theological Genealogy; Historical horizon; Iranian existence

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