Pagans, Evangelicals, and Civil Discourse : Teaching Philosophy of Religion in the South

This article describes the importance of civil discourse in an undergraduate philosophy of religion course, and how instructors can help students recognize when when there are large gaps of information supporting an argument, and how to be able to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty in a classroom with students from sometimes extremely different religious views and backgrounds. The author describes a semester-long writing assignment she assigns her students that askes them to distinguish between their beliefs and the philosophical framework of the topic being discussed in class, and to dedicate a paragraph of each paper to a new perspective encountered in class, especially if this viewpoint contradicts the student's own viewpoints.