Christian Education, Quo Vadis?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please see attached file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Please see above attached file
Author Response
Dear reviewer!
I hope that you are fine despite your many activities!
Thank you very much for your review!
I have taken seriously your suggestions in the revision of my chapter!
I wish you all the best in all your activities!
Kind regards,
27 June 2023
Reviewer 2 Report
Fine argumentation
Minor improvements are requested
Author Response
Dear reviewer!
I hope that you are fine despite your many activities!
Thank you very much for your review!
I have taken seriously your suggestions in the revision of my chapter!
I wish you all the best in all your activities!
Kind regards,
27 June 2023
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a good essay attempting to provide directions for Christian education in Africa. Those sections of the paper are excellent. While I recommend publication and could even recommend as is, I am making several suggestions to the authors to improve the article. First, the use of Latin terms status quaetirnis and inter alia are not needed and even seem gratuitous. I would drop them.
Second, the section from lines 29-79 is so general as not to be helpful. It is not needed. I do not find sections 1.1 and 1.2 helpful. The purpose of the article is to offer directions for African indigenous Christian education. I would significantly shorten or honestly delete. They distract and some readers will be put off by them as the definition of education is very slippery, the historical summary cursory, and the connection to US and Europe too thin. I have several places here I could argue with conclusions. The authors do not need that. They could begin with 1.3.
I'd state that the purpose of the article is to look at directions for African CE and begin with a brief intro and colonialization. Then you can highlight you important part of the paper.
Third, you define that a purpose of CE is to liberate. I agree. But what do you mean by this. Liberate for what -- humanization, the realm of God, etc. A bit of clarification is needed. Liberation by itself without any connection to the ongoing Christian traditioning process may not be CE. Liberate people to be fully who they can be in light of God's creation and in light of God's ongoing activity in human life might be another way to clarify.
Finally, I am unclear from what Christian religion perspective the article is being written. Several examples and definitions are Roman Catholic. Some country stories are Dutch Reformed and Anglican. Think about whether you need to be clearer above point of view.
Minor editing. For example, why does the abstract begin with "The"
Author Response
Dear reviewer!
I hope that you are fine despite your many activities!
Thank you very much for your review!
I have taken seriously your suggestions in the revision of my chapter!
I wish you all the best in all your activities!
Kind regards,
27 June 2023
Reviewer 4 Report
This article treats a very particular aspect of education: Christian Education in Africa, and the Author/s need to be congratulated for this. However, the article is not well-balanced and needs to be thoroughly revisited before being submitted again for eventual publication. It needs to be more focussed and clearly written.
There are aspects which need to be clarified internally to make it publishable. The following aspects must be clearly answered or arranged in the text:
1. what is exactly meant by Christian education and how is it different from religious education? As it is Christian education seems to point at Catholic education as distinct from religious education; but at times religious education is referred to.
2. The introduction is too elaborate, taking many different points, mentioning them and then moving on, with the possibility of confusing the reader. It needs to be more succinct, clear and to the point and not trying to state everything altogether at the same time.
3. In lines 51 and 52 the Author/s speak of 'educare' and 'educere' as if they have the same meaning. This is not so. While the former means giving knowledge to someone from beyond, the latter has the meaning which is given in the text, that is, helping the interlocutor to elicit information. These different meanings must be distinguished.
4. The texts cited and referenced in the attempted definition of Christian education (lines 50-64) are very dated, and there are many more recent definitions which can be clearer and more applicable to the situation which the Author/s are referring to.
5. The tern 'catechesis' in line 89 is truly coming from the Greek but it does not mean 'teaching' and 'instruction'. Its original meaning is 'to echo' or 'to create an echo'. It was much later that it became to mean teaching and instruction as the action of educating for the faith.
6. I do not know why the Author/s thought of giving some background about Christian education in Latin America and in Asia, since this did not have a direct impact on African Christian education, or at least this is not evidenced in the text. This space could have been used to outline more clearly the status quaestionis of Christin education in Africa today.
7. The Author/s purports to use the See-Judge-Act method in the analysis and unfolding of the article. However, this is mentioned only in the beginning and a t the very end of the article, with no reference whatsoever in the body of the article.
8. In the article the Author/s never speak about the level of Christian education to which they are referring to. Is it child education; school level education or university level education? At. times reference is made to a particular category, but then later on a different category is referred to. It would be much clearer to refer to one of these categories and stick to it rather than try to cover the entire wide span of education to different categories of people.
9. The texts uses many latin phrases which can be easily translated to English language to make the text more flowing.
10. The text has too many question within it, especially subheadings in the text which should be statements rather than questions. These statements are then to be elaborated upon in the immediately following text.
11. The reference in line 728 need to be complete.
While the text is understandable, it needs to be thoroughly pruned for spelling mistakes and for grammar and style of English. As it is, it leaves much to be desired. Moreover, a good English expression without spelling mistakes makes the arguments clearer and more easily understandable to the reader.
Author Response
Dear reviewer!
I hope that you are fine despite your many activities!
Thank you very much for your review!
I have taken seriously your suggestions in the revision of my chapter!
I wish you all the best in all your activities!
Kind regards,
27 June 2023
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Still refers to ‘chapter’ rather than ‘article’
There is definite improvement. I have not restated corrections which were identified in my first review but which are yet to be corrected – with the following exception.
ALL REFERENCES need to be corrected. These are not APA 7th. The correcting of these is critical to the reputation of the journal.
General comment re intext citations. They do not follow APA 7th ed. e.g.
Line 57 – should be (Gimmett & Read, 1976, p. 4)
Line 58 – don’t use first name or initial UNLESS there is another author of the same surname in same year . This applies to many sections of the article
These were identified in previous feedback.
Line 3 – insert isn’t helpful - perhaps Christian education is very important as it can lead to liberation and human development. I would be included to leave the inserted section out.
Line 5 – addition doesn’t make sense.
Rest of abstract is OK
Keywords –decolonisation in twice
Line 36 – put comma after future
Line 71 – differences and disagreements are linked to philosophies more than countries.
Line 93 – word missing. Imagination is very important for the future of Christian education.
Just use Groome (1980, p. 186). Put quote marks before full stop - . . . of the present and the past”.
Line 108 – you have 2007 repeated
Line 111-115 – the quote is more than 40 words and so should be indented, no quote marks etc as is APA 7th ed
Confusing mix of ‘religious education’ and ‘Christian education’ – these are fundamentally different in nature.
Lines 150 – 183 – are not cohesive.
Line 184 don’t need the word ‘which’ - a point made in previous feedback
Line 251-252 - sentence doesn’t flow – is there a word missing before . . . . be in light of…?
Line 331 – word ‘who’ is repeated
Line 330 – as previously identified – don’t need the word ‘the’ before Christian Education?
Line 546, 554 and Line 560 As previously noted – not consistent – use either Africanisation or africanisation but not both
please see above comments and detailed comments provided previously
Author Response
Dear reviewer!
I hope that you are fine despite your many activities!
Thank you very much for your review!
In revising my article, I have taken your suggestions seriously, including, correcting the references according to APA 7th, correcting English with Grammarly Premium, etc.
I have done my best! However, I know neither authors nor reviewers will ever attain an absolute objectivity of knowledge. What is important is to come to a “subjective objectivity!” To paraphrase one school in the USA, “To every moral or academic problem, there is one opinion, simple, naïve and wrong.” Both authors and reviewers are invited by Paul Ricoeur to have a personal “hermeneutic of suspicion.”!
I wish you all the best in all your activities!
Kind regards,
11 July 2023
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Thank you for taking the time to revisit the article in line with what was suggested by the reviewer.
You English has been refined substantially, but there are still some spelling mistakes. I suggest that you calmly and carefully reread the article and try to correct this to make the article more readable.
Author Response
Dear reviewer!
I hope that you are fine despite your many activities!
Thank you very much for your review!
I have taken your suggestions seriously, especially, correcting English with Grammarly Premium, etc. in revising my article!
I wish you all the best in all your activities!
Kind regards,
11 July 2023
