Andrew John Thomas

Norwegian version of this page Department of Natural Sciences, Practical-Aesthetic, Social and Religious Studies

Press photo

Norwegian version of this page Position

Associate Professor

Contact

+4769608212

+4797190742

andrew.thomas@hiof.no

Study place

Halden

Office nr.

FU1-083

Academic interests

Andrew Thomas has just published a research monograph, Pupil Management and Emerging Democratic Voices: Governing by Knowledge in Schools (an Open Access book from Routledge), about the techniques and structures of managing pupils and how they effect citizenship and other kinds of agency. He also works on religion and diversity in school: how to teach religious education and an analysis of religious forms in school. His other areas of expertise include the history of Christianity and philosophical understandings of educational practice. Recent research has included analyses of the concept of religion deployed in Religious Education textbooks, a discussion of source criticism in schools, and creative processes in citizenship education. In 2023-25 he is leader of The Norwegian RE-research forum, Norway's leading research network in matters concerning religion, school, and kindergarten. In 2015 he co-edited a special issue of Prismet, Norway's only research journal for religious education (level 1), where he now sits on the editorial board. The issue concerned teaching religion at upper secondary level in Norway. He is currently continuing research on textbooks but now oriented towards teacher training and the question of whiteness and representation, but also writing a book on the uses of knowledge in pupil management (forthcoming from Routledge).

Current research projects include:

A
An historical analysis of the political economy of Hans Nielsen Hauge.

Background

PhD in theology and religion from University of Nottingham analysing holy fools, supervised by Philip Goodchild
MA in theology and religion from University of Durham on Augustine's philosophy of language, supervised by Carol Harrison
Postgraduate certificate of education from Østfold University College
Previous head of language and social sciences at Malakoff High School.

Courses taught

Nordic citizenship Education
- One School for all
- Staging Citizenship
Postgraduate certificate of education: teaching religion

Projects

Research groups

Critical perspectives on Teacher Education (and Education) - CritTEd

Tags: Religious Education, One school for all, inclusion, Textbooks, Source evaluation, Theatre and citizenship, creativity, normalisation, holy fools, church history

Thomas, Andrew John & Fylkesnes, Sandra (2025). Measured Tones: The Place of People of Colour in Norwegian Reading Lists. Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk og kritikk. 11(1). doi: 10.23865/ntpk.v11.5863. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2021). The justice of theory: How and what do educational skills distribute? Education Sciences. 11(9). doi: 10.3390/educsci11090478. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Do educational theories affect enfranchisement asymmetrically? This article analyses two sets of thinking skills in religious education as apparatuses, taking observations and political documents as a starting point. The thinking skills are described in terms of the roles they allocate, the attention and affect they direct, values and truth-criteria they foster, and the extent to which they make aspects of religion visible and invisible. Taking a cue from Butler’s question, “When is Life Grievable?”, attention is paid more to the distribution of an apparatus than its validity or effectiveness. How do sets of thinking skills distribute opportunities to make particular strategic choices? When is learning truly and equally shared?
Thomas, Andrew John (2020). Synlig og usynlig religion: Umarkerte bilder i kapitler om religion. Prismet. ISSN 0032-8847. 71(2), p. 161–182. doi: 10.5617/pri.8004. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Finnes det systematiske forskjeller mellom hvordan religion illustreres i norske lærebøker i religionsfagene? Denne artikkelen analyserer hvordan bilder uten religionsspesifikke markører fordeles blant kapitler om individuelle religioner i tilgjengelige lærebøker i dag. Bildene som velges ut, viser seg å ofte brukes til å forklare, delvis forsvare, religiøse ideer. Frekvensen av slike bilder er høyest i kapitler om buddhisme, dernest kristendom, og ellers tilnærmet fraværende. Ser vi på selve bildene, kan vi oppdage konkrete teknikker som justerer leserens avstand til den illustrerte ideen. Denne ulikheten støtter tidligere forskning som viser systematiske forskjeller i hvordan ulike religioner framstilles som henholdsvis eksotiske og filosofiske, og som har konsekvenser for hvordan individuelle religioner konstrueres og skal behandles i klasserommet.
Thomas, Andrew John (2020). Sources and citizens: An essay in applied epistemology. Policy Futures in Education. 18(4), p. 531–544. doi: 10.1177/1478210320921722. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
How should pupils use the internet to learn? This essay sets up two modes of using online sources, reading for information and reading for evidence, and evaluates their value for schools. The former is well known; pupils decide whether the source is telling the truth or not. The latter is more familiar in advanced historical investigation, namely deciding what this source’s utterance means for the question in hand. One of these simply hands pupils information. The other requires them to understand what they are reading. It is argued that an education that only involves one of these cultivates passive pupils who are unable to adjust their own attention or listen to minority reports in science. Only when pupils also investigate primary sources will they experience developing their own knowledge, and believe in education.
Thomas, Andrew John & Rolin, Alf (2019). Reading religion in Norwegian textbooks: are individual religions ideas or people? British Journal of Religious Education. ISSN 0141-6200. 41(1). doi: 10.1080/01416200.2018.1484691. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Different religions are treated in different ways in Norwegian sixth form textbooks. We carried out an exhaustive content analysis of the chapters devoted to individual religions in textbooks for the Religion and Ethics course currently available in Norway, using rigorous indicators to code each word, image and question according to whether they were treated the religion as a set of ideas or a group of people. After adjusting for trends in the different kinds of data (word, image, question), we found that Buddhism and Christianity receive significantly more attention for their ideas than Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, which are treated more as people. This difference cannot be explained by the national syllabus or the particularities of the individual religions. The asymmetry also has implications for the pupils’ academic, moral and pedagogical agency for which teachers play a critical role in compensating.
Thomas, Andrew John (2018). The City Became a Desert: Forcing the First Holy Fools into a Context. In Berger, Albrecht & Ivanov, Sergey (Ed.), Holy Fools and Divine Madmen: Sacred Insanity through Ages and Cultures. Ars Una. ISSN 9783946646181. p. 4–28. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
The concept of sacred insanity is widespread among many religions of the world and through many ages and cultures. The present volume collects the contributions of the symposium _Holy Fools and Divine Madmen_, held in Munich in 2015. Employing interdisciplinary approaches, these studies cover a wide geographical and cultural range, from Byzantium westward to Italy and Ireland, and eastward to Islamic Iran, and to India and Tibet.
Thomas, Andrew (2008). God, Vision and Power: Looking at Berkeley’s Cosmology and Disciplinary Power. Studia Theologica - Nordic Journal of Theology. ISSN 0039-338X. 62(1), p. 80–97. doi: 10.1080/00393380802024134. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Enlightenment philosopher George Berkeley, Irish bishop of Cloyne (1695-1752) developed a theory of God’s relation to the world both rooted in orthodox Western Theology and influential for European secular government. This article critically examines the notion of God in Berkeleian thought with special reference to its implications for his concrete recommendations and political projects in British government and empire building. To this end, it examines the application of early Christian ascetic techniques to enlightenment colonial government. Berkeley’s thought exemplifies modernity’s modelling of the governing autonomous self on a transcendent impassible God. His ethics represent a practice of cosmology, where the world is watched by the judging subject.
Thomas, Andrew John (2006). Pentecostalism and Normalization. In Stålsett, Sturla Johan (Eds.), Spirits of Globalization. The Growth of Pentecostalism and Experiential Spiritualities in a Global Age. SCM Press. ISSN 9780334040545. p. 160–169. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2006). Gud som ser. Kirke og kultur. ISSN 0023-186X. p. 219–233. Full text in Research Archive

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Thomas, Andrew John (2025). Pupil Management and Emerging Democratic Voices. Routledge. ISBN 9781003563778. 194 p. doi: 10.4324/9781003563778. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This book addresses the distance between contemporary philosophical critiques of education and the classroom context by applying new insights from social philosophy, neurology and historical analysis to common school practices. Critiquing contemporary academic and political debates concerning the use, and misuse, of assessment tools, psychometric testing and classroom management on pupils, this book looks in detail at the consequences of such practices for pupil management and the nurturing of their emerging democratic voices and sense of independence. This book explores these practices in the context of broader social phenomena such as the state of exception, management for legibility, self‑regulation, governmentality and epidemiology. Chapters link critical and philosophical considerations about politics, administration and the brain to real‑world classroom realities and everyday educational activities, forming an important contribution to the wider discourse on learning and inclusion in contemporary school systems. Bringing philosophical and historical insights to bear on the concrete practices of educational life, this book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and postgraduate students in the field of philosophy of education as well as schooling, classroom practice, and pedagogy and didactics more broadly. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 4.0 license.

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Aukland, Knut; Rosland, Kristine Toft; Eriksen, Eli-Anne Vongraven; Thomas, Andrew John & Jørgensen, Camilla Stabel (2025). Kutt i KRLE? doi: https:/www.krlepodden.com/episoder2/2025/12/1/kutt-i-krle. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Kunnskapsminister Kari Nessa Nordtun har foreslått å kutte blant annet KRLE på 1.-2. trinn. Knut Aukland får reaksjoner fra Kristine Toft Rosland, Eli Anne Vongraven Eriksen, Andrew Thomas og Camilla Stabel Jørgensen.
Thomas, Andrew John (2025). KRLE og retrieval practice. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Om hvordan undervise for å bli husket, ved jevnlig repetering og bruk av mini-whiteboards i klasserommet
Thomas, Andrew John (2025). KRLE og «Pupil Management and emerging democratic voices». Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Boka "Pupil Management and emerging democratic voices» ble en bok om skole og ikke om KRLE, slik den en gang ble planlagt. I dette foredraget presenteres bokas funn og analytiske rammer samt hvordan de kan relateres til religionsfagene. Med utgangspunktet i bokas siste kapittel kan vi si at KRLEs politiske danningsmandat tilsvarer en konseptualisering av eleven som gryende politisk aktør og "manageable" levende vesen. Som gryende politisk aktør må eleven lære seg om Norges religiøse røtter; som "manageable" levende vesen må eleven lære seg å navigere religiøst mangfold med respekt og toleranse. Ifølge Arendt, tyrannier pleier å behandle mennesker som "manageable" levende vesener til skade for deres politiske representasjon. Boka påstår at det er den "manageable" eleven som dominerer pedagogiske praksiser i skolen i dag, med naturlige konsekvenser for KRLE.
Thomas, Andrew John (2024). Fortellingsdidaktikk med fjernkontroll. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Hvordan lære elever til å gjøre mer enn å bare lage sammendrag av fortellinger i religionsfagene? Vi kan sette dem i par og gi den ene fjernkontroll som den andre må reagere til.
Bjørnstad, Gunhild Brænne; Thomas, Andrew John; Næsje, Ragnhild Louise; Juma, Said; Ismail, Maryam Jaffar & Gora, Mwanamrisho Haji (2024). Intercultural encounters as educational adventures. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Roundtable discussion: Introduction to the overall topic and brief description of the NoZa-project by Gunhild Brænne Bjørnstad (HiOF) Grafting roots: Spivak’s educational use of story by Andrew John Thomas (HiOF) Exploring Zanzibari exchange students’ impressions and learning experiences in Norway by Said Khamis Juma and Mwanamrisho Gora Haji (SUZA) The desire for inter-literacy as a driving force when working with storytelling in multicultural classrooms by Ragnhild Louise Næsje and Gunhild Brænne Bjørnstad (HiOF) Paradigm Shift, Intercultural Competence, and Pre-service Teacher Education by Maryam Jaffar Ismail (SUZA) Roundtable discussion
Thomas, Andrew John (2024). Author-meets-critics. Paneldebatt. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2024). Katastrofeskole: sårbarhet og nød i pedagogiske avgjørelser Andrew Thomas [Omvendt forskning]. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Noen modeller for «disaster education» presenteres, med referanse til norsk skoleverk og historiske rammer. Den pedagogiske retningen plasseres også i en nåtidig filosofisk kontekst. Til slutt diskuteres anvendelser og responser, og vi spør «Hvor dramatisk burde etikk i skolen få lov til å bli?»
Thomas, Andrew John (2024). Bokanmeldelse: Andrea Rota, Collective Intentionality and the Study of Religion Social Ontology and Empirical Research Bloomsbury: London. 2023. DIN - Tidsskrift for religion og kultur. ISSN 1501-9934. 2. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2023). Despoter og Demokrater: Arendt om KRLE. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
A central feature of the work of Hannah Arendt is her distinction between the political and the pragmatic, between how we relate to one another in a democratic field, and how we relate as members of a household. The first is at least potentially democratic, and allows for listening and responding, for actions that persuade and propose. The second is essentially despotic, appealing to obedience and organisation. The first is public, the second, private. This paper will do three things: 1) Defend Arendt’s division against posthumous criticism (for example, from Benhabib) by applying Agamben’s “patch” and establishing what kind of a distinction it is (i.e. not nominalist but of apparatus); 2) Interpret anti-essentialist approaches to religion such as “lived religion” as pragmatic/household rather than political/public (leaning heavily on postcolonial interpretations at this point); 3) Problematise the interpretation of essentialising approaches to religion that claim identities in the public sphere (of the genre “As a member of religious community X, I am telling you…”) as public statements. On the one hand, identity politics is at least political rather than despotic; on the other, political engagements based on demographic group rather than political principle is the way democracies die. All this leads us to a double bind for religious education: either study through anti-essentialist attempts to govern religion or accept essentialising identity politics. There may be an Arendtian solution: to treat religion as literature rather than social behaviour.
Thomas, Andrew John (2023). En anglikansk religionsteologi. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2023). Self knowledge in education. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Self knowledge is the preserve of both education and spirituality. Through self-knowledge pupils learn to live with and as the particularity of their brain. “Learning to learn” is an extremely powerful pedagogical tool, and part of a pupil’s journey towards lifelong learning and civic competence. Through self-knowledge we are also unsurprised by the strange or sinful turns our internal monologue takes. So how are we to negotiate the strategic and educational consequences of our growth in self-knowledge? This paper discusses common features between educational knowledge (harvested by assessments, screening, etc.) and spiritual development and their advantages and disadvantages for pupils and teachers. Is knowing oneself the gateway to emancipation or manipulation, to passivity or political virtue? And if both are possible, how is it to be deployed responsibly in the classroom? Concrete educational and spiritual practices are analysed from postcolonial perspectives and other critical theory (Achille Mbembe, Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, James Scott).
Thomas, Andrew John (2023). Bokmelding: David Baddiel Jews Don’t Count: How Identity Politics Failed One Particular Identity TLS Books, 2021. Prismet. ISSN 0032-8847. 74(1-2), p. 121–122. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2022). Nice Enemies: an analysis of Hollywood enemies from Darth Vader to Gru. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
It is uncontroversial that the early Star Wars movies reflected their Cold War context. But many enemies in more recent Hollywood movies have had a different pattern: originating in and representing an evil faction, they are forgiven and given hero status because of their interpersonal relations (Gru, Maleficent, Megamind, etc.). This reflects transitions that crystallised in 1993: when Mandela won the peace prize, Huntington wrote the "Clash of the Civilisations" article, and the phrase "random acts of kindness" was coined. Political figures were soon afterwards felled on account of their personal morality rather than their ideological standing. More recently we have seen a backlash to this tendency that once again takes politics and ideology seriously (in our political lives - Black Lives Matter; on our screens - Game of Thrones; etc.)
Olandersson, Cecilie & Thomas, Andrew John (2022). Flipped classroom - en utforskende metode i et informasjonssamfunn? Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2022). Pedagogiske verdier etter Corona. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Hva har Corona fortalt oss om inkluderende skoler? Pandemien viste oss aktualiteten i de to teknologiene som Foucault påstod var sentrale for Europeiske samfunn. I et kurs fra 1975, og igjen i sin bok om fengselets historie (som også behandler skolehistorie), skilte han mellom modellene for å behandle spedalske, og pesten. Den første holder de syke og smittsomme utenfor byen for å behandle dem ved murene, og den andre innser at smitten allerede er blant oss, så kropper må testes og kontrolleres. De to i sin tur tilsvarer det vi kjenner som innreisekarantene og smittesporing. I medisin og pedagogikk viser det seg at vårt samfunn behandler problemer administrativt i tillegg til fagspesifikt. Vi kan nemlig også se disse to modellene i skole: en verdiladet bevegelse fra spedalsk til pest hos «inklusive skolene» etter Salamanca (1994), vurdering for læring, og norske praksiser om spesialundervisning. Det å ramme inn disse verdibaserte og forskningsbaserte tiltak på denne måten gjør det mulig å identifisere og drøfte verdiene og elevsynet i dem. Hvis testing er betingelsen for vår inkludering kan vi ikke uten videre hate testing og elske inkludering. Vi må heller se hva inkludering koster, og hva testing kjøper oss.
Thomas, Andrew John (2021). Hauge og økonomiens dårlighet. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Hauge kan ikke bare løftes inn i moderne økonomi eller politikk. Likevel er hans innflytelse størst i dag hos norske holdninger til skatt og entreprenørskap. Historisk teolog Andrew Thomas diskuterer Norges økonomiske politikk i Hauges tid på bakgrunn av den kristne kamp for rettferdighet.
Thomas, Andrew John (2021). Kilder: "Min egen hjerne", om kildetolkning. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Problematisering av hva elever gjør med det de finner på nettet og politiske og pedagogiske farer med å behandle nettbasert informasjon først og fremst som sekundær kilde.
Thomas, Andrew John (2021). Rowan Williams: en teologisk introduksjon. Luthersk Kirketidende. ISSN 0332-5431. 156(10), p. 268–271. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
I år har tidligere erkebiskop Rowan Williams vært aktuell i Norge ved å holde bibeltimer på Korsvei i Seljord. Mange opplever hans bøker som vanskelige: Jeg forsøker her å vise hvordan sentrale ideer utarbeides i teori og praksis.
Aukland, Knut; Andersland, Inge; Lomsdalen, Christian; Iversen, Ragnhild Laird; Kvia, Anne Siri & Thomas, Andrew John (2020). Lansering av: Ti uløste Problemer: KRLE og Religion og etikk, 2020-2030. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
I løpet av 2020 har redaksjonen i KRLEpodden forsøkte å svare på det følgende enkle spørsmål: Hva kan sies å være de ti største utfordringene i RLE-feltet de neste ti årene? Sammen har de jobbet frem en liste over de ti største problemene i RLE-didaktikken ved hjelp av delfimetoden, og skrevet en rapport som utdyper prosjektets hensikt og innhold, og ikke minst de ti største utfordringene. Fredag 27. november ble listen lansert sammen med rapporten. Alle som er interesserte ble invitert til å delta: Lærere, studenter, lærerutdannere, forskere, elever, foreldre, politikere og andre. Christian Lomsdalen, aka Lektor Lomsdalen, ledet samlingen.
Andersland, Inge; Aukland, Knut; Iversen, Ragnhild Laird; Kvia, Anne Siri; Thomas, Andrew John & Tømmerås, Heidi Hansen [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2020). Ti problemer som skolens religionsfag står overfor. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2018). Finnes det systematiske forskjeller mellom hvordan religionene illustreres i norske lærebøker. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Finnes det systematiske forskjeller mellom hvordan religionene illustreres i norske lærebøker? Her presenteres en innholdsanalyse som identifiserer distribusjonen av en spesifikk kategori bilder blant kapitler om individuelle religioner i lærebøkene for KRLE og religion og etikk tilgjengelige i dag. Bildene som velges ut (og her døpes "innsiktsbilder") har ingen religionsspesifikke markører, og brukes ofte i teksten til å forklare, og delvis å anbefale, religiøse ideer. Frekvensen av slike bilder er høyest hos kapitler om buddhismen, dernest hos de om kristendom. De er nesten fraværende andre steder, og faktisk fraværende utenom de fem verdensreligionene. Bildenes kontekst viser oss konkrete teknikker som justerer leserens avstand til den illustrerte ideen. Denne ulikheten støtter opp under og gir oss mer innsikt i observasjonen om forskjellen mellom buddhismen og hinduismen (Thobro, Winje), og har konsekvenser for hvordan individuelle religioner behandles i læringsressurser og skal behandles i klasserommet.
Schjetne, Espen; Hansen, Ole Henrik Borchgrevink; Ramstad, Mette & Thomas, Andrew John (2018). Aakvaag surrer med religionsbegrepet. Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2018). Smarte Samtaler: KRLEpodden v/Knut Aukland www.krlepodden.com. Prismet. ISSN 0032-8847. 69(2-3), p. 255–257. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Hvor konstruktiv er offentlig samtale om religionsfaget i skolen? Knut Aukland ved det nybakte Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge har tatt opp utfordringen ved å utgi en podcast-serie om skolefaget. KRLEpodden fungerer som en bro mellom faglitteratur og forelesning (Open Access, så klart), og i det utvidede tekstbegrepets ånd er det en selvfølge med anmeldelse i Prismet. Jeg tar utgangspunkt i de første 6 episodene, og fokuserer på selve lydfilene heller enn på den tilhørende nettsida.
Schjetne, Espen; Hansen, Ole Henrik Borchgrevink; Ramstad, Mette & Thomas, Andrew John (2018). KRLE når Gud er død. Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2018). Leontius of Neapolis. In Allison, Dale C. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (EBR) volume 16 Lectionary - Lots. De Gruyter Open. ISSN 9783110313338. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Leontius of Neapolis in Cyprus (fl. 620-650) was a bishop with a taste for odd stories. He is most known for his hagiography, which was shot through with biblical references that took stories in new directions.
Thomas, Andrew John & Rolin, Alf (2017). Reading other people’s stories. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
How critical do we want pupils to be in religious studies? The aim of this paper is to determine the distribution of two different kinds of reading in religious studies textbooks and discuss their implications for how pupils read in the subject. Our quantitative content analysis of all Norwegian upper secondary textbooks in religious studies reveals that religions are presented in very different ways. We exhaustively coded every word, exercise and image in the chapters devoted to individual religions according to whether the presentation is of a set of ideas or a group of people. We found that Christianity and Buddhism tend to be portrayed as ideas for discussion, whereas Islam, Hinduism and Judaism are portrayed more as communities. A visible consequence of this difference is the kind of reading task set for individual religions. The typical “idea” task involves interpreting religious texts, whereas the typical “people” task involves analyzing self-presentations online. These two reading activities pose a challenge for classroom safe space. The national syllabus for religion and ethics (basic skills) presents textual interpretation as engagement with stories, with all the personality and passion this involves. Pupils are expected to think through the contents and truth-claims embodied by religious texts. The same document describes the analysis of self-presentations online as a critical practice of data-collection and evaluation that brings pupils face to face with lived religion without the filter of established normative doctrinal parameters, but encourages pupils to be guarded in their reading. We argue that the unequal status held by religions in society maintaining unequal distributions of skepticism and consent, acceptance and critique, is replicated in textbook religion. Keywords: textbooks, religion, critical reading, skills
Thomas, Andrew John (2017). Mission-shaped echo chambers? Full text in Research Archive Show summary
How can parishes avoid becoming echo-chambers? This paper examines contributions from the Anglican Mission-Shaped Church (2004) and other ecclesiologies (particularly the Grundtvigian tradition) and compares them with modern networks, with a particular focus on their potential to become interruptive or mere echo-chambers.
Thomas, Andrew (2016). Dialog og omvendt klasseromsundervisning. Prismet. ISSN 0032-8847. 67(3), p. 225–228. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew (2015). The city became a desert: forcing the first holy fools into a context. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
If the first holy fools are to be understood as anything other than odd laywomen and men, then their relationship to asceticism must be clarified. Most interpreters agree that some kind of ostracism is central to their activity, and the same is true of early Christian asceticism. So this paper will sketch out a matrix for understanding ascetic self-ostracism, and then apply it to a few early holy foolery stories, identifying how they differ from non-foolish parallels. Specifically, it is claimed that early ascetics mark their distance from secular society by their renunciation of the world’s vainglory and clothing, and by their obedience and regimen. The hypothesis is that the first holy fools made use of the same techniques, but without constructing new community, so that they can be described as true solitaries, profane rather than secular.
Thomas, Andrew (2015). På fremmed terreng: religion i andre fag. Prismet. ISSN 0032-8847. 66(2), p. 107–111. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Det er ikke bare i religion og etikk faget at elever tar stilling til religiøse temaer på videregående skole. Allerede fra VG1 er det forventet at elever skal kunne «diskutere korleis religiøs, etnisk og kulturell variasjon skaper moglegheiter og utfordringar» og det er uavhengig av at faglæreren velger å bruke religion for å illustrere samfunnsvitenskapelige analyser. Vi finner liknende mål i andre læreplaner også.
Schjetne, Espen & Thomas, Andrew (2015). Religion og etikk i videregående skole. Prismet. ISSN 0032-8847. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew (2015). Religion på svartebørs: Hauge og religiøs merkantilisme. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew (2010). Farlig religion: om forskjellen mellom forkynnelse og holdningsdannelse. Religion og livssyn : Tidsskrift for religionslærerforeningen i Norge. ISSN 0802-8214. p. 22–28. Full text in Research Archive
Thomas, Andrew John (2006). Postkolonial teologi: En kort innføring. Ung Teologi. ISSN 0333-340X. 39(1), p. 27–40. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
En innføring i postkolonial teologi, fra en språkfilosofisk synsvinkel, med referanse til: Renan, Bailey, og Sugirtharajah.
Thomas, Andrew John (2005). The Places of Unreason in Theology. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This paper claims with Foucault that the Christian era most associated with the debate over the role of reason in theology – namely, the classical age – is also typified by a fear and rejection of unreason. Foucault’s account will then argue that the suppression of unreason and the production of the psychological modern self as the only modus vivendi was achieved through a discipline and confession that was essentially religious in character. It is the contention of this paper that these disciplines are contingent as religious ways of life, and that Christian asceticism may be re-imagined with reference to the practical apophaticism of the early Byzantine holy fool, Symeon Salos (in Leontius of Neapolis’ Life). This latter betrayed common traits of monastic discipline severed from their normalising context and hierarchical structure. It is perhaps only by freeing itself from such pastoral forms of power that Christian confession may withdraw from its support of capitalist technologies of the self.
Aukland, Knut; Iversen, Ragnhild Laird; Tømmerås, Heidi Hansen; Thomas, Andrew John; Schanke, Åge J. & Kvia, Anne Siri [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2020). Ti uløste Problemer: KRLE & Religion og etikk, 2020-2030. KRLEpodden. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
I løpet av 2020 har redaksjonen i KRLEpodden forsøkte å svare på det følgende enkle spørsmål: Hva kan sies å være de ti største utfordringene i RLE-feltet de neste ti årene? Sammen har de jobbet frem en liste over de ti største problemene i RLE-didaktikken ved hjelp av delfimetoden, og skrevet en rapport som utdyper prosjektets hensikt og innhold, og ikke minst de ti største utfordringene.
Thomas, Andrew (2009). The holy fools: a theological enquiry. University of Nottingham etheses. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
What is the significance of the deployment of madness in the early Christian ascetic experience of holiness? The first Byzantine holy fools – themselves critics of monastic orders – represent the consistent and logical conclusion of the theology and practice of the early Christian ascetics, and in particular that of the followers of Anthony and Pachomius. The flight to the desert of the first Christian anchorites and coenobites was an attempt to transform the experience and theology of holiness in church and society by transgressing the rules and thoughts of the city in a practical outworking of negative theology. The transgressive behaviour of the holy fools renewed that transformation by accepting neither secular nor religious truth and life. Where desert fathers and mothers had transformed the production of norms by their obedience and ascetic transcendence of human life, holy fools undermined the religious production of norms through their masterless obedience, defeat of vainglory, and foreignness to self. The transformation of the production of ethical knowledge amongst early Christian ascetics – through control of passions, representations, and silence – was followed through by the holy fools’ apophatic babble and rejection of religious loci of knowledge production in liturgy, confession, religious community and ecclesial authority. As a continuation of ascetic methods of reforming the self’s relation to society by brutal truthtelling and truth-hearing, the holy fools used self-ostracising insult and laughter to follow divine truth into the periphery without legislating universal modesty and submission to group truths. As such, the holy fools exemplify the practices most idealised in early Christian asceticism – humility, suspicion of fixed orders and truths, apophatic critique of doctrine and legislation – with renewed innovation and commitment to city life. They applied the strategic moves and principles of negative theology to the Christian theology and practice of holiness through aspiring to desert freedom, the practice of ignorance, and the unserious self.

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Published June 12, 2018 4:19 PM - Last modified Feb. 9, 2026 8:57 PM