Toplumsal değişim, hızı, etkisi ve kapsadığı alan değişmekle birlikte her dönemde gerçekleşmiş bir olgudur. Toplumsal değişim sürecinden etkilenen pek çok faktör arasında din ve eğitim de vardır. Dolayısıyla din eğitiminde de toplumsal değişimle birlikte farklılaşmalar görülmektedir. Postnormal zamanlar; belirsizlik, hızlı değişim, gücün yeniden düzenlenmesi, karışık ve kaotik davranışlarla karakterize edilir. Ziyaüddin Sardar, postnormal zamanların özelliklerini üç ‘K’ ile açıklamaktadır. Bunlar, karmaşa, kaos ve karşıtlıktır. Sardar’a göre ilişkide bulunduğumuz her şey karmaşık/komplikedir. Postnormal zamanların ikinci özelliği kaostur. Kaosun asıl sebebi ise iletişim ağının doğasının, kapsamının ve işlevinin değişmesidir. Sardar, karşıtlığı hızlı değişim ve bilgiye ulaşma, bilgiyi kullanma ve yorumlamada meydana gelen değişimle ilişkilendirerek bu üç husus çerçevesinde yaşadığımız çağın özelliklerinden bahsetmektedir. Bu makalede Ziyaüddin Sardar’ın toplumsal değişimin geldiği noktayı betimlerken kullandığı postnormal zamanlar teorisi çerçevesinde Türkiye’de örgün ve yaygın din eğitimi incelenerek bu teorinin ortaya koyduğu dönemsel özelliklere göre yorumlamak amaçlanmıştır. Teorik olan bu çalışmanın, toplumsal değişim sürecinde ortaya çıkan ihtiyaçlar karşısında, örgün ve yaygın din eğitiminin mahiyetini değerlendirmesi bakımından alana katkı sağlayacağı düşünülmektedir.

Social change is an inevitable phenomenon that has existed in the natural process as of the human history began. There are factors that accelerate social change by affecting it. Social change also affects many phenomena in turn. In this respect, a close relation emerged between social change and politics, international relations, and the changes in information and technology. In social change process, religion plays a role in two aspects as the one that affect change; and the one that is affected by change. Similarly, in all structures and units of education, which aims to educate individuals in line with the qualifications required by time taking all elements that occur in society into consideration, the education systems, philosophy, roles of teachers and students, tools, materials and methods that are employed in education are influenced by change. When the fact that the two elements, i.e. the religion and education, which constitute religious education, do not remain indifferent to social change and that changes in educational institutions and structure affect all sub-disciplines of education are considered, it is possible to argue that religious education will also inevitably be influenced by social change. It is considered that social changes are not limited with the scope that is in the interest of one single society any more, and that globalization and a strong interaction brought with the increase in communication and capacity with innovations in the field of science and technology has caused that a global change has been experienced everywhere. Based on this, in the present study, it was aimed to examine religious education by considering the postnormal times theory that was developed by Ziyaüddin Sardar to define the period in which we live. It is considered that this study, which is conducted with the Literature Review Method, will contribute to the field in terms of evaluating the relation between social change and religious education under the conditions that are also present in our present day by considering the qualities of the society in which we live. Ziyaüddin Sardar developed the postnormal times theory based on global changes. Postnormal times, which is defined as the transition period that does not provide trust in any way in reaching a desirable, achievable and sustainable future that does not bring confidence in terms of returning to the past, is characterized with uncertainty, fast change, power rearrangement and chaotic behavior (Sardar, 2009, 435). The elements that constitute postnormal times were explained with three “C”s; Complexity, Chaos and Contrast. According to Sardar, everything that we have relations with is complex/complicated. Nothing, not even a topic, event, phenomenon or a problem, is simple and stable in terms of being in relation with many other subjects, phenomena, events and problems. The underlying factors of this complexity are globalization and rapid and simultaneous change. Postnormal times can also be defined with chaos. The whole world has become interdependent, and communication has become continuous with the Internet, social media networks, and 24-hour news broadcasts. This connection is valid for the functioning elements of the public works like transport and economy, and a failure that may occur at any point in this network may affect the whole system. Sardar related Contrast with change and knowledge by dealing with it in two contexts. The first one is that humanity is still at a point that is considered ignorant in some fields despite some unchanging phenomena in the face of change, and despite the increasing number of things that are known in many subjects (Sardar, 2009, 436-440); and the second is the inability of humans in producing solutions to the problems that were caused by science and technology produced by humans themselves, and the presence of contrasts stemming from ignorance when humans have the desired knowledge about “the Other” (Sardar, 2009, 436-440). With the globalization effect, which Sardar considers to occur on the basis of Chaos, it is seen that ideas on some applications that are reflected in religious life have changed, and new religious movements have emerged (Aydın and Osmanoğlu, 2016, 27-30). The reflection of the globalization on religious education is the multicultural and pluralistic religious education understanding. Learners acquire an inclusive and pluralistic perspective through multicultural religious education. In this way, it also contributes to the ability to live together with differences in globalizing societies. When faced with the fast change, which is another origin of chaos, it is expected that religion produces answers to new problems. In this case, in postnormal times, the duty of religious education will be training individuals who have reasoning skills to find answers for newly-emerging religious problems. In the face of chaos that emerges from communication network and from the interconnective status of each phenomenon, target audience must be provided with the ability to produce and evaluate information correctly. Instead of transferring religious knowledge with didactic and classical methods to the able generation in terms of using communication technology, the target must be teaching subjects by using active learning methods and by associating important issues with each other instead of loading superficial knowledge on many fields. Sardar reported that contrasts may be negotiated through dialogue. In this case, it is also necessary to make learners acquire religious literacy skills as well as religious education in the pluralistic and inter-religious model to create a culture of living together and to avoid conflicts that emerge from differences, to obtain information from correct sources, and to create an accurate dialogue and negotiation setting. Understanding the Other’s viewpoint in an accurate manner is the first condition of negotiation and dialogue that were recommended by Sardar for contrasts. The religious literacy skill is the skill that may open the road for having the accurate information on the “other” and understanding it. In this case, religious literacy may be considered among the skills that must be acquired in religious education in postnormal times. Based on this viewpoint, it is possible to conclude that there is a need for an education form that will be used in the developing 21st century thinking skills by using active learning methods with a pluralistic and multicultural approach in postnormal religious education.