Abstract
Religious education in contemporary society faces several challenges, including globalization and the morphing of traditional moral values. Using a quantitative approach, we survey teaching staff across eight campuses of the State Islamic University in Indonesia and six campuses of Alphacrucis University College in Australia to compare the approaches to spiritual formation and character formation. Part 1 (the previous chapter) explores the spiritual formation of lecturers who identify as Muslim and lecturers who identify specifically as Pentecostal and how they inculcate spiritual formation in students. Part 2 (this chapter) reveals noteworthy distinctions regarding character formation approaches of lecturers who identify as Muslim and lecturers who broadly identify as Christian, including their teaching strategies to see character formation in students. Within Islam, the formation of akhlaq (moral character) is often through the disciplines of one’s life. For Christianity, character formation is mostly understood as a personal discipleship journey. While there are some differences in thought and practice at Muslim and Christian higher education institutions, we argue that character formation in both should prioritize reading scripture, remain open to God’s leading, stay accountable to community and family, model mentoring, and make positive contributions to society. Both Part 1 and Part 2 aim to provide new insights in underexplored areas of Muslim-Christian interfaith dialogue.