Reconstructing Religious Moderation Education Based on Progressive Islam: An Integrative Literature Review

Abstract

Religious moderation has become an important agenda in Islamic education in Indonesia amid social plurality, digital transformation, and the growing contestation of religious authority. However, some studies continue to position religious moderation as a set of normative indicators and have not sufficiently connected it with a transformative paradigm of Islamic education. Conceptual reconstruction is therefore needed so that religious moderation education does not remain limited to fostering tolerance and preventing extremism, but develops into a form of transformative education that is responsive to diversity, advances in knowledge, and social change. This study aims to identify the conceptual convergence between religious moderation and Progressive Islam, reconstruct the theoretical foundations of religious moderation education based on Progressive Islam, and formulate its implications for the educational ecosystem. The study employs library research using an integrative literature review design, examining publications from 2021 to 2026. The data were analysed through qualitative content analysis involving literature classification, open coding, comparison, and integrative synthesis. The findings demonstrate that religious moderation and Progressive Islam converge around the values of balance, justice, humanity, respect for diversity, openness to knowledge and change, and an orientation towards the common good and progress. This convergence provides the basis for reconstructing education through theological, epistemological, axiological, and pedagogical foundations. Its implementation is developed as an educational ecosystem encompassing an integrative-transformative curriculum, dialogical-critical pedagogy, moderate-transformative educators, an inclusive institutional culture, critical and ethical digital literacy, and multidimensional authentic assessment. The novelty of this study lies in the formulation of the Progressive Religious Moderation Education Reconstruction Model (RPMB), which shifts the orientation of religious moderation from a preventive paradigm towards formative, constructive, and transformative paradigms. The model is designed to cultivate progressive moderate Muslims who are religiously grounded, open to diversity, critical, committed to the nation, adaptive to developments in science and technology, and capable of translating Islamic values into actions that contribute to the common good and the advancement of civilisation