Edna M. Baxter

The Importance of the Bible in the Present Crisis as Variously Viewed By Religious Educators

M OST BIBLE TEACHING in the Protestant churches is carried on by laymen with varying degrees of preparation. Though literacy and higher education have increased greatly in this country, most reading and study of the Bible today are probably done in connection with the schools of the churches. In most of these churches, laymen manage the schools and select the curricula. Altogether too frequently the choice is determined by the price of the publications and by their publicity. Many of these Bible courses reflect little knowledge of the results of modern scholarship, and mean that youth still has much to unlearn when there is opportunity for advanced education.

Religious Education Books

ways. Frankly and realistically the author recognizes the possibility and need for growth in mans concept and experience of God. He faces the difficulty of leaning too heavily on concepts formulated in prescientific periods of thought. Swiftly he traces the development of mans concept of God from its early beginning, making way for its further growth and particularly for the unifying experience of God in an age of science. He contrasts ideas of an autocratic God and depraved man with the concept of God as creative Spirit, with whom man may cooperate in establishing a better human world.