William Clayton Bower

POINTS OF TENSION BETWEEN PROGRESSIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND CURRENT THEOLOGICAL TRENDS

*A paper read Tuesday morning, April 25, 1939, before the Oberlin Convention of the Religious Education Association. The vigorous discussion which followed the reading of the paper is summarized by Professor Harrison S. Elliott on pages 172‐181

Religious Education Faces the Future

ELIGIOUS education, like every other phase of thought and life in the modern church, is passing through a period of transition. Rapid and fundamental changes in contemporary culture, new and deeper insights into the nature of religion and its functional relation to experience, and shifts in emphasis in the work of the church have necessitated re-thinking the objectives of religious education, its content and method, and its institutional structures. Religious educators for the most part are aware of these changes, sensitive to the issues involved, and eager to discover the implications for the future. In this they are supported by trends sufficiently dependable to indicate possibilities, if not more or less definite directions. I

I Different Approaches in Dealing With Religion in the Public School

Since 1953 there have been three symposia and also various articles on the topic “Religion and the Public Schools” which have appeared in this Journal. But the subject is still warmly and broadly controversial. The present symposium of nine articles is presented to assist in the definition of terms and also to furnish data on what is actually being done. We believe this symposium is a constructive contribution to the subject and we are indebted to the authors for their cooperation. —The Editorial Committee

I A Proposed Program: FOR ACHIEVING THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION1

1 An elaboration of a presentation at the Berea Kentucky, Conference, the “Role of Religion in the Public Schools.” October 18, 1954

A CRITICAL RE‐EVALUATION OF THE BIBLICAL OUTLOOK OF PROGRESSIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION∗

∗An address delivered before the Professors’ Advisory Section of the International Council of Religious Education at Chicago, February 10, 1943.

REPORT OF THE CHICAGO DISCUSSION GROUP

∗At the request of the Program and Research Committee of the Religious Education Association, discussion groups were organized at various points to study the topic suggested by the heading of this section. Two groups, one at Chicago under the chairmanship of Professor Bower, and the other at Chester, Pennsylvania, under the chairmanship of Professor Cole, carried through. Their written statements, together with a critique of Professor Coles paper by Professor Smith of Duke University, are included here as they were read on the floor of the Pittsburgh convention. Professor Harners paper was written in the light of convention discussion; Professor Soares’, several weeks before the Pittsburgh meetings.

State and Church in Education

The last four chapters are devoted to specific suggestions as to the method and organization of character education. The distinct contribution of Professor Hartshornes book lies in his emphasis upon the interaction of the person with his social group as the basic process by which character is achieved. This idea cannot be said to be new in that it has been formulated in the earlier concepts of education through social participation and of the achievement of character through creative experience in responding in the light of personal and social values to situations of every type, including the situations involved in social relations. The merit of the contribution is also its limitation. In its stress upon the social factor the present discussion does not take into account the range of complex factors that, together with social interaction, condition the behavior of persons. Its limitation is on the side of oversimplification. Recent researches in a different direction, furthermore, would raise the question whether Professor Hartshorne has made enough of the generalizing of attitudes, skills, and behavior patterns. The book is written in a clear, poignant, and engaging style. It is one of the most significant books that have appeared in the field of character education. WILLIAM CLAYTON BOWER UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Education for Character

Christian ethics by going back from the New Testament church to the Jesus whose life and teaching produced it, rather than following the usual chronological sequence; its clear analysis of the types and the bases of humanism; and, as said before, its outspoken and specific handling of contemporary moral issues. Though somewhat repetitious in the early chapters, the book is very interesting and extremely stimulating.

Christianity and Religious Education

less serve as a helpful apologetics. And in Germany this should afford it a wide appeal. Apart from such, however, the authors treatment will probably not seem convincing; not only because of its supernaturalism, but to one who is accustomed to empirical methods, Professor Bornhausen, rather than having investigated his data, will appear to have used it to demonstrate an a priori conviction. Students of the history of religions will doubtless wonder at the confidence with which the author philosophizes upon primitive origins, as well as at the metaphysical interpretations that they yield. And certainly the synthesis of religious faith, culminating in Christianity as the universal religion, with which Bornhausen concludes, will arouse suspicion. For this conclusion appears to be more the achievement of theological artifice than the legitimate findings of objective inquiry. BERNARD E. MELAND

Education Through Creative Experience

T HE manner in which education shall be conceived depends upon the ends which it seeks to achieve. An assessment of current techniques or the elaboration of new techniques depends upon what the technique is designed to accomplish. This throws the educator back upon his fundamental conceptions as to the purposes which education is designed to serve and upon his assumptions as to the nature of the educative process. Among these conceptions and assumptions there is wide variation in current education and a reaching out experimentally after more adequate procedures for the attainment of objectives that better fit the needs of our rapidly changing modern life. Particularly are character and religious education increasingly aware of the limitations of traditional techniques and of the imperious need of more adequate ways of discovering and achieving values that are in process of creation in our ongoing personal and social experience.