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The Role of Theology in Religious Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

Mary C. Boys
Mary C. Boys*
Affiliation:
Boston College
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Abstract

The intensified efforts in recent years to bring definitional clarity to the field of religious education involve not simply elucidating the role of theology but also exploring the function of religious studies. A proposal is made in this essay that both theology and religious studies make different and necessary contributions to religious education, though neither subsumes it. The context for this argument is established by means of an initial review of the literature of religious education regarding the varied perspectives on the role of theology and then by attention to the relationship of theology and religious studies. The concluding section consists of three propositions specifying a conceptualization of the field of religious education with distinct functions for theology and religious studies.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Spring 1984 , pp. 61 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1984

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References

1 Thompson, Norma H., ed., Religious Education and Theology (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1982).Google Scholar

2 Russell, Letty M., Growth in Partnership (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981).Google Scholar

3 Brueggemann, Walter, The Creative Word (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).Google Scholar

4 The Religious Education Association was founded largely under the impetus of its first president, William Rainey Harper, and of John Dewey. The stellar figures of progressivism and liberalism were prominent also in the founding years, e.g., Jane Addams, George Albert Coe, Washington Gladden. For a survey of some characteristic writings of the Association's initial seventy-five years, see Westerhoff, John, ed., Who Are We? The Quest for a Religious Education (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1978).Google Scholar For an account of Harper's educational outlook, see Lynn, pp. 127-31.

5 Gabriel Moran's suggestion in 1966 that the great crisis of religious education was not the dying catechism and theological manual but the “still rising hope that the education of hundreds of millions of people in an incredibly complex world can be carried out with a bit of Scripture and liturgy and much sincerity and good will” is still pertinent. For Moran, “there is need for patient inquiry, deep understanding and detailed knowledge” (Catechesis of Revelation [New York: Herder and Herder, 1966], p. 34).Google Scholar

6 The terminology is confusing; each of the four terms used as classic expressions has a distinct historical referent. Today, however, there is not a consensus about the most appropriate, overarching term. I choose to use “religious education” not primarily because of its liberal ancestry but because I believe it lends itself both to breadth and precision.

7 See Gilkey, Langdon, Naming the Whirlwind (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), pp. 73–106.Google Scholar See also Hutchison, William R., The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1976).Google Scholar

8 See Cremin, Lawrence A., The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York: Vintage, 1964).Google Scholar

9 Smith's, H. SheltonFaith and Nurture (New York: Scribner's, 1941)Google Scholar is regarded by many as the most insightful and penetrating critique of the religious education movement. He cannot be rightly classified with a narrow neo-orthodoxy; Randolph Miller says Smith was striving for a “liberal orthodoxy” (“Theology in the Background” in Thompson, p. 17). For the most thorough account of Smith, see Thistlethwaite, Susan Brooks, “H. Shelton Smith: Critic of the Theological Perspective of Progressive Education, 1934-1950” (Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1980).Google Scholar

10 Cited in McLoughlin, William, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reforms (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1978), p. 73.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 43.

12 See, e.g., Wyckoff, D. Campell, “Religious Education as a Discipline,” Religious Education 62 (1967), 387–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Wyckoff s work represents one of the best appropriations of educational theory among Christian educators; see his Theory and Design of Christian Education Curriculum (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962).Google Scholar

13 Childs, Brevard, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979), p. 127.Google Scholar See Smart, James D., The Teaching Ministry of the Church (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954).Google Scholar See O'Hare, Padraic, “Religios Education: Neo-Orthodox Influence and Empirical Corrective,” Religious Education 73 (1978), 627–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Kerygmatic theelogy, Jungmann clarified in 1955, was not a separate or special kind of theology “but a clear and effective presentation of Christ's message itself” (Handing on the Faith [New York: Herder and Herder, 1959], p. 398).Google Scholar

15 See my Biblical Interpretation in Religious Education (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1980), pp. 140–273.Google Scholar

16 Thus, for instance, I have omitted consideration of two essays in the Thompson collection by Lawrence Richards and Olivia Stokes because they are not directed toward clarifying the relationship between theology and religious education but rather toward ways in which theology might bring important insights into religious education. They seem to presuppose that religious education is to be subsumed by theology.

17 “The clue to Christian education is the rediscovery of a relevant theology which will bridge the gap between content and method, providing the background and perspective of Christian truth by which the best methods and content will be used as tools to bring the learners into the right relationship with the living God who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, using the guidance of parents and the fellowship of life in the church as the environment in which Christian nurture will take place” [The Clue to Christian Education [New York: Scribner's, 1950], p. 15Google Scholar).

18 Cited in Miller's essay in Thompson, p.21

19 Miller, , The Clue, p. 14.Google Scholar

20 Miller in Thompson, p. 40.

21 “Catechesis and Theology,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 28 (1973), 264, 267, 268.Google Scholar Note that here the term “catechesis” is used rather than “catechetics.” Some suggest that the former is more process-oriented and the latter more content-centered; in actual usage, however, they seem to be collapsed.

22 Groome, Thomas H., Christian Religious Education: Sharing our Story and Vision (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), p. 228.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 229.

24 See Miller in Thompson, pp. 31-41. In recent years Miller has been especially interested in process theology; see his The Theory of Christian Education Practice (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1980).Google Scholar

25 Little, Sara, “The ‘Clue’ to Christian Education,” in Taylor, Marvin, ed., Foundations for Christian Education in an Era of Change (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1976), pp. 30–40.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 37.

27 Ibid., p. 39.

28 “A Catechetical Way of Doing Theology,” in Thompson, pp. 218-42. Westerhoff shares with Marthaler an appreciation for catechesis as socialization or enculturation; Marthaler, B., “Socialization as a Model for Catechetics,” in O'Hare, Padraic, ed., Foundations of Religious Education (New York: Paulist, 1978), pp. 64–92.Google Scholar Westerhoff, in particular, seems to frustrate attempts to get clarity by making catechesis such an overarching category that it encompasses everything; see especially his “Framing an Alternative Future for Catechesis,” in Westerhoff, and Edwards, O. C., eds., A Faithful Church: Issues in the History of Catechesis (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1981), pp. 293–314.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 221.

30 The Shape of Religious Instruction (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1971);Google ScholarThe Flow of Religious Instruction (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1973);Google Scholar“The Authentic Source of Religious Instruction,” in Thompson, , pp. 100–97.Google Scholar Lee utilizes the term “religious instruction”; instruction is, he believes, more specific than “education.” “Instruction” denotes “the process by and through which learning is caused in an individual in one way or another” (Shape, p. 8). Accordingly, when referring to Lee's theories, I will follow his usage so as to recount accurately his views.

31 Lee in Thompson, pp.124-25.

32 Ibid., p. 146.

33 Ibid., p. 100.

34 Ibid., p. 108.

35 Ibid., p. 154.

36 Ibid., p. 131.

37 Ibid., pp. 156-61.

38 Ibid., pp. 166-67.

39 Ibid., p. 172.

40 Ibid., p. 175.

41 Moran, Gabriel, “From Obstacle to Modest Contributor,” in Thompson, , pp. 42–70.Google Scholar In many respects this essay simply articulates at length a notion that Moran had initially laid out in his 1972 work The Present Revelation (New York: Herder and Herder)Google Scholar in which he explicitly sought to “reconnoiter a position somewhere between phenomenology and theology” (p. 17), and developed most recently in Interplay: A Theory of Religion and Education (Winona, MN: Saint Mary's Press, 1981), pp. 9–78Google Scholar in particular.

42 Moran in Thompson, pp. 53, 59-70. See Interplay, pp. 53-64. Also: “For all the particular methods Moran has recommended over twenty years, the most powerful is this: live as if revelation were available beyond as well within the church; live as if the essence of the religious and the educational lay in intelligent participation in a common life. Resist the opposite way of life!” (O'Hare, Padraic, “Education for Devotion and Inquiry,” Religious Education 76 [1981[, 515CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

43 Moran in Thompson, pp. 53-59.

44 Geertz, Clifford, “Religion as a Cultural System” in Banton, Michael, ed., Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Tavistock, 1968), p. 4.Google Scholar

45 One does not lack for sources; the difficulty lies in sorting them out. helpful in providing an overview is the threefold division (concept of religion, science of religion, and theology of religions) in Rahner, Karl, ed., Encyclopedia of Theology: The Concise Sacramentum Mundi (New York: Seabury, 1975), pp. 1357–1403.Google Scholar Gregory Baum offers a concise survey (“Definitions of Religion in Sociology” in Eliade, Mircea and Tracy, David, eds., What Is Religion? An Inquiry for Christian Theology [New York: Seabury, 1980]Google Scholar) and Andrew M. Greeley presents a fascinating proposal of a “secular” (sociological) theory (Religion [New York: Free Press, 1982]).Google ScholarTillich, Paul (What Is Religion [New York: Harper and Row, 1969]Google Scholar) provides a philosophical description; see Mancini, Italo, “Philosophy of Religion” in Eliade, and Tracy, , pp. 63–68.Google Scholar Two essays in the Eliade and Tracy volume summarize much of the overwhelming literature on the history of religions: Terrin, Natale, “On the Definition of Religion in the History of Religions” and Sullivan, Lawrence, “History of Religions: The Shape of an Art,” pp. 72–77 and 78–85Google Scholar, respectively. The work of Waardenburg, Jean J. (Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion, 2 vols. [The Hague: Mouton, 1973–1974]Google Scholar)provides a superb collection of primary sources and an extensive bibliography. Also: Macquarrie, John, Principles of Christian Theology (2nd ed.; New York: Scribner's, 1977), pp. 149–72;Google ScholarStreng, Frederick J., “Studying Religion: Possibilities and Limitations of Different Definitions,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40 (1972), 219–37;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNovak, Michael, Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove (New York: Harper and Row, 1971);Google ScholarTracy, David, Blessed Rage for Order (New York: Seabury, 1975), pp. 92–93;Google ScholarManno, Bruno V., “Defining Religion,” Religious Education 73 (1978), 592–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1978 [1962]), p. 50.Google Scholar

47 See Baird, Robert D., Category Formation and the History of Religions (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), pp. 14, 91–106.Google Scholar For a review of the corpus of Smith's work, see the articles by Gilkey, Langdon and Smith, Huston in Religious Studies Review 7 (1981), 298–310.Google Scholar

48 Baird, p. 18.

49 Ibid., pp. 131-32. It should be noted that, though Baird considers “religion” to be an adequate category (contra W. C. Smith) if one defines it functionally, he does not consider “the religions” to be such. As he sees it, categories of “the religions” are not a unity in any historical sense and thus are not useful for organizing “types of religion.” He argues, therefore, that “the religions” should be dropped as secondary categories and that historians of religion should formulate their study according to geographical areas (see pp. 134-42).

50 Ibid., p. 35.

51 Ibid., pp.42, 58.

52 Ibid., p. 125.

53 Lonergan, Bernard J. F., Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), p. 140.Google Scholar

54 Particularly significant in providing order to the discipline is Joseph M. Kitagawa (“The History of Religions in America” in Eliade, Mircea and Kitagawa, J., eds., The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 1–30.Google Scholar Also Kitagawa, J., “Theology and the Science of Religion,” Anglican Theological Review 39 (1957), 33–52.Google Scholar

55 See Clebsch, William A. and Rader, Rosemary, “Religious Studies in American Colleges and Universities: A Preliminary Bibliography,” Religious Studies Review 1 (1975), 50–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 See Tracy, David, The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1981);Google ScholarKaufman, Gordon D., An Essay on Theological Method, AAR Studies in Religion 1, ed. Crites, Stephen D. (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975);Google ScholarDulles, Avery, “The Theologian and the Magisterium,” Catholic Mind 75 (1975), 6–16Google Scholar, and “The Two Magisteria: An Interim Reflection,” Proceedings of the CTSA 35 (1981), 155–69.Google Scholar

57 Cobb, John, “Is Christianity a Religion?” in Eliade, and Tracy, , pp. 3–11.Google Scholar Cobb concludes that to classify Christianity as a religion is misleading; “I now suggest that those movements and traditions which propose to bind things together and provide a way of personal and corporate life be called Ways” (p. 8).

58 “The Reconvergence of Theology and Religious Studies,” Studies in Religion 4 (1974–1975), 205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 Ibid., p. 219 (emphasis added).

60 Baum, Gregory, “Response to Charles Davis,” Studies in Religion 4 (1974–1975), 224CrossRefGoogle Scholar (emphasis added).

61 Cahill, P. Joseph, Mended Speech: The Crisis of Religious Studies and Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1982).Google Scholar

62 Ibid., p. 6.

63 Ibid., p. 13.

64 Ibid., p. 26.

65 Ibid., p. 39.

66 Ibid., p. 40.

67 Ibid., pp. 39-43.

68 Ibid., p. 51.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid., p. 52.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid., p. 88.

73 Ibid., p. 98. See Moran's distinction between faith and belief, in which he comments that when belief is the first question it is usually the wrong one (Moran in Thompson, p. 64).

74 Ibid., p. 146.

75 Ibid., p. 109.

76 Ibid., p. 148.

77 Ibid., pp. 104, 114-15, 142.

78 See my “Questions ‘Which Touch on the Heart of our Faith,’” Religious Education 76 (1981), 636–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

79 Tillich, Paul, Theology of Culture, ed. Kimball, Robert (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 155.Google Scholar

80 See Fischer, Kathleen R., The Inner Rainbow: Christian Faith and the Imagination (New York: Paulist, 1983).Google Scholar

81 I know of no more insightful description of idolatry than that of Johnson, Luke T., Sharing Possessions (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

82 Greeley, Andrew M., “The Failures of Vatican II After Twenty Years,” America 197 (1982), 86–89.Google Scholar

83 Cited in Cahill, p. 99.

84 Capps, Walter, “Contemporary Socio-Political Change and the Work of Religious Studies,” The Council on the Study of Religion Bulletin 12 (1981), 93–95.Google Scholar See also Marty, Martin E., The Public Church (New York: Crossroad, 1981).Google Scholar

85 Capps, p. 93.

86 See Smart, Ninian, Secular Education and the Logic of Religion (London: Faber and Faber, 1968).Google Scholar

87 Holley, Raymond, Religious Education and Religious Understanding (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 49.Google Scholar

88 Lonergan, Bernard, “Theology and Praxis,” Proceedings of the CTSA 32 (1977), 2.Google Scholar

89 O'Donovan, Leo, “Orthopraxis and Theological Method in Karl Rahner,” Proceedings of the CTSA 35 (1981), 60.Google Scholar

90 Saliers, Don, The Soul in Paraphrase (New York: Seabury, 1980).Google Scholar