RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 22514, 5 December 1936, Page 24

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

[By Forward.] “ Christian education seeks to develop in growing persons such an understanding and appreciation of the personality, life, and teachings of Jesus ns will lead to experience of Him ns Saviour and Lord, loyalty to Him and His cause, and manifest itself in daily life and conduct.” MAKING JESUS REAL TO CHILDREN. How can we make Jesus real to a child? Real enough to bo appealing in a world of childhood interest. And real enough to lay the foundation for the future of life. As the child goes on through life there will be numbers of ways of making Jesus real—as manifold as life is wide and deep and high. But childhood’s horizons are limited in every direction by its own inexperience; it is not quite so easy to make anything real. For the purpose of this discussion let us think of six channels by which Jesus. can become a living reality to the child. 1. Through the attitudes of the adults with whom he associates. The eager, responsive boys and girls who, Sunday after Sunday, hear the name of Jesus mentioned with reverence by their leaders will tend to reverence Him, top. There is something about the hushed voice, the quiet seriousness, the silent reverence which a teacher can pay to Jesus that will go long, long distances in creating that attitude in the lives of her pupils, though they are yet far from comprehending Him for what He really is. Good teachers —and good parents too—are respected; and whatever they revere in their own lives will likely in turn be reverenced by their children. But it is hard for the teacher to express that reverence unless she herself has felt it! Is it too much to be hoped, in our busy workaday life, that a teacher may sometimes sit down with the life of Jesus before her as it is simply told in the four Gospels, and read not in direct preparation for her next lesson, but for her own personal enrichment? I heard a man say a few days ago that he found he could read the Bible through in a year by spending 15 minutes each day. Could you and I read one of the Gospels through in a week or two —just for personal enrichment? 2. Through the . stories He told. Jesus often told stories, and His stories nre considered masterpieces by literary critics. Though He spoke most often to adults, many of the stories are quite within the range of understanding of a child. Some of the stories, it is true, have a purpose quite beyond the comprehension of a child; but by giving him the outward story for appreciation in the here and now we are also giving him material which will grow in significance as his insight and experience deepens. 3. Through the heroic example of His life. There are limitations in attempting to follow any one person as an example in the details of one’s life; and this is in part true even with Jesus. Not everyone, for example, can imitate Jesus vocationally. He was a carpenter and a teacher; the world also needs miners, bankers, musicians, artists. Likewise the major purpose of His life excludes an intimate.home life, but for the majority of the human family this must be a fundamental experience. He adopted the fashions of dress and speech which were in accord with the customs of the time and place in which He lived; but for us to imitate Him in these details would be to discredit Him. How, then, do our boys and girls need Jesus as an example? For what He was; for the goodness and strength, the beauty and power, the patience and courage, the joy and devotion which blended into His personality. . It seems to be natural for boys and girls to want to be like someone. Childhood admires and thrills without analysing. It responds in hero worship to the whole man. The hero that boys and girls need most is the one who was master of all of life. Such a hero is Jesus. 4. Through making real His teachings. What did Jesus really teach? What -was His philosophy of life? If w© can get at that problem we will have made a good start toward making Jesus real to our children. We speak over and over again about His message; and perhaps we are not always clear as to what His message was. He had two things in mind during the working years of Sis life—the message itself and the training of leaders .to carry it on. This second goal of His does not concern small children, yet it occupies a largo place in the written account of His life.

His message has to do with life. Abundant life for all people, and a plan for bringing “ the greatest happiness to the most people for the longest period of time.” It was a plan that took account of individual people, placed their happiness at a premium, and yet allowed no one to encroach on someone olse’s freedom.

It was His teaching that was important; not the framework that conveyed it. So we find in our curriculum His teaching in every story, every lesson, every worship service. Sometimes it is couched in His own language, sometimes in the language of the Biblical writer, and sometimes in an everyday story of the kind He Himself would choose if He were telling a story to boys and girls in A.n. 1936. The truth would be there! And it would be truth selected so as to be within the range of understanding of children, truth related to the life the children are living now. 5.' And His scale of values? The things He put first? All these will be part of our message. In an article in the ‘ Elementary Magazine ’ there is a discussion by Professor George H, Betts on the relation of the public school and the church school. Briefly, he points out, with ample evidence, that both the church and the public school systems are turning their eyes toward character education as a major responsibility. He hastens to say, as all of us would say, that the school, as well as the church, has been disappointingly ineffective. He then comments on the problems of the desirable relationship between the programmes of the school and the church.

The church school cannot succeed in character education by duplicating what the public school is doing.” The church school must do more than teach a course in ethics. It cannot hope to accomplish its purpose by setting up a list of desirable character traits—courtesy, kindness, truthfulness, honesty, and the rest —and then, by discussion, stories, and activities seek to make them real in the lives of girls and boys. This is exactly what the public school is doing, and it can probably do it better than the church school ever can, because of better facilities and more time. ‘‘The church school is to-supplement and complement the public school; for the church school has one factor, the most powerful factor of all, which the public school lacks —the religious motive hack of character and conduct. “ What the church school must do is to find in our relations to God and in the life and teachings of Jesus an inescapable and irresistible urge. * * ,

This is equivalent to saying that we must spiritualise the virtues we teach. Let us seo that religious education is religious.” If Professor Letts is right, then this channel of making Jesus real to our children is a most important one. 6. Through fellowship in service. To many children the sense of the reality of Jesus will come most convincingly through practical efforts to carry out His plan for bringing happiness to the lives of others. Jn the actual doing of the things whiel need to he done to relieve suffering, to bring joy, to banish ignorance and tear, boys and girls get an insight into the heart of Jesus which brings them that sense of His realness which nothing can take away. ‘ Inteftiational Journal of R.EJ