RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 22596, 13 March 1937, Page 6

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

[By Forward.]

The hope of the church is in those who believe in work among the young) and devote themselves to showing them the way of Christ. . . .• We simply cannot overestimate the value to Christ, and the church, and the world of the work among the children to which we again dedicate ourselves. IMPROVEMENT IN OUR TEACHING . PROGRAMME. Undoubtedly there can he great improvement in our teaching technique. There should be far more appeal to the imagination, for imagination is the real door into the mind and heart of youth. There should be more appeal to the eye. The Chinese thinker was right when he said, “ one look is better than a thousand words,” and therefore there should be more use of pictures. More pains should be taken to enlist the activity of the pupils. All the teaching shpuld be more closely related to life, the’ life of the scholars themselves. Iu a very real sense all effective teaching must be pupil-centred and life-centred. The expression work should be less mechanical handwork and more expression in life. The expression should he spiritual and living. But I wish specially to stress one thing in which there can be improvement. We should teach less of the Bible and more of Christianity. There should he less time given to biography and history, and, more to the great essentials of faith and conduct. Some teachers take all the time setting the stage, and have none left for the play itself. They are taken up with the Bible incidents or Bible facts, and fail to make the great spiritual lessons vivid and dominating. _ ' . Professor Cairns has said; “ The simple truth is that if we who are Christians conceived of Christianity as the great mass of the youth of our country conceive of it, we should not be Christians. They are shut off from the springs of life to a startling extent by sheer ignorance and misunderstanding of the Divine Word.” And yet these same young people have largely been Sunday school scholars for a time at least. I fear that to some* extent Professor Cairns’s words would be true of Australia (and New Zealand), too. We teach much about the Bible, many incidents from the Bible, but we do not give a clear, connected account of Christianity. We try to touch on it and get lost in details. There must be more selection and more concentration on the really vital things of our faith. Now, what are the essentials which we must make vivid by teaching them often, and in the most varied ways? I think there are four. . First, God. Jesus said, “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent.” _ Our supreme and. fundamental task is to bring children and youth to God, and to give them a true and moving conception of God. We must present God as the standard and stimulus and strength of the Christian life. It is so easy to teach Bible stones, supervise expression work, and encourage many good deeds, and jet fail to be a bridge along which God comes to youth and along which youth comes to God. It is so easy to have a man-centred, self-centred, earth-centred religion all occupied with our own doings and life, and without that personal relationship to a personal God which is the I

very heart of our religion. Christianity is a God-centred, Christ-centred, and Church-centred religion. We must make God real to the heart of youth. Second, we must teach Christ as the Revealer of God and the Redeemer of man. It is God in Christ—" the glory of God in. the face of Christ ” that we must present in Sunday schools. It is easy to call upon young people to play the game and do their daily good deed, and leave them without the overmastering motive which a knowledge of Christ gives. Gwatkin, the historian, says of the early Christians: “ They seem to think that if only they can fill men with thankfulness for the gift of life in Christ, morality will take care of itself.” Fellowship with Christ ensures the highest standard of living, and the persistent aim of the teacher must be_ to initiate that fellowship between his scholars and Christ. This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent. We must work to secure their surrender to Christ. Herod heard John the Baptist gladly, and Herod “ did ” many things, but he did not do the one thing necessary—a complete surrender to God. It is very possible for our scholars to listen with pleasure to us and do a number of things and never finally surrender their life to Christ. Third, we must present the Christian way of living, that way of life which follows the divine standard in all the relationships of life. Fourth, we must teach the life of fellowship with the church. We must create pride in the church and love for the church, and build youth into the life of the local congregation and the world-wide church. Thus we must stress the living God as revealed by Christ, the new way of living, and the life of fellowship with the church. I am persuaded that children are being given Bible knowledge and not the one thing needful. We read: “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord; neither was the Word of the Lord yet revealed unto him.” Too many children are leaving the Sunday school in that condition. They do not know the Lord. They do not understand the Christian way of living and they are not filled with intelligent enthusiasm for the Church of the Living God.—J.C. J.

THE RISING TIDE. (Dr J. R. Mott.) W© are at a moment of rising tide in the missionary movement all over the world. I find it difficult to mention an exception—whether I have in mind the Far East or the Near East, or the parts of Africa which I have recently visited, or the various parts of the Pacific Islands. The evidences are overwhelming on every hand. ’I need not remind you that it is always wise to take advantage of a rising tide. You can do, then, in a comparatively short time what you cannot do in longer periods when the tide is ebbing. But a rising tide is not only one we should take advantage of; it is one that may be dangerous. While in Canada, I was reminded that there is a tide that rises about 70ft. Talking about it with a sailor, he said: “ It is dangerous; we have to have very wise pilots.” Never, in our missionary work, do we need such pilots more than we do now—the pastors, teachers, the editors and trainers, and those in positions of responsibility on committees like this. We in this room are summoned to bo pilots. True pilots must know the port, they must know the course by which to reach the port, and the hour. . . . There are hours when wo can sweep in with great cargo to bring to the feet of the Redeemer; but if we let those

hours slip, we miss the opportunity. If ever there was a time when we needed to be alert, it is now. I think that this rising tide is a summons to larger evangelism. It must he a more comprehensive evangelism and larger in plan. How pitifully small at times our plan seems to be! I remind myself of the designs of our Lord and the vast ranges of the human world He saw. Our friends in Japan have taught us a lesson of planning in a way that is worthy of a great vision. It must be a larger evangelism in the adaptation of wars and means to the task set us.