RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 24

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

By Amplius

“ Christ's precept is more than to abstain from doing hurt, it is to do good.” AN EDUCATIONAL CONSCIENCE I know, or hope, I have a conscience,” says the reader, “ but what is an educational conscience? How does it differ from the ordinary garden variety of inner compulsion? ’ We speak often of a social conscience, again of a business conscience, and at times, rare times indeed, of a Kingdom conscience. But of an educational conscience we hear little or nothing; and yet the possession of an educational conscience is perhaps the prime need of the one who deals with growing life.

An educational conscience makes a person sensitive first and always to the needs of growing persons. It compels us to vote in committees for the rights of persons and not those of organisations and institutions. It keeps us wedded to a certain plan or programme only so long as that plan or programme is the best we know for helping people to grow, and then compels us joyfully to abandon it as soon as a better one appears. It keeps us sensitive to the looks on people’s faces as barometers of soul movements within. It makes us unwilling to fall back on our own authority or official position or personal prestige as a leader, whatever these may be, in order to achieve our purpose, instead of following the harder road of dealing at close grips with the slower process of bringing about human changes. It compels us to ask, “ What causes such a person to act thus and so?" instead of complaining because that person has interfered with our own peace or plans or prospects. Such a conscience as this makes one sensitive and responsive to questions, perplexities. unexpressed yearnings, and the evident desires of people—just everyday people like ourselves.

When to this educational conscience Is added the inner impulse of the Christian educator, we have a human life inspired and impelled by the inner spirit of Him Who said, "For their sakes” —for the human values that lie within these men—“ I sanctify Myself.” For the educational conscience lays its Influence with transforming power upon the life of the educator himself.

A FORWARD MOVE Arrangements were effected in September, 1937, for the opening of the much-desired Geneva office of the World’s Sunday School Association. This office is now established in the international centre In the former League of Nations Building, known as the Palais Wilson, with Dr Adolf Keller, of Geneva, and vice-chairman of the World Council of the W.S.S.A., in charge. The Palais Wilson now houses 60 different international organisations, including, in addition to the World’s Sunday School Association, the following Christian bodies: — World’s Y.M.C.A., World’s Y.W.C.A., World’s Alliance for International Friendship through the Churches. European Central for Interchurch Aid, Swiss Protestant Federation, World Union of Reformed Churches, Methodist Episcopal Church and the Society of Friends. In connection with this building, the president of the University of Geneva made a very interesting comment expressing the conviction that such private and semi-official world organisations as the World’s Sunday School Association can more effectively work for the promotion of peace among the nations than can even the League of Nations with its official status. The Geneva office will serve primarily as an information centre for the association to the many folk who come annually to Geneva from all the association also, through Dr parts of the world. It will enable Keller, to make fruitful contacts with other international religious organisations. It i,s equipped ■with maps, graphs, pictures, and the publications of the association and national Sunday school organisations around the world.

ART IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION If religion is to be taught effectively, there must be an appeal to the emotions. As a means to this end, the fine arts, particularly pictures, can no longer be considered a luxury, but must be recognised as indispensable aids in the teaching programme of the church.

Art, appreciation courses, the extended use of art galleries, cheap copies of masterpieces, and many well-illus-trated magazines and newspapers are helping to make people pictureminded. These are on the constructive side. But, running counter to the good work of these agencies, many commercial interests make wide and costly use of billboards, magazine illustrations, and the like, seeking financial profit. Thus, much of the commercial art Is negative in its results, and is based on a false assumption. For example, we see advertised every day the various brands of beers, wines, and cigarettes 'as aids to good health. Unfortunately, thousands, particularly young men and young women, are being Influenced by these false values, and are becoming the victims of a well-organised and a heavily-financed propaganda—largely through the use of art.

In view of the place that art has come to hold in our modern life, in changing our attitudes and stirring us to action, the church that is asleep to the values which may be derived from the use of pictures as a sound and effective teaching medium, and which fails to provide for their intensive use, handicaps itself. The chief value a church may hope to gain from the use of good art as the handmaid of the teacher of religion may be summed up as follows: First, in visualising truth, art helps children, young people, and adults to know and appreciate the works and imagery of the great painters, and the truths that their works set forth, Second, as an interpreter, art lifts a curtain, so to speak, and according to one writer is able to “ show vistas of history and life, and by so doing to shed meaning upon our age and upon our personal problems.’’ By way of illustration let us take Jorgensen’s “ The Invitation to the Great Supper.’’ The table is spread, and the focal centre is Christ, who is standing in the foreground with arms outstretched extending the invitation. Many of the guests have arrived and are seated, and others are moving toward the table, but we also see the three who made excuses—the man who bought a farm, the man with the five oxen, and the man newly married. Now we can contrast this picture with our age. Our excuses for neglecting the church and the way of righteousness may not be the same, but, nevertheless the picture is a perfect illustration. Third, art can quicken emotions. A great painting reveals not only what the artist has seen, but likewise his feelings. The picture is the result of an inner urge that was prompted by his emotional reaction to experience. “All masterpieces have primarily an emotional value, whether or not they convey to the intellect any definite message, and that always will have such a value as long as the human heart is keyed to beauty." Many of our great religious paintings, like Burnand’s “ Peter and John Running to the Tomb ” are dominated by an emotional appeal which is bound to exerl a lasting influence on life Fourth, as a guide to spiritual values, art renders a further service. The pictures that serve best in the teaching ministry of the Church are concerned with the deeper issues and problems of life, and suggest through the eye gate a sense of direction. We are often told of the serious 'decline in church membership and in church school enrolment, but one look at Sooerd’s “The Lost Sheep’ fires us to press on in our educational and evangelistic zeal. As we come face to face with talented men and women in our churches who are side-stepping their responsibilities, we are heartened when we see the drawing “The End of an Era: Youth Faces the Sunrise,” by Johnson Here we behold a group of young people standing along the bank of a wide river, overlooking a tJibica] American city on the other shore, considering individually and collectively how they can contribute best to the realisation of a new Christian social order. It is also wholesome as we ponder over our pagan

and materialistic dangers, to reflect on the drawing by Gruger, “ Not Made With Hands.” In it we see a man building himself a house. Evidently his thoughts are entirely about his own personal wants and the desires of his family, but Christ steps forward and tells him about the “ house not made with hands." The man has stopped his work and is listening to these words from the Master’s lips. We can almost hear him as he replies: “ I will build my house anew.” Finally, we can use art as a builder of Ideals. “The good artist finds us thinking that the outside of life is all there is to it, and he leaves us with a certainty that the unseen and the eternal are the only realities." Good pictures serve in building ideals of life.

These, as well as other values, have prompted churches to make a large investment in pictures. The atmosphere in bare and unattractive assembly and class rooms can usually be improved by the hanging of a few well-selected pictures. To focus the attention of a group of children and young people on a picture such as “ The Presence,” by Borthwick, or “ I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes unto the Hills,” by Taylor, will serve to create an atmosphere of worship. Such pictures have great teaching values. Pictorial art, like music, is a language. It is the means by which the thought and emotion of a creative personality are conveyed to our spirits to revive in us a livelier consciousness of spiritual qualities and relationships. Someone in every church and community should be discovered who understands and loves art, and who can ude the teachers and other leaders in the selection and use of good pictures with respect to their teaching values.—Abbott Book.