How to Teach Religion / Principles and Methods

by George Herbert Betts

The test of useful knowledge.—This is all to say that the knowledge of the Bible given the child must in no sense be a merely formal knowledge, a knowledge of so many curious or even interesting facts separated from their vital meaning and application. It must not consist of truths which for the most part do not influence thought and action. Not how many facts are lodged in the mind, nor how many have passed through the mind and been forgotten, but how many truths are daily being built into character—this measures the value of the knowledge we teach the child from the Bible.

KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE CHURCH

The church represents religion organized. Because of our social impulses we need to worship together in groups. Many religious activities, such as education, evangelism, missionary enterprises, and reforms, can be successfully carried out only by joint action; hence we have the church, a means of religious culture, and the instrument of religious service. Few there are who, outside the church, maintain their own religious experience or carry the ministry of religious service to others. A knowledge of the church is therefore an essential part of the child's religious education.

What the child needs to know about the church.—This does not mean that the child needs to know the technical and detailed history of the Christian Church; this may come later. Nor does it mean that the child needs to know the different theological controversies through which the church has passed and the creeds that have resulted; this also may come later. What the child needs first to know is that the church is the instrument of religion, the home of religious people; that the Christian Church began with the followers of Jesus, and that it has existed ever since; that it has done and is doing much good in the world; that the best and noblest men and women of each generation work with and through the church; that the church is worthy of our deepest love and appreciation, and that it should command our fullest loyalty and support.

Besides this rather general knowledge of the church, the child should know the organization and workings of the present-day church. He should come to know as much of its program, plans, and ideals as his age and understanding will permit.

Even the younger children are able to understand and sympathize with the missionary work of the church, both in home and in foreign lands. Missionary instruction offers a valuable opportunity to quicken the religious imagination and broaden the social interests. Lessons showing the church at work in missionary fields should therefore be freely brought to the child.

Knowledge of the church's achievements.—The part the church has taken and is to-day taking in advancing the cause of education will appeal to the child's admiration and respect. A knowledge of its philanthropies will make a good foundation for the later loyalties to be developed toward the church as an institution. The important influence of the church in furthering moral reforms and social progress is well within the appreciation of adolescents, and should be brought to their recognition.

Especially should children know the activities of their own local church; they should learn of its different organizations and of the work each is doing; they should know its financial program—where the money comes from and the uses to which it is put; they should know its plans ahead in so far as their participation can be used in carrying out its activities. All these lines of information are necessary to the child in order that his interest and loyalty may have an intelligent and enduring basis.

Knowledge of one's own church.—The first knowledge of the church as an institution given the child should be of the church as a whole, and should have no denominational bias. We should first aim to make out of our children Christians, and only later to make out of them Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, or Congregationalists.

There comes a time, however, when the child should become informed concerning his own particular church or denomination. He should learn of its history, its achievements, its creeds, its plan of organization and polity. This is not with the purpose of cultivating a narrow sectarianism, but in the interests of a self-respecting intelligence concerning the particular branch of the church which is one's spiritual home. That the great mass of our people to-day possess any reasonable fund of knowledge about the Christian Church or their own denomination may well be doubted. This is a serious fault in religious education.