Facs
Transcript
Lecture XXXVI, March 13, [?] 1956
We are in the discussion of religion and the problems of education, and last time I spoke about the problem of initiation into something which has the power of the Spiritual center or ultimate meaning. Today I want to deal with two problems, as far as we can go, namely the general problem of religious education, and then the special problem of the university and its relationship to religion and to the fact of a theological faculty.
First a few words, only – not a few words, but very little – about the problem of religious education, because this is a theological department by itself and I can only discuss it in the context of what I said last time generally, about the religious implications of education.
The first and perhaps the most important point is that religious education, if it's understood as introduction – and you remember we had these three forms: introducing the humanistic, the skill, and the introductory form of education – and if religious education is understood (as it must be) as introduction, introducing into a reality, then this has the following consequences, that the child, who is an object of religious education, has to be introduced into the reality of religion, and that means three things: 1) a community in which religion is the content of life; 2) a set of symbols, mythological and ritual, which express the ultimate meaning of this group in which religion is alive. In a humanistic type of education, the child would not be introduced but taught. I remember how in a progressive religious-education school, my own daughter had to receive religious education, Sunday School, and what happened was that she was introduced into the cave paintings of the