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The theology of themes1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

J. M. Hull
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Extract

When in the nineteen-twenties and thirties the first Agreed Syllabuses of Religious Education were being devised, the main drive behind their formulation was theology. There was of course some recognition given to the need to adapt materials for the various ages of the pupils, but the main inspiration was theological not psychological. The hesitancy created by biblical criticism was giving way to a new confidence that the idea of God's progressive revelation of himself was the key to understanding the Bible. The new syllabuses were organised around this belief; God had spoken, and the task of Religious Education was to convey to pupils the drama of the divine unfolding, in the history of Israel, in the person of Jesus Christ, and on through the history of his people, the church.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , February 1972 , pp. 20 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1972

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References

page 22 note 1 Goldman, Ronald, Readiness for Religion (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965).Google Scholar

page 22 note 2 Suggestions for Religious Education: West Riding Agreed Syllabus (1966). The suggested content for each age group is headed ‘Themes and Activities’.

page 22 note 3 e.g. Religion and Life: Agreed Syllabus: Lancashire Education Committee (1968). The work for children aged 3–7 is described as ‘themes’ (pp. 23–33) but: that for older children is described as ‘topics’. It is not clear if this change is significant.

Learning for Life: The Agreed Syllabus of the Inner London Education Authority (1968), particularly pp. 33ff and 41ff. This syllabus is certainly the most specific on the question of teaching through themes.

page 22 note 4 e.g. Alive in God's World (Church Information Office, 1968, 4 books). Experience and Faith, compiled by the British Lessons Council (Religious Education Press, 1968).

page 22 note 5 ‘… teaching by means of themes, based upon the real life experience of the children. I have called this teaching by life-themes…. A life-theme can take any area of a child's life, of which he has first-hand knowledge’ (Goldman, op. cit., pp. 110ff). ‘A life-theme is where we begin with the real life experience of children, and through this lead them to see its religious significance. This is quite the opposite of beginning with religious stories or ideas then seeking to illustrate them from life’ (Readiness for Religion series, ed. Ronald Goldman, Notes for the Teacher, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1966).

page 24 note 1 Holm, Jean L., ‘Life-Themes: What are they?’, Learning for Living, November 1969. p. 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 24 note 2 In this group may be placed M. V. C. Jeffreys, Glaucon; Goldman, Ronald, Religious Thinking from Child to Adolescence (1964)Google Scholar; Lee, R. S., Your Growing Child and Religion (1965)Google Scholar. Allport, Gordon, The Individual and his Religion (1951)Google Scholar, holds that the religious sentiment is general rather than specific. See also Lee, Dorothy, ‘The Religious Dimension of Human Experience’ in Personality and Religion, ed. Sadler, W. A. (1970), pp. 33–46Google Scholar.

page 25 note 1 Lewis, Eve, Children and their Religion (1962)Google Scholar and The Psychology of Family Religion (1968); Bovet, Pierre, The Child's Religion (1928)Google Scholar; Harms, E., ‘The Development of Religious Experience in Children’, American Journal of Sociology, 50 (1944), 112–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See, for the problem, discussion by Herve Carrier, The Sociology of Religious Belonging (1965). pp. 31f and 43–48.

page 25 note 2 Fahs, S. B L., ‘Beginnings of mysticism in children's growth’, Religious Education, 45 (1950), 139–147CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fukuyama, Y., ‘Wonder Letters: An experimental study of the religious sensitivities of the child’, Religious Education, 58 (1953), 377–383.Google Scholar

page 26 note 1 Interesting accounts of childhood experiences of this sort appear in Bovet, op. cit.

page 26 note 2 Burnheim, John in ‘The Concept of Religious Experience’, Sophia, Vol. VI, No. 2 (July 1967), 15–30 remarks on the need for clarification of the ideas.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 27 note 1 Although containing many good examples of themes, the work offered in A Handbook of Thematic Material prepared for the Kent Council of Religious Education (Kent Education Committee, 1968) sometimes suffers from this fault.

page 27 note 2 Smith, J. W. D., Religious Education in a Secular Setting (1969), p. 40Google Scholar, suggests that life-themes are the product of a secularised Christianity. Goldman remarks (Readiness for Religion, 1965, p. 117) that the religious significance of the theme of home and family is ‘much deeper’ than any specifically religious material which might also be used. Compare the ILEA syllabus, op. cit., p. 42: ‘This method is fundamentally an exploration of the meaning of human relationships as means of understanding the divine-human relationship.’

page 28 note 1 Jean L. Holm, op. cit., p. 16.

page 29 note 1 Alive in God's World, op. cit., Vol. I, p. vii. It is argued that the ubiquity of the divine creativity prohibits selection of some material as being more religiously significant than other material.

page 31 note 1 Compare Hubery, D. S., The Experiential Approach to Christian Education (National Sunday School Union, 1960), pp. 16–20.Google Scholar