Teaching Religion

Gabriel Moran

From the book: INTERPLAY: A THEORY OF RELIGION AND EDUCATION by Gabriel Moran, 1978.

In the previous chapters I have continually returned to the distinction between education and school. When this distinction is not clearly and consistently maintained, the religious life cannot get a fair hearing in education. If the school is the only place we turn to for the formation and development of a Christian (Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim) way of living, then the burden upon the school is intolerable, and the religious life suffers a reduction. In the next chapter I will examine the areas of work and leisure that need to complement the school. In this chapter I wish to give the school its due. While insisting that school is not the whole of education, I have also emphasized that schooling is a legitimate and indispensable form of learning. The teaching of religion in the context of the school one crucial part of the field of religious education, I wish to explore in this chapter what it means to teach religion. The obvious procedure would seem to be to examine those institutions that engage in the teaching of religion. That logical step runs into an immediate snag: there is no obvious place to turn to for examining the teaching of religion. This deficiency is indicative of the fact that a field of religious education is not yet fully developed.

The problem in this area can be illustrated by consulting the literature on religion and the public school. Several decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1960s gave new impetus to discussing the place of religion in the public school. Some states immediately set about to design material for a religion curriculum. Overall, however, the progress has been painfully slow. The movement attracts only a small number of people, and it is not considered to be part of a field of religious education.

At the heart of this issue is the question: Is it possible to teach religion in the public school? The literature declares: No, one may only "teach about religion." This distinction is attributed to the Supreme Court, but the Court was itself drawing upon the religious education literature of the 1940s. The choice to "teach about religion" rather than to "teach religion" was an unhappy choice in 1940 and is an obstruction to thinking in the 1980s.

One of the writers responsible for the phrase was F Ernest Johnson. He noted in 1940 that "studying about is the beginning of study. It Is the way an orientation is effected. But such inquiry has in it the element of participation based on interest."' The teaching and studying would move from externals to deeper issues of religion in the lives of the students. I think Johnson was moving in the right direction, but, as he later recognized, his contrast did not capture his intention. By that time, however, the phrase "teach about religion" had become part of a 1947 committee report of the American Council on Education.'

The unfortunate thing about the phrase "teach about religion" is its implication that "teach religion" has already been clarified and found objectionable. As I have noted, it is difficult to find institutions that clearly and explicitly teach religion. An obvious place to explore the meaning of "teach religion" is the public school. But it will never be tried if the chief advocates of religion In the public school dismiss teaching religion as objectionable and illegal before they begin.

Religion has always been intertwined with the schools of the United States of America. In the public system that came to triumph in the 1840s there was a concentrated effort to avoid the divisiveness of religion. Thus elements that were thought to be part of a common religion in the country held a prominent place in the schools. Reading from the Bible became a regular practice in many parts of the country. Rituals and prayers were commonly practiced in the schools. What the school did not do with religion was teach it. Ironically, educators who are designing religion curricula today still deny that the public school can teach religion.

A main reason why people interested in the public school want no part of teaching religion is that they assume religious organizations engage in that activity. But churches and other religious groups also object to the idea of teaching religion. They are suspicious of the word religion because it has general, objective, or academic connotations. Thus, the public school does not teach religion; the religious groups do not teach religion.

What I wish to do in this chapter is clarify the meanings of both teach and religion. After doing that I can proceed to describe in more detail the activity of teaching religion. The public school may have a peculiar idea of what It means to teach anything if it thinks that to teach religion is academically and constitutionally improper. Examining the teaching of religion may throw some light on the teaching of anything.

Religious bodies, I have said, are suspicious of religion, especially coming after the verb to teach. Nearly every religious group gives a prominent place to teaching, but what is to be taught is usually very restricted. One is not expected to teach religion but to teach the Word of God, Christian Doctrine, the way of the prophet, the catechism. A teacher may also be expected to teach by example, that is, he or she is to be a model of love, kindness, or the way.

A discussion of teaching in Christian churches will usually turn to the New Testament. Jesus of Nazareth is often referred to there as the teacher. Greek and Semitic notions of teaching were apparently similar: the teacher taught by giving example in a community. With the beginning of the church, however, the Christian movement had to face the same problem as have other religious groups, namely, after the teacher has departed how do the disciples pass on a way of life that has to be grasped largely through texts?

The solution to that dilemma is reflected in the way that New Testament literature used the word teach. The early church generally uses teaching as a follow-up to preaching. First one has to be converted on the occasion of announcing or preaching. (The deeper causes of conversion are another question.) When someone becomes a member of the assembly, he or she is ready for instruction in the details of the faith. Within this framework a teacher is one of the ministers of the church. Catholics as well as Protestants now refer to the "teaching ministry of the church."

The example of Jesus and the practice of the early church are relevant material for reflecting on the nature of teaching. But the academic field of religious education cannot directly appropriate New Testament language. Furthermore, while the New Testament has some fine material on the meaning of to teach, it has almost nothing to say about the teaching of religion. For many church people this fact is enough to prove that the teaching of religion is either innocuous or destructive. Before someone jumps to that conclusion it would be helpful to explore an alternate possibility, namely, that teaching religion cannot produce church members, but it. may be useful and even necessary for church membership today.

In summary, the idea of teaching religion does not fit smoothly within either the public school or the religious organization. Possibly after the concept has been examined, the teaching of religion might still be considered peripheral to the interests of both institutions. My plea is simply that teaching religion be not a priori excluded from both institutions. If there is to be a field of religious education it has to find expression in the main educational and religious institutions of this society. The teaching of religion deserves examination as part of the field of religious education and in relation to educational and religious institutions.

The Teaching Act

What does it mean to teach something to somebody? This question has been investigated and debated in the West at least since the time of Plato. In Eastern religions a concern with teaching goes back much further. I make no pretensions to solve the issue once and for all. But I do think it is possible to insist upon a few distinctions that would open the issue of teaching religion in public school or in church/ synagogue to more fruitful discussion.

First, I am assuming that religious education is a much larger issue than teaching religion. The description in chapter 2 of what is included in the whole field of religious education made little mention of the teaching of religion. I am presupposing that framework as I now turn to the meaning of teach religion. If church members say that religious education includes the practice of prayer, the example of parents, or actions for a just world, I can agree. I am also concerned that religious education ,include the teaching of religion as an important and neglected element.

Second, I am especially interested in school teaching as contrasted to other settings where one can use the verb to teach. Between the school and non-school usage of the word teach there is continuity of meaning as well as some difference. I take the word school to refer mainly to literacy. Schooling is a form of education which depends upon learning to read and learning to read better. A school teacher cannot be judged successful unless students are able to understand the world through printed symbols.

To teach is to show someone how to do something. That is a common sense statement, but I think it is also the basis for scientific analysis. The act of teaching is a process that can be broken down into a series of steps. Some theories of teaching emphasize one or another of these steps. One person may see as most important what another views as secondary (e.g., the teacher's role in motivating the learner). If one concentrates on the act of teaching itself, rather than the teacher or the preconditions of the situation, the key issue is clearer. The act of teaching is captured in that wonderful Americanism, "know-how."

A teacher does not only know something but knows how to show the knowledge or skill to someone else. Sometimes the mastery of the teacher is obvious and expected. We are not surprised, for example, that Ted Williams could teach young baseball players to improve their hitting because Williams had extraordinary ability, training, and experience. But very often the best teachers in baseball are not the expert players. Perhaps their skill is In studying the best players and knowing how to explain things to less experienced players. An element of truth resides in the cynical adage: those who can, do; those who cannot, teach. A teacher of the violin may have "know-how" in training a student that the master violinist lacks.

Here is the source of the teacher's glory and humility: many of the learners will far outdistance the teacher.

I have referred above to baseball players and violinists as examples of teaching-learning. Reflection on teaching should begin with instances where the movement of the body is evident. School teaching has to be understood in relation to dealing with preverbal infants, music, sport, and all those situations where words are mainly choreography for the body. School teaching is a peculiar limit situation where the know-how turns back on the words themselves. Schools are places for teachers of words, a material that can be the richest of human resources or, when badly used, the thinnest of substances. Developmental psychology supports the traditional wisdom of not subjecting children to schooling before age five or six. Children begin acquiring language in the first year of life, but the language is for naming reality and for story-telling. School makes sense only when a child becomes reflectively self-conscious and can begin abstracting language from things.

The power to manipulate words and mathematical symbols does not arrive all at once. Teachers of the young know that history or algebra cannot be taught to eight-year-olds because these studies require a level of abstraction that comes later. Awareness of such conditions (whether derived from classroom experience or from reading Piaget) is part of the l teacher's know-how. Most of schooling is directed at children who are still developing their conceptual powers. The strange thing is that our society seems to believe that school teaching should stop just when the power to school-learn is finally acquired.

This arrangement leads one to suspect that teaching is not the central concern of the schools that currently exist, or put differently, that teaching in schools is not primarily concerned with using the full range of verbal and conceptual powers. That suspicion is borne out by the history of the school teacher throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At the lower levels of education the teaching position has been one of nurturing; at the university level the job is usually called lecturing. These two ideas deserve some comment.

Teaching the young in this country has been assumed to be women's work. The prevalence of young women in the teaching profession is no accident. The nineteenth century was convinced of the perfect fit between being a woman and the profession of teaching. For Catherine Beecher, one of the most influential voices in this story, teaching was the natural extension of the "profession of womanhood." A woman's vocation was to mother or nurture the young. "Most happily, the education necessary to fit a woman to be a teacher, is exactly the one that best fits her for that domestic relation she is primarily designed to fill the struggle between Horace Mann and the Boston schoolmasters included the question of who would be the teachers. Mann's victory assured the dominance of "mother teacher. Teachers were women and teaching was nurturing. Religion played a role in this shift of meaning for teacher. Puritanism was at that time being replaced by a softer, sentimental religiosity. The image of God as a stern and punishing taskmaster gave way to a kind, loving, and undemanding God. The book published in the 1840s which stands at the crossroads of Protestant education is entitled Christian Nurture.' Horace Bushnell's masterpiece is still influential in religious circles today, and it is also important in the history of education. Bushnell wrote mainly about the family, where the word nurture obviously belongs. But he was not out of sympathy with Catherine Beecher's extension of the word nurture to teaching.

Bushnell's main concern was to offer an alternative to the revivalism of his day in which Protestant education was seen as preparation for conversion. He stressed the goodness and positive capacities of the child in opposition to the stern Protestantism that emphasized human depravity. Bushnell's work had a salutary effect on the church and especially the family, the main topic of Christian Nurture. Unfortunately, by lumping all the positive activity under the word nurture, Bushnell obscured the role of the school teacher. To this day teachers in church schools are described as people who nurture children in the faith. Bushnell's categories, nurture vs. conversion, still guide much of the discussion in church education. The autonomous activity of teaching does not appear at all. A teacher is not thought to be one who instructs, one who provokes the mind, one who searches after a truth that transcends all institutions.

At the university level one seldom hears discussion of the act of teaching. University professors have been predominantly men, and understandably they do not want to be classified as nurturers. Almost never would you hear a professor describe himself as a school teacher. Studies support this general impression. University professors identify themselves, not with the profession of education, but with their specialty of history, chemistry, or physics.'

Anyone who has been to a university can name good teachers he or she had. Very likely he or she can also make up a longer list of poor teachers. The sad fact is that whether the teaching is good or bad is largely an accident. Some people have native talent, an excellent speaking voice, or a flair for the dramatic. But teaching is seldom the major concern of the university; teaching is not consciously examined or cooperatively improved.

For lack of any other word to describe the university classroom, professors are said to lecture. Most of them in fact do not lecture, that is, they do not read to students. Professors in this country have seldom been comfortable bringing in a twenty-five-page written essay which can be read to a class in fifty minutes. The U.S. university is more casual and participatory than the word lecture suggests, although a residue of the form of lecturing is evident. What happens is often an awkward combination of lecturing, preaching, nurturing, and discussion.

Kenneth Eble, one of the few people studying university teaching, begins a chapter: "The best advice to the teacher who would lecture well is still: 'Don't lecture.' That is, for most of teaching to think in terms of discourse-talk, conversation-rather than lecture."' Eble does not take his own advice and goes on to write a chapter on lecturing. I think if he is intent on improving teaching-or even having teaching acknowledged as the work of the university-a more sustained attack upon the word lecture is needed. Substituting talk or conversation does nothing to change the basic form. Nor is what is needed more discussion groups in addition to lectures. What is needed is attention to the act of teaching as it occurs in everyday life.

In summary, teaching in the school setting ought not to forget its roots outside the school. Primary and secondary schools have to avoid letting teaching be absorbed by nurture; universities have to accept teaching as a responsibility distinct from scholarship. To teach is to show someone how to do something in such a way that it becomes part of th9~ learner's experience. To school teach is to show how to use words and concepts to understand this world. The public school shies away from teaching religion because that sounds like nurturing in the faith. But to show someone how to use words and concepts for understanding religion is a responsibility of the schools. If the strengths and the limits of teaching are to be grasped by school teachers, they need to reflect on those who teach infants to dress themselves, those who teach illiterate adults to read, those who teach music, coach sports, or work with the handicapped.

Religion: An Academic Construct

My concern in this chapter is the teaching of religion. Having clarified the verb to teach, I now turn to the concept religion. As I discuss it here, religion is the direct object of the word teach. I am not interested in what someone might mean by "religious teaching." I do not deny that there are other questions about the religious element in education but here I focus on the word religion.

Religion is a concept that has built-in limitations. This fact gives it an innocuous or negative meaning to many Christian groups. In the specific setting of school teaching, those limitations might be an advantage.

Religion appears to be a general idea applicable to a set of things called religions. But nearly all Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu groups would protest against their way of life being classified as one religion among others. The internal language of each of those groups contains distinctions between "we the people who are specially designated by God" and "everyone else." Other people have religion; we have the faith (the truth, God's Word, the revelation, the way).

As I indicated in chapter 3 there is an almost universal assumption in the modern world that this internal language of religious traditions is wrong and intolerant. The simple solution of modern scholarship is to eliminate the claims to chosen people or uniqueness; and then religion is a neatly scientific category. The protest of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or Muslim devotees is that such an idea of religion destroys what they consider most important in their way of life. This situation reveals the importance of teaching religion; that is, it would be the setting in which to examine the conflicting claims of traditional groups and modern scholars.

Religion is a word that goes back to pre-Christian history, but its usual meaning today dates only from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In both ancient and modern meanings, religion is one of the few words that has a chance of mediating Christian, Jewish, Orthodox, Muslim, and Hindu differences. In its ancient meaning, religio referred to the bond between God and the human manifested in attitude and behavior. The Christian church with its final answer to human longing saw itself pitted against the devotion (or religion) of the pagans. In time, the church took over many of the pre-Christian concepts, integrating them into its final solution. Some people view this process as a corruption, and undoubtedly there has been corruption, but it is difficult to imagine how the Christian movement could have avoided the absorption of non-Christian concepts. By the time of St. Augustine it was possible to write a treatise, De Vera Religione, referring to the genuine piety of Christians.

In the twentieth century we might assume that the title of Augustine's work means: Christianity is the one true religion among all the religions of the world. That idea is a modern thesis conceivable only after the invention of religion in scholarly circles. That is, our common understanding of religion as an object that can stand next to psychology or politics is a quite recent idea.

Is the modern idea of religion, as many conservative Christian groups maintain, an abomination applicable only to one's opponents? The distrust of this idea is understandable, but the total disjunction of Christianity and religion simply avoids facing up to an issue that will not go away. The existence of the modern concept of religion is evidence that there are a number of groups in the world who claim to be the true way. The two possibilities we now have to choose between are: (1) a respectful and growing understanding of the similarities and differences among major religious traditions; this means an education in religious matters including the teaching of religion; or (2) the union of religious groups is given over to scientists with a rationalistic bent; when that does not work, as it almost certainly will not, the job will be left to politicians and generals.

Religion, it is sometimes said, does not belong in school. My claim, based partly on the origin of its modern meaning, is that school is precisely where religion belongs. It Is an academic category which should not be casually thrown about anywhere but which can be an instrument of understanding in the world of books. Religion, like history, is not the name of an object; it is an idea and a method posited by scholars. It represents a commitment to use the mind in a search for truth. That can be dangerous, I have admitted, but it is more dangerous in the modern world to isolate oneself from modern inquiry into historical, scientific, and philosophical truth.

Religion is not what one lives. People follow the words of the prophet or live in Christ or become Bodhisatvas. None of these ideals can simply be reduced to a general classification of religion. But, for example, the meaning of "to live in Christ" might be developed by relating this ideal not only to the literature of the whole Bible but to other religious and non-religious ideals. This process of inquiry, despite the possible misunderstandings deserves to be called "the study and teaching of religion."

A "scientific study of religion" grew up in the environment of nineteenth-century rationalism and in reaction to Christian theology. This problem of origins has not been entirely surmounted. Christian scholars shift between wanting to take over the word religion and rejecting it entirely. We need a setting in which to work out the tensions between Christian and religious. Some bias against Christian tradition would be revealed but also some bias against non-Christian peoples.

The popular notion of modern science is not very hospitable to the peculiar practices and insistent commitments of religious people. Ian Barbour notes that if you think of religion as "articles of faith" and science as "tentative hypotheses," then there is unresolvable conflict between science and religion. But if what exists historically are religious traditions on one side and research traditions of science on the other side, a fruitful dialogue becomes possible.' Then one can teach religion just as one can teach physics while respecting the distinctive natures of the religious tradition and the research tradition of science. Religion signifies the willingness to use the mind to understand one's own religious tradition and that of other peoples.

Having separately analyzed the concepts of teach and religion, I return to my original question: "What does it mean to teach religion?" I have narrowed the question from both sides. The question is neither "What does it mean to educate people in religious matters?" (which includes more than teaching), nor "What does it mean to teach a person to act religiously?" (which includes more than religion). Rather, I am asking "What does it mean to show a person how to use words and concepts so as to understand a field called religion?"

The assumption I begin with is that there are activities and texts which are generally regarded as religious. Although there would be debates about whether to include some material, especially recent documents, the main religious traditions of the human race are fairly easy to identify It would be unwise to exclude all modern documents, but in establishing the existence of a field of religion it is easier to start with the Qu'ran, the Bhagavad Gita, or the Bible.

A first aim in teaching religion is to make the material intelligible, or more minimally stated, to show that the material is not unintelligible. A teacher can make some sense of what religious people do and can correlate the behavior with their verbal expressions. Concerning some contemporary movements there may be little sense to make; that is, close examination of a group may lead the student to the conviction that it is a fraud. But for any tradition that has lasted hundreds or thousands of years, one has to be cautious about drawing any final conclusions, especially the judgment that such a tradition is false or irrational.

A teacher can do no more than make partially intelligible the language of a religious tradition. Because religious language (or language used for a religious purpose) has a peculiar character, the teacher can only claim to have understood its meaning up to a point. Religious systems do ' not claim to explain the world completely, but they do claim to give a more comprehensive meaning to experience than any other systems. Religious documents can only be understood by someone willing to approach the texts with reverence, sympathy, and a willingness to see the entire picture conveyed by the documents.

The categories that have confused discussion in this area are subjective us. objective and a parallel contrast of believer us. unbeliever. Though there may be some limited usefulness to these concepts, their functioning as the framework of discussion obstructs understanding. Subjective/objective is an inappropriate instrument for describing the teaching of religion. Both the words teach and religion connote objectivity. "Objective teaching" and "teaching objective religion" are redundant phrases. On the other hand, there is no teaching without subjective involvement of a teacher, and there is no understanding of religion except through the subjective realm of religious people.

The appropriate framework is to view a religious text as a mediator between a community of the past and a community of the present. The school teacher's job is to see that the text has a chance to fulfill this role. Teaching religion is a case of "disciplined inter-subjectivity"9 A community (subjects) shares its insights with another community through the disciplined use of symbols (objects). The teacher has to be the most disciplined in trying to determine the meaning of what was said in the context of another era. The chief criteria of this disciplined inter-subjectivity are fairness and fullness.

Does one not need "faith" to understand the Bible or the Qu'ran? If the word faith could be used with all of its meaning it might be a helpful term here. One would have to distinguish among "believing in" as a fundamental attitude of trust, "belief" as an act of the mind, and "beliefs" as convictions held to be true. All three meanings can be developed in relation to diverse religious traditions. So long as writers say believer and unbeliever when they really mean Christian and not Christian then the role of faith in studying religion cannot be clarified.

For the understanding of religious meaning one has to participate in the meaning to some degree. The teacher has to be able to put himself or herself in the shoes of the writer and see the world from that perspective. Can anyone really do that? The answer would seem to be: Yes, up to a point. A white person cannot see the world from an identical perspective with a black. A man cannot see the world exactly as a woman. But our common humanity allows for some degree of participation. Can a Catholic understand a Lutheran text? Can a Republican understand Democratic policies? Religion and politics have some similarity here. To understand politics one has to participate in political life in some way. It is not necessary to belong to one of the major parties to understand politics; and if a person belongs to one party, it does not prevent his or her understanding the other party.

What then would be the difference in a course on religion in a public school and in a school under religious auspices? To be specific, what difference is there between teaching St. Mark's Gospel in PS 109 and in St. Mary's School?

The answer at the level of principle is that there will probably be more contextual meaning available in St. Mary's School. In the church school it might be assumed that students are already living in a way that embodies some of the meaning of the Gospel. They have some familiarity with the Gospel through exposure to parents, teachers, and symbols in their immediate environment. There should not be contradiction between what is taught in the two schools though there is room for difference in emphasis.

The above contrast is made at the level of general principle. In practice, the question of context gets extremely complex. Suppose a student at St. Mary's for one of a variety of reasons does not want to study St. Mark's Gospel. That factor may invalidate all the positive possibilities in the environment. Or suppose that the environment of St. Mary's is in a sense over rich in religious meaning. Too much of one kind of religious symbolism too early may make the high school student resistant to religion. The public school with a diversity of religious meanings and a non-religious context might actually be a more fruitful setting to study St. Mark's Gospel in depth. The crucial element is the discipline of the teacher. Does the teacher in the church school really attend to the text when there is no challenge of diverse religious positions? Does the teacher in the public school have the skill to judge fairly between differing positions? The academic, institutional, and political difficulties of teaching religion are great, but the direction in which to move is clear.

In a school, whether public or religiously affiliated, the main attention has to be on symbols, practices, and documents. That is not to say that the teaching of religion and the teaching of mathematics occur in identical form. The material of religion lends itself to a more personal involvement. The teacher draws upon the meaning of the environment which includes the experience of students and teachers. How much of the student's inner life comes into direct focus should depend upon the freedom of the student.

In his study of religious experience, Edward Robinson found that people seldom bring up their most personal and profound religious experience in school." This fact is a bad symptom of how people feel about school. I would still insist that the school teacher's main attention has to be symbols and text. If the setting Is reverent and non-threatening, the student will perhaps volunteer some of his or her private experience for discussion. If the student does not, there may be a failing on the teacher's part, but it may also be that the appropriate time and place have not yet arrived.

Religious groups often cannot see the necessity and value of teaching religion with the discipline and limitations I have indicated. They may wish the successful result (e.g., knowledge of the Bible) without the patience and the risk that are its conditions. Church schools are often unsuccessful because they do not wish to waste the time of truly being a school where literature is appreciated and a variety of religious literature is explored. There cannot be a Christian education without a religious education; Bible teaching presupposes book learning.

As the neo-orthodox reaction in Protestant education replaced the religious education movement in the 1950s, James Smart castigated those writers who were not truly Christian educators because they did not have Jesus Christ at the center." He does not consider the possibility that religious education, in addition to "the teaching ministry of the church," might be a help in building a bridge to the public school (which he treats in chapter 10) and might even be a help to Christian students in their church school. At one point, Smart notes: "Curiously, children treated under the second type of program, in which the Bible is not central, often come away with a better knowledge of the Bible than those who have been permitted to study nothing but the Bible."" I don't think it is curious at all. Those who "have been permitted to study nothing but the Bible" obviously will lack a sense of literature and be unable to appreciate the literary and historical scholarship that illuminates the Bible today.

In the past, religious bodies have often been accused of substituting indoctrination for teaching and sentimentality for scholarship. Teaching religion, especially in the context of the public school, has to avoid these deficiencies. When we react against the past, however, it is important to get the contrasts welt stated. An English writer says: "In the religious education of the seventies the ability to teach the subject no longer depends on the teacher's own convictions. He may be a Christian, he may belong to one of the other faiths, he may be a humanist. Or he may himself be searching and so not come into any of these categories."" The direction the English writer wishes to go may be discernible, but all three sentences state the case badly. Surely the convictions of a teacher are crucial, especially convictions about the nature of religion and the rules of fairness. "Christian one of the other faiths, humanist" is an illogical set of choices. And "searching" would seem to be an always desirable characteristic for teachers and religious people.

The question for the future is whether we can find ordinary teachers in sufficient numbers who can carry out the work of teaching religion in a responsible way. There will probably never be vast numbers of teachers who can knowledgeably comment on all the religious positions in the world. What we can realistically hope for is intelligent participants in religious life who grow in their skill as teachers. Religion is an academic construct. A teacher does not have to have mastered all of its intricacies before he or she starts to teach. The teacher just has to arrive at the point of being able to show someone that a religious life is not unintelligible and that while the teacher is deeply convinced of the value of his or her own position it is possible to respect and in part to understand other. positions.

The way in which I have been describing the teaching of religion does not assume that the students are children. Schooling is a form of learning that we require of the young, and on the whole the requirement is a wise one. Today, however, schooling is appropriate for people of any age. To the study of religion adults can bring a richness of personal context and a developed sense of fairness. A person at seventy or eighty years of age may finally be ready to confront the great religious texts with simplicity of outlook and a tolerance of diversity. Religious officials often seem unaware that many older people are in search of solid substance for the mind. The number who want intellectually challenging study in the area of religion is almost certain to increase in the coming decades. Public institutions of learning as well as religiously affiliated schools are not yet doing the teaching job in religion that needs to be done.

Work and Leisure Within Religious Education

The field of religious education has to include, besides schooling, other areas of learning. As I pointed out at the end of the last chapter, schooling is not or should not be reserved exclusively for children. The church and the university ought to be offering challenging courses on the Bible, church history, the Talmud, theology, and so on. Nonetheless, for the majority of adults school will probably occupy only a small part of their time. What more often engage their attention are questions of work and leisure. An educational model that excludes work and leisure cannot reach adults in their adult lives. The field of religious education should be especially concerned with the issues of work and leisure. The person who is designated "religious educator" in a parish may v feel unqualified to deal with topics raised in this chapter. That is not surprising; none of us can be experts on all these matters. Two points are helpful to keep in mind: (1) No one person is responsible for all of the religious education of others. That fact might relieve some anxieties about a failure to do the whole job; it might also get teachers to recognize new allies. (2) The teacher who cannot pretend to be competent in all aspects of work and leisure might play the role of catalyst; the experiences of other people in the church or synagogue might be drawn upon so that religious education becomes more of a team effort. As I note in chapter 10, many middle-aged men, precisely in the work side of their lives, are an untapped resource for religious education.

Numerous articles and books appear each month on work and leisure in the United States.' The word problem shows up in this literature not only in the discussion of jobs but also in the use of leisure time; the nature of the problem, however, is difficult to identify. Paradoxes abound: while some women are fighting to get into the job market, many women would like nothing better than to get out of it; some people are working to raise the retirement age, while in many places the retirement age is being lowered; leisure time is rapidly increasing for nearly everyone, but many people feel they have no leisure at all in their lives. I would suggest that the paradoxes surrounding the work/leisure