Principles of Religious Education
George E. Dawson
1904
The Biblical World
RELIGIOUS education should be conformed in its aim and subject-matter to the standards of modern science. It must fit into the general program of organic and psychic development that nature has sketched in the laws of individual and social life. Without encroaching unduly upon the education given in the public schools, it must nevertheless draw more of its material from the same sources, interpreting and using this material for religious encls. We can never have a complete religion or a
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... science until the two types of knowledge and experience are reciprocally interpreted. If this cannot be done in the public schools, then it must be done through religious agencies. This is not to say that the Bible shall yield its place to scientific material. It means merely that the two complementary bodies of knowledge shall be mutually related in such a way as to give the child, not only religious ideals and impulses, but also a command of natural things and forces that will make these ideals and impulses really eflScient. Surely something is wrong with the aim and subject-matter of religious education when churches are filled with people, not only in the pews, but also in the pulpits, who, while professing a theological salvation, evidently violate the laws ot life in their own bodies, in their emotional and intellectual natures, and in their economic and moral relations to society. The worst symptom in the present life of the church is not the falling off in attendance or contributions. It is the organic and psychical degeneration of men and women who attend and contributewho believe they are *'saved," and yet, estimated by every physiological and psychological standard, are not. A belief in a type of salvation that encourages neglect of the body, and thus undermines the physical basis of life, inevitably leads to organic 366 This content downloaded from 138.073.
doi:10.1086/473394
fatcat:5ntqyr4yzzegdepc53w75iftii