The name is absent

Ends and Means in Religious Education 27
this one-sided view in his classic Christian Nurture.¹ He
pointed out that even apart from its practical unworkability,
it clearly confuses different perspectives of interpretation
and meaning. Bushnell held that a drastic conversion experi-
ence is not necessary to mature religious development. He
insisted that the child of Christian parents ought always to
be regarded as a member of the household of God.

In spite of practical difficulties as well as sectarian plead-
ing, religious education must remain a major concern in a
democracy. No doubt, democracy and religion are too easily
equated with each other in partisan apologetics. Yet there
is ample evidence that the resurgence of tribal and national
cults which inevitably follows the rejection of high religion
has disastrous results for popular government. Value judg-
ments and religious commitment continue at an immoral,
often socially destructive level in totalitarianism. Religion
is a perennial phenomenon in the life of man which expresses
itself in a variety of attitudes and institutions, many of which
are not ecclesiastically oriented. Events of the past two
decades have made it increasingly evident that no compre-
hensive educational theory is justified in ignoring this all-
pervasive aspect of human experience.² In attempting to
re-orient and direct spiritual values, democracy touches man’s
fife at the most fundamental level.

John Dewey, although committed to naturalism in philoso-
phy, acknowledged the importance of positive belief and
devotion in his Yale Terry Lectures, A Common Faith.³
Dewey criticized tire sectarian, divisive character of the
world’s great religions, but none the less recognized the in-
dispensability of the “religious attitude” in inspiring a spirit
of sacrifice and unselfishness. Most theologians, in reply, point
out that Dewey’s interpretation is incomplete even at the

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