Ends and Means in Religious Education 45
Religious education must look for a more valid synthesis
of faith and culture than is possible from obscurantism—either
secular or religious. Because cultures change, this synthesis
must remain always tentative and incomplete.26 No human
way of life, even a religious one, can be absolute for theism.
Interpretations of creed, cultus and conduct must all point
beyond themselves, directing the worshipper to God himself.
In short, the Absolute, although present to the relative, need
not be equated with it. A dynamic, living faith in God tran-
scends in principle the cultural orientation of any single era.
In a democratic society, religious education has a new
and difficult responsibility for tire appropriation of truth
which is little short of staggering. Religious leadership is
never justified in ignoring the best knowledge of the time in
any field. Piety is no substitute for serious inquiry or factual
knowledge. The higher criticism of the Bible as well as the
revolutionary discoveries of modern science have led to a
new world view. Apart from all uncritical attacks on ortho-
doxy, many religious ideas of the past require serious recon-
struction. Refigious scholarship has a doubly serious respon-
sibility, inasmuch as reinterpretation can have lasting signifi-
cance only as it proceeds from positive insight.
Ultimately, worship is of fundamental importance in pro-
moting creative attitudes in both the individual and society.
The antithesis between the content-centered and the indi-
vidual-oriented methodologies is resolved in the practice of
devotion.27 Worship is a unique resource for influencing the
deepest wellsprings of personal life in terms of both attitude
and idea. When it is creative and vital, it requires that the
individual examine himself with special urgency in the pres-
ence of the deity. Of course, religious ceremony and ritual
can reinforce bigotry and serve as an escape from reality.