Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 89:354 (Apr 1932)
Article: Some Presuppositions Of Religious Education
Author: John E. Kuizenga

BSac 89:354 (April 1932) p. 157

Some Presuppositions Of Religious Education1

John E. Kuizenga

“That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” —2 Tim. 3:17

Hold thou the good: define it well:
For fear divine philosophy
Should push beyond her mark, and be
Procuress to the Lord of Hell.

—Tennyson: In Memoriam.

Every meaning and value of religion comes to a burning focus in religious education. Every truth most distinctive of Christianity, every thing in it which makes us regard Christianity as supremely precious is at stake in the simple mater of training up our children in the way we think God wants them to go. This was driven home to my mind one night in a picture thrown upon the screen in the course of a popular lecture.

The lecturer was Prof. John B. DeMotte, the lecture the popular psychological lecture, “The Harp of the Senses.” This was the picture. We in the audience seemed to be looking down from a height upon a village. It was night. In the lower foreground of the picture was a village church, its windows softly aglow from the light within, its spindling spire pointing to the sky. Around the church in cluster were the little homes of the village, each radiating out light from its windows. Above was the deep blue of the star spangled heavens. Right in the centre of the picture, floating above the village and above the church, was a beautiful, golden-haired baby its shimmering garments trailing behind, its little arms lifted appealing to the gleaming stars. Underneath the picture was the legend: “It is serious business starting a child towards heaven.”

It was beautiful work. As the picture was fixed there for a little while on the screen before that large audience,

BSac 89:354 (April 1932) p. 158

there came home to my heart startlingly not only the realization that it is responsible business being a parent or a teacher, but also this other larger truth that everything which makes Christianity, Christianity is involved in the work of our religious schools. When we undertake to train a child, it is because we believe in a certain outlook on life. There is a certain way of living which is supremely valuable, which must be attained at all costs. Not to get our children to live in that way is to leave them in a way that is tragedy. To get them to live in a certain way is the highest life holds for them and for us, just because we accept a view of God and man and their relation. Christian education in simplest definition consists in helping a child find his true relation to God, with true life here ...