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Continuing
Lehre und Wehre (Vol. LXXVI)
Magazin fuer Ev.-Luth. Homiletik (Vol. L1V)
Theol. Quarterly (l897-1920)-Theol. Monthly (Vol. X)
Vol. II March, 1931 No.3
CONTENTS
Page
ARNDT, W.: Erasmus' Angriff auf Luther im Jahre 1524 161
KRETZlVIANN, P. E.: Das Widerstreben des Menschen und
unwiderstehliche Gnade................. . . . . .. . . . . .. . .. 170
DALLlVIANN, WlVI.: How Peter Became Pope... . . . . . . . . .. 177
MUELLER, J. T.: Concerning the Doctrine of Inspiration 190
KRETZ MANN, P. E.: Testimonials for the Lutheran Po-
sition in Education.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 193
LAETSCH, TH.: Study on the Eisenach Epistle-lesson for
the Third Sunday in Lent............................. 204
Dispositionen ueber die von der Synodalkonferenz ange-
nommene Serie alttestamentlicher Texte ............... 210
Theological Observer. - Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches. . . . .. 218
Book Review. - Literatur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 232
Ein Prediger mnss nicht allein weiden,
also dass er die Schafe unterwelse, wie
sie rechte Christen sollen sein, Bondern
auch daneben den Woelfen wehren, dass
sie die Schafe nicht angreifen und mit
falscher Lehre verfuehren und Irrtum ein-
fnehren. - Luther.
Es ist kein Ding, das die Lente mehr
bei det Kirche behaelt denn die gute
Predigt. - Apolouie, Art. 24.
If the trumpet give an uncertain sound,
who shall prepare himself to the battle?
1001'.14,8.
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of lVIissouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, lVIo.
Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education. 193
objectively, freed from the prejudice which modern German theo-
logians have injected into the matter, he will find that Lutheranism
has always had "a dogma on the subject" and that this dogma is
thoroughly Scriptural, so that no Lutheran theologian ought to depart
from it, even by a hair's breadth. This dogma is presented by Dr. A.
L. Graebner in his Outlines of Doctrinal Theology as follows: "The
Bible was written by divine inspiration, inasmuch as the inspired
penmen performed their work as the personal organs of God, especially
of the Holy Spirit, who not only prompted and actuated them toward
writing what they wrote, but also suggested to them both the thoughts
and the words they uttered as they wrote." This nicely formulated
proposition agrees with what orthodox I.utheran theologians have at
all times believed concerning the inspiration of Holy Scripture.
JOHN THEODORE MUELLER •
• • •
Testimonials for the Lutheran Position
in Education.
We Lutherans of the Synodical Oonference are sometimes in-
clined to be somewhat apologetic with regard to our whole system of
religious instruction. This is true even of our catechetical training
in preparation for the rite of confirmation and the admission to adult
or communicant membership in the Ohurch. How else shall we ex-
plain the lowering of standards of indoctrination, particularly in
adult classes? And yet, apart from Scripture precept and example,
we have the support of some of the stanchest champions of the Bible,
as when J. Gresham Machen writes, in his book What Is Faith?
(p. 156 f.): "It should, I think, be made much harder than it is now
to enter the Ohurch; the confession of faith that is required should
be a credible confession,' and if it becomes evident upon examination
that a candidate has no notion of what he is doing, he should be
advised to enter upon a course of instruction before he becomes
a member of the Ohurch. Such a course of instruction, moreover,
should be conducted, not by comparatively untrained laymen, but
ordinarily by the ministers; the excellent institution of the catechet-
ical class should be generally revived. Those churches, like the Lt~
theran bodies in America, which have maintained that institution
have profited enormously by its employment; and their example
deserves to be generally followed." 1)
But just as little as we have reason to be ashamed of our tradi-
tional thorough course of instruction preceding the admission to adult
1) Cpo the present author's The Religion of the Ohild, and Other
Essays, pp. 54-62, passim. - The italics throughout this article are ours.
13
194 Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education.
membership in the Lutheran Ohurch, so little is there need of an
apologetic air when the question concerns the full-time instruction
given in our week-day church schools, our so-called day-schools or
Lutheran parish-schools. The Biblical principles which have caused
us to maintain this institution, as received from our fathers, are
well known in our circles and have been set forth time and again in
books, articles in our various church publications, and essays read
at synodical conventions.2)
But it seems not to be generally known in our circles that some
of the outstanding educators in America, especially in various Re-
formed denominations, have emphasized the same principles of educa-
tion and training that have impelled us to establish our parish-school
system. In looking over his files, the present writer was struck by
the number of testimonies from such sources setting forth the same
truths which we have so consistently presented to our own congrega-
tions. The following selections are chosen almost at random, but
they will amply demonstrate our contention that educators who have
made a careful study of the entire field are bound to reach the same
conclusions concerning religion as the one sound basis of true
education.
Our first quotation is from a book by H. F. Oope, General Sec-
retary of the Religious Education Association, who for a number of
years was very active in the field of general and religious education.
He writes: _3)
"Religious instruction is the peculiar responsibility .of religious
agencies. Under the system of government in the United States the
State assumes no responsibility for the content of religious instruc-
tion. The State can make no specific provision to ensure to children
their heritage of knowledge of religion. That is because the content
and character of this knowledge is recognized to be a 'matter of con-
science'; because it is impossible to teach religion without teaching
a particular kind of religion. The State refuses to particularize in
religion. It will in no way, either positively or negatively, either by
provision or prohibition, interfere with freedom of conscience. The
separation of Ohurch and State has resulted in the separation of
religious knowledge from general knowledge. This is a very essential
and vital part of our theory of freedom in the State, one in which
every lover of truth and religion ought to rejoice, because it forever
renders impossible the suppression of truth; it prevents oppression
by any majority in secular power, and it is the basis of our whole
life of freedom.
2) Cpo the very recent essays by Rudnick, A. Brunn, Dannenfeldt,
and others.
3) The Week·day Ohurch School, pp. 28. 29. 38. 39. (Publ. by Doran.)
Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education. 195
"This theory applied, results in a definite situation: public educa-
tion is curtailed as to its curriculum. It is forced to omit an es-
sential subject. Public education in the United States is thoroughly
secularized.
"Now, this does not involve secularization in any reprehensible
sense; it need not and ought not to mean that public education is
destructive of spiritual idealism. School people do not have to be
materialists. The fact that the school cannot teach religion does not
set it in opposition to religion. So far as the theory of freedom is
concerned, it only means that religion as a definite subject of study
is excluded from the curriculum of public schools.
"But it must be evident to anyone that a system of education
that omits religion in its training for life tends to train for life that
omits religion. But this is only the negative side; the churches must
teach religion, not only because the schools must not, but because they
cannot. Only a religious agency can engage in religious education.
No other social agency, as conditions now are, either will or can dis-
charge this responsibility.
"Still considering types of week-day instruction which originate
in, and are conducted by, the individual church, we come to the
group which approaches much nearer to a system of religious instruc-
tion. These are found:-
"1. In parochial schools. One is content with only slight refer-
ence to the well-known parochial schools conducted by Lutheran and
certain other churches because here religious instruction is integral in
the gene'ral program of each school. So far as concerns our problem,
that of providing with religious instruction children attending state
schools, the significant lesson of the parochial school is that thorough
general education is possible even where definite time is taken daily
for specifically religious instruction. Using daily from thirty to sixty
minutes for this purpose and still carrying full-grade studies does not
seem to injure the health or derange the social programs of children
in parochial schools. Where the parochial schools are required to
carry the exact schedules of the public schools, an additional period
is prefixed to the morning studies; pupils often arrive at such schools
at eight or at eight-fifteen A.lIL daily. Where parochial-school work
compares unfavorably with public school work, the inferiority is due
not to the fact of religious instruction, but to the fact that the
tBachers, the 'sisters,' often come from training seriously inadequate
and quite inferior to that of grade-school teachers.
"While the parochial school is not the American solution of our
problem [~J, it ought constantly to rebuke Protestant indifference
with the picture of a people who take children seriously, who are
willing to be doubly taxed for education in order that their children
might be trained for their Ohurch.
196 Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education.
"The subject of parochial schools, in the sense of schools sup-
ported by churches and designed to give children their entire school-
ing, is too large for discussion here. But it is well to remember that
the enterprise of week-day schools of religion is not a new one, that
many churches through centuries have held the religious instruction
of children so important that they have made the very large sacrifices
necessary to maintain duplicate school systems. Whatever we may
think of parochial schools, and much as we may lament the separation
of children in sectarian groups [?], these schools are a testimony to
the earnestness and consistency of the Roman Oatholic and Lutheran
communions, to the sincerity of religious purpose with which they
regard their children, and to their willingness to put into practise
their convictions of spiritual responsibility for the young."
Our next selection is from a recent book by H. S. Tuttle, Pro-
fessor of Educational Sociology at the University of Oregon. His
book is entitled Character Education by State and Church,4) and the
following paragraphs are of particular interest to us:-
"Every experience of life which comes to be felt in its relation to
the total system of unified value - to God's will- becomes religious.
Religion cannot be added to the program. It can only be organized
into it. The more intimately the experiences of life can be associated
with conscious religious experiences, the more religious will all life
become.
"In varying degrees this principle is recognized in the efforts of
religious educators to relate a richer program of religious training to
the high business of secular education.
"'The objective of religious education is complete Ohristian
living, the Ohristian motive in the making of all life choices.'
"'The educational experience of the learner should be a unified
consistent whole, resulting in the highest integration of personality.'
" 'As a result of these newer trends in education there is a grow-
ing consciousness that education is a continuous process in the ex-
perience of the child and that some sort of articulation must be
worked out between religious education and public education. Relig-
ion cannot be taught apart from the rest of the child's experience and
be effective as religion.'
"'In the presence of the emergence of this new sense of the
fundamental importance of religious education there is a growing
consciousness of a need of complete reconstruction of the traditional
methods of religious education. There is a refreshing spread of the
conviction that religious education, if it is to be vital, must permeate
and affect all life and not remain a departmentalized system of
dogma or one wholly identified with a specialized institution.'
4} Oharaote1' Eduoation by State and Ohuroh, pp. 89-91. (The Abing-
don Press.)
Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education. 197
" 'If religion is to be vital, it should be correlated both with life
and the week-day school. It must be taught, and it must be prac-
tised, every day in the week.'
"'Moral and religious training is most efficacious when it is
joined with instruction in other kinds of knowledge. It should so
permeate these that its influence will be felt in every circumstance
of life.'
"The three current plans of cooperation between Ohurch and
State treated in succeeding chapters permit the inclusion of religion
as such and with it a definite e:ffort at motivating conduct. It is this
element that accounts for the demand for one or more of these plans
in addition to the character-education program of the public school."
A third quotation is taken from a book edited by Walter M.
Howlet, Secretary of Religious Education of the Greater New York
Federation of Churches.5) The paragraphs quoted are from essays by
J. Valdemar Moldenhauer and John W. Suter. They read:-
"Some principles are now accepted as imperative. First, every
Ohurch that has given any serious thought to the question of religious
education insists that the Ohurch is responsible for the expense in-
curred in carrying on this work among the children and young people.
It is hardly necessary to argue that the Ohurch should properly main-
tain its institutions of religious education rather than have it sup-
ported by the old, simple system of making the children themselves
bring their pennies and nickels and pay for their own religious educa-
tion. We have put the support of the church-school in the church
budget. Some churches say that their expenses are such that it is
out of the question to adopt such a plan, but they admit that it is
the proper way.
"The right way for us as Ohristians would be to have the Ohurch
teach our children secular knowledge,' but there are many reasons
why we cannot do this at the present time. [?J It would be ideal
for the Ohurch to teach its boys and girls everything they have to
learn - arithmetic, reading, writing, etc. - and mix it all in with
religion, helping the children to see that there is only one universe
and one God and that no two truths can ever contradict each other.
"What I am advocating now is putting God in the center. It is
the only thing that matters. We must think of each boy and girl
and ask ourselves this question, 'What effect is my school having on
this boy or girl with respect to his or her relation to God? We have
been saying, 'What effect has this school on this boy?' But I want
to rivet attention on what effect this school has on the boy in respect
to this boy's relation to God. It is all right to teach him how to draw
neat maps and see how he improves from September to June; but
5) Religion the Dynamic of Education, pp. 63. 64. 99. 102. 103. (Har-
per & Bros.)
198 Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education.
our school does not exist to make him an expert cartographer. What
I want to know is, What influence has God upon that boy's life? If
that boy is influenced more by God in June than in September, I want
that increasing influence to be what my school has helped to do for
the boy. The whole point of the religious life is to put people into
a position where their hearts and souls are open to the play of the
Spirit upon them, so that God will be helping them make their
choices and thus leading them into acts of purity and honesty and
kindness, and so on. That is what it is all about, and nothing but
God should be in the center of our curriculum and efforts in religious
education.
"Now, that is why the old-timers were really right. When they
put the Bible in the center, they meant God. I am making a collec-
tion of the points at which modern religious education is very like
the old, and here is one of the points. Some of us have been rather
poking fun at the Bible-school. But these people meant God and had
the right idea." Add to these statements the need of knowledge of
Jesus Ohrist as the Savior of mankind, and you have a very fine plea
indeed.
Our next quotation is from a book by G. J. Jordan, a writer who
has been doing extensive work in the field of religious psychology.6)
He writes:-
"Imitation is a powerful instinctive tendency in the religious life
of a child. A parent affirms this fact when he tells his friends, 'We
must go to church now; you see the children are beginning to notice
things.' However powerful the inner urge towards religion may be,
it can find no outlet except through the use of this instinctive process.
In this sense it is like language; ideas are fundamental, but their
expression depends on the child's power to imitate the words of those
around it. A small boy of four years, brought up on the prairie,
came to England and was present when two little girls were saying
their evening prayer. He asked what they were doing, why they were
putting their hands together and closing their eyes, who God was, and
why they spoke to one whom they could not see. This little fellow had
not heard prayers or grace throughout his short life, and his imitative
powers had not been utilized. The Roman Ohurch owes much of its
success among the children to its knowledge of the psychology of
imitation. It is an inspiring sight to see hundreds of Roman Oatholic
children recite the Oreed with the reverent bowing and genuflection
at the appropriate words. The children are quite uncritical; but the
battle for their souls is half won. The secret is that imitation pro-
duces habit in the child because he has no inhibitions and no previous
experience and is by his feeling mass very suggestible; and imitation
6) A Short Psyohology of Religion, pp. 46. 47. (Harper & Bros.)
Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education. 199
of a bodily state means the incipient sharing of the mental attitude
behind it. The psychology of religion might have a good deal to say
in favor of the resumption of the old custo_ms of family prayers and
saying of grace at meal-times and other modes of religious expres-
sions which our fathers practised and which so many of us have
outgrown."
A fifth selection of statements advocating full religious training
is taken from a book by H. J. Sheridan, in the Standard Training
Series edited by E. B. Ohappe1.7) He writes on the responsibility of
the Ohurch:-
"In the complexity of the influences going into the making of
the life of the day the Ohurch finds its opportunity and responsibility.
It must guide, create, repress, inspire, and steady. The task is im-
portant and attractive.
"First of all, the question should be asked of the Ohurch, as it has
been asked of other social institutions, Is it possible that this institu-
tion is in some respect creating problems instead of solving them,
making things worse instead of better?
"To those who are inclined to regard this question as unnecessary
it may be well to point out that the criticism is occasionally made that
the Ohurch is responsible for the development of undesirable character
traits. A prominent educator, a man interested in religion and all
that the Ohurch stands for, once said that he thought it probable that
children learned more harm than good at Sunday-school. In support
of his position he cited cases of boys and girls who had developed
habits of irreverence and inattentiveness during prayer and the
singing of hymns, who had learned to abuse the property of the church,
who had become jealous of others as a result of participating in
various Sunday-school contests.
"Probably few of us would join in a wholesale condemnation of
the Sunday-school, but we must admit that there is something of truth
in this criticism. We have all known cases where something quite
different from the thing which the teachers professed to teach was
learned.
"Nor do we find it hard to understand how this has happened.
Our study of the learning process helps us to realize that it is possible
for the total church-school situation to develop undesirable habits
and attitudes at the same time that the teaching is definitely intended
to result in the development of quite different ones.
"The first task of the church-school, then, is to examine its own
total program in order to see if it is all of such a nature as to secure
good results. Nothing should be overlooked. The building, its equip-
ment, its up-keep, text-books, other educational materials, the school
7) Growth in Reli,qion, pp. 79. 80. (The Cokesbury Press.)
200 Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education.
program and spirit, the attitudes and outlook of the teachers - all
these must be in harmony with the best standards."
Let us next take a book edited by H. H. Sherman, General Sec-
retary of the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church
South, in a published symposium of a Conference on Religion and
Education held in 1929.8) In an article furnished by Paul B. Kern
the following passage occurs:-
"All programs in religious education lead at last to the local
church. It is here that they fail or succeed, and by this test they
must at last be judged. The General Motors, manufacturers of
automobiles for the public, have in connection with their plant
a proving-ground. Here every condition of road is encountered, and
before any car is offered to the public it must meet the rigid test
imposed upon it on the proving-ground. Here are steep grades and
rough roads and dangerous curves and -mud-holes, and no car is
worthy of the public's dollar which cannot successfully encounter
every one of these difficulties. The local church is the proving-ground
of educational theory. Here a negative pragmatism at least operates.
If the plan will not work there, it is not sound. The local church
offers every kind of test for our educational theories. Here is the
steep hill of indifference, the rough road of lack of equipment, and
the bogs of untrained leadership and dulness of vision. Hence we
are at the center of the problem when we think of 'The Congregation
in Action in the Field of Christian Education.'
"There are two words in the title of this address that arrest my
attention immediately, and I ask you to pause a moment at the be-
ginning to look at these words. First, 'the congregation.' It is an
abstract term, broad and general; but back of its generality is at
last a group of individual persons, and we shall not feel the thrill
of this task if we forget that at last the local church is simply a group
of God's individual children united and personally struggling and
living in the co=union of saints. The church is a living thing."
We finally quote from two books by Walter Albion Squires,
Director of Week-day Religious Instruction of the Presbyterian
Church.g) He writes:-
"Mechanistic psychology would destroy all thought of this cen-
trality of Jesus in the religious life of the individual. It denies to
consciousness all power to modify conduct, and it discredits the
8) Education and Religion, pp. 63. 64. (The Cokesbury Press.)
9) Psychological Foundations of Religious Education, pp. 134-136;
The Pedagogy of Jesus in the Twilight of To-day, pp. 30. 31. 275. 276. 291.
292. (Both books published by Doran.) .Another book by the same author,
Educational Movements of To-day, published by the Board of Christian
Education of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S . .A., presents the same
arguments.
Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education. 201
mystical reality of religion. If Jesus cannot affect the life of an
individual through His teachings and through the influence of His
matchless life, if He cannot come into soul contact with the souls
that believe in Him, He is altogether excluded as a factor in the
determination of human conduct and the building of human character.
"Religious Education which Is No Longer Christ-centered.-
The customary educational program of the Protestant Church has
been woefully defective. The time set apart for this great task has
been so inadequate as to make effective teaching well-nigh impossible.
Teachers have been for the most part well-meaning, but inefficient
amateurs. Supervision has been almost wholly lacking. Lesson
materials have been unattractive in form and sometimes unsuited in
subject-matter to the age groups for which they were intended.
Ohurch-schools have failed to reach any large proportion of the chil-
dren of the land and have offered such a poor program that the pupils
enrolled have usually gone away without forming any lasting relation-
ships with the Church. And yet this sadly defective program has
produced some remarkable results. Eighty-seven per cent. of all the
additions to the Protestant churches of our country comes out of the
Sunday-school. There must be something tremendously vital in
religious education to enable it to function at all ttnder so many
handicaps.
"What we need is adequate time for religious nurture, a program
pedagogically complete, trained and conscientious teachers, skilled
.supervision, and lesson materials suited to the different periods of life.
We do not need a new theology, in which the God revealed in ,r e8118
Ohrist is lost to view and a dim problematical Deity builded out of
human social relationships set up in His stead. I am fully persuaded
that all improvements in teaching methods and in lesson materials
will count for naught if we build our hopes upon a program in which
the world's Savior is not central.
"A type of religious education which is no longer Christ-centered
is already manifest in America, and it can be traced to the type of
psychology which is taught in many of our colleges and universities.
We have lesson courses that are almost wholly extra-Biblical in their
·content and which make only incidental references to the life and
teachings of Jesus. We have text-books for the religious instruction
of high-school pupils in which the life of Jesus is presented with
hardly a suggestion concerning His unique character and His pro-
fessed relationships to God. We have project-teaching which aims at
social service and a sense of universal brotherhood and which is
falling flat because an adequate incentive is lacking. It was Jesus
who first set the hearts of people aflame for service and brotherhood.
Any program of religious education which does not center in Him,
which does not provide adequate information concerning Him and
202 Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education.
lead to a personal choice of Him as Savior and Lord, may run along for
a little while on borrowed power, but it must fail in the end because
of unreliable incentives."-
"An Enlarging Oonception as to the Imp01·tance of Religious
Education. - That there is a growing conception as to the importance
of religious education is evident to all who have given careful heed to
the matter. Such a conception is by no means universal, nor is it
even general, but it is growing here and there, sometimes in places
most unexpected. Even the nation-wide conspiracy of the freethinkers
to destroy the week-day church-school movement is an evidence that
these opponents of religion realize the far-reaching consequences which
arise when religion is adequately taught to children. The efforts of
mechanistic psychology and materialistic philosophy to capture the
schools of the Ohurch indicate that even in the greatest universities
of the land the church-schools are seen to be of weighty importance.
"Our ablest public-school leaders have discovered a grave defect
in American education which they realize only religious teaching can
fill. Public-school people who are idealists, and most of them are,
have come to understand that under our system of government the
most vital elements of education cannot be secured in tax-supported
schools. Through first-hand contact with the childhood and youth of
the nation these teachers are learning to appreciate the importance of
religious education. Judges of juvenile courts have seen the tide of
delinquency among children and youth mounting higher and higher,
and they have been compelled to conclude that the only basic remedy
lies in the religious nurture of the young.
"'Telling' is the pedagogy of Jesus. It is quite impossible to
bring the teaching methods of Jesus into line with the theories of
those who would eliminate the informational phases of education.
He was continually giving His pupils information. He gave them
such information as was needed when they were face to face with
a situation demanding a choice, but He also gave them information
under other circumstances. He evidently gave much religious in-
formation, confidently expecting that it would become a part of the
intellectual background of His pupils, manifesting itself as attitudes
and ideals and capable of helping the pupil to make right choices in
a wide range of situations. He seems to have taken the common-sense
view that a wen-informed mind is capable of thinking clearly and
accurately on matters of conduct and is therefore more likely to make
right choices than is the case with an uniformed and confused mind.
The Great Teacher sometimes told His pupils things which they could
comprehend in only the dimmest sort of way and which they were not
yet capable of applying to their own conduct. He did things that
puzzled them greatly. He once said to one of them, 'What I do thou
knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.' True teachers of
Testimonials for the Lutheran Position in Education. 203
the Christian religion must be like their Leader. They must not be
too much bound by that which is immediately practicable. They must
take a long look ahead and think of their pupils as they will be, not
merely of them as they are.
"J esus made much use of 'telling' because it had to do with
thought. He knew that in touching the thinking of His pupils, He
was touching their lives. He put great emphasis on thinking. He
believed that 'out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."
He taught His disciples to believe that evil acts were the expression
of evil thoughts, that good acts were the result of right thoughts.
His pedagogy cannot be reconciled with any theory which holds that
thinking always follows action as a result and never precedes it as
a cause.
"The Centrality of Jesus in the Christian Religion. - Perhaps
the solution of our problem is suggested by the inherent nature of
the Ohristian religion. Ohristianity is unique among all the religions
of the world with regard to the place it assigns to its Founder in its
system of doctrine and in the life which it enables its adherents to
attain. Jesus is central in the Christian religion. He is central in
the Sacred Writings, which have such an important place in the
Ohristian religion. If we make Jesus central in the educational pro-
gram, the Scriptures will be central in the way that they ought to be
central.
"To make Jesus central in the program is to make the pupil
central also. To make Jesus central is to make the pupil's needs
central. Every need that religious education is commissioned to
supply is found in Him who said, 'I am the Vine, and ye are the
branches. Without Me ye can do nothing.' There is no character
trait that is desirable which He does not possess in perfection. He is
the perfect ideal, and if He is so central in the teaching of the Ohurch
that children and youth are enabled to see Him as He is, the founda-
tions of their religious development are thereby laid. It is well
enough to emphasize the fact that the religious teacher ought to know
the pupil; but the thing of transcending importance is that the pupil
should be taught to know Jesus. To know Him is the first step in the
process of becoming like Him.
"To make Jesus central in the program is to make the program
truly life-centered. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life; no man
cometh unto the Father but by Him. To make Him central in the
religious educational program is to make life in its totality central
in the program. He was perfect in His physical, intellectual, and
spiritual development. His was the ideal life. His life, and not the
imperfect life of the pupil, is fitted to establish the governing prin-