A study of religious education: its nature, its aims, its manifestations

Much has been written today concerning religious and/or Christian education. Many questions have been raised as to the purpose and effectiveness of various religious education programs. This paper is concerned only with those programs which identify themselves as religious education programs. However, questions have been raised as to what approach to Christianity is being made within the framework of a said religious education program. What importance and meaning does an institution, more specifically, the organized church, give to its religious education program? The role of the religious education program is dependent primarily upon the institutional emphasis which is based on a specific theology . The more organized and hierarchical institutions seem to place a much heavier emphasis upon religious education programs while those institutions stressing fundamentalism give it a lesser importance in the total scope of the work of the institution. From this it follows that there will be considerable differences in terms of the differing emphases.