Paper Presentation
Sub: Introduction to Christian Education
Course lecturer: Ma’am xxx
Topic: The Nature And Purpose of Christian Education: A Brief Historical Survey:
a) Christian Education in the Modern Period.
b) The Origin and Goals of Sunday School Movement.
c) Christian Education from a Local Perspective.
d) Christian Education during the Missionary Movements in India.
Presenters: xxx
Introduction:
Christian education is a process in which teaching –learning takes place concerning Christian faith and beliefs in the lives of the individuals, family and the church as a whole.
The purpose of Christian education then is to help people attain the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ that, they may consciously make a choice to order their lives in accordance with what He would Have them to do and be. In this paper we will be dealing on the historical survey of Christian Education.
Christian Education in Modern Period:
John Amos Comenuis (1592-1670) is considered the father of modern education. The name by which he is popularly known is the Latinized version of his real name, Jan Amos Komensky. He was born in Nivnitz, Moravia. At the age of twelve, comenuis lost both parents and two of his sisters. Four years after the death of his parents, Comenuis enrolled in a Unitas Fratrem school in Prerov. Comenuis was encouraged by the rector, John Lanecius, who recognized the youth’s potential.During his three years at the Prorev school, Comenuis developed a concern with the way in which the children were taught and dedicated himself to preparation for the Moravian clergy. He received his higher education in Germany at Heborn and Heidelberg. Comenuis found the German teachers Johann Alsted, David Pareus, and Johann Fischer to be mentors who encouraged him in his faith and reliance on Scripture for direction in every area of his life, including his educational thought. After completing his education, Comenuis returned to teach at his old school in Prerov. There he composed a Latin grammar and began writing an encyclopedia. Soon after his ordination to the Moravian ministry he married and moved to fulnek. Where he served as minister and master of the church school.
During his pastorate the longstanding tension between the ruling catholic minority and the protestant churches broke into open revolt. And epidemic stuck prerov and comenius’s wife and the two children died. Comenius remarried in 1624 and, in 1625, was sent by the Moravian church to leszno in Poland. His assignment was to provide a system of resttlement among Moravians who were fleeing persecution. The need for his became apparent when an edict in 1627 was issued that required all protestants to convert to Catholicism. Comenius proved to be an incessant worker and was named in Bishop in 1632.
Comenius believed human to be the highest of created beings, imbued with the nature of God and made for communion with the divine. He understood learning as a process of discovery beginning at conception.
For Comenius, persons are rational soul with minds of virtually limitless potential and with innate desire for knowledge. However, the potential can only be realized through a proper education. This universal knowledge or pansophy was the aim of Comenius’s education structures. Noting the contrasting agesatwhich beasts of burden and persons mature, Comenuis deduced that God must have given the years of youth for the purpose of education. Thus Comenuis encouraged the establishment of common schools. Although he acknowledged the importance of the home in a child’s education, he argued that most parents had neither leisure nor the ability to teach their children properly in the strictest sense. Children of both the sexes should be given a universal education that would include the arts and sciences as well as languages, morals, and theology.comenuis divided the first twenty-four years of life into four equal grades and suggested an appropriate school for each grade. The first grade was the “school of the mother’s knee,” the school of infancy. The vernacular school was for childhood, which was the second grade. The Latin school or gymnasium was the third grade, which was during boyhood and finally the fourth grade was the university.
The Sunday school Movement
The Sunday school is the best known institution of Christian education among Evangelicals today. It is so much a part of Christian education that seems almost normative. Many presume it has always existed, but such is not the case. In fact, the Sunday school is relatively new.
The birth of Sunday school movement:
Although the Christian church established schools of biblical and catechetical instruction from its earliest days, the Sunday school traces its roots back only to the late eighteenth century. The capitalism of the industrial Revolution made the fortunes of some and increased the wealth of others. However, for most of the growing urban lower class , conditions were miserable. Housing, clothing, nutrition, and sanitation available to the urban poor were wretched. For most poor families even the children were forced to work in the factories.
Robert Raikes pioneered Sunday School Development:
The poverty-crime cycle was particularly true in Gloucester. Among the citizens of Gloucester who were disturbed by what they saw was Robert Raikes (1736-1811), a native of the city. Both of his grandfathers, Richard Drew and Timothy Raikes, were ministers.
The First Sunday School:
Raikes felt that education was an effective tool in battling vice and moral degeneration. He determined to develop an experimental school to test his theory. However, he was legally barred from doing so. Until the passage of the Enabling Act in 1779 persons outside the church of England were prevented from having schools. In 1780 he enlisted children from the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder in Gloucester in their first Sunday school. It met in Sooty Alley in the kitchen of a Mrs. Meredith. The primary aim of Raikes’s school was literary training. However, the students were also given some Christian education. They were taught to read from the bible, and they memorized catechisms and were taken to worship services. Writing was not taught.
Goals of Sunday School Movement:
a) To impart secular instruction to the children. Secular instructions like, reading, writing, good moral living, secure obedience and understanding the values of life were given.
b) To teach the word of God: in other words, the main purpose was to teach the Word of God to the learners, so that they come to know the Lord and have personal experience with Him.
c) To foster social growth: this was another opportunity in order to provide an opportunity for men and women, including the children, for social awareness and responsibility in the given society.
d) To give the right philosophy of life: it aimed to build their right philosophy of llife in terms of establishing right attitude toward the total environment and to facilitate the individuals to know the will of God. To build Christian character: it also aimed to build Christian character in each individual. It sought to foster each individual to live daily for Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and according to the principles of the Word of God.
Christian Education From a Local Prespective:
The American Baptist missionaries were the first to work among the Nagas. They reached Assam in 1836. The first thrust of Christianity among the Nagas came from a small village called Namsang (now in Arunachal Pradesh). The Bronsons settled briefly at this village. Due to illness the family had to withdraw from this work before the end of 1840. The arrival of Rev. E. W. Clark was of great significance. Thus, this became the foundation of the church on Naga soil.
The American Baptist missionaries served in Nagaland with much dedication for 83 years. Initially, the church suffered much in terms of financial needs and leadership. Slowly the church became self-supporting, and self-propagating.the introduction of modern education by the missionaries ushered in a modern worldview among the Naga society. It is interesting to know that whenever a church was formed, a school was simultaneously established by the early missionaries.
According to Downs, mission schools served two basic functions: first, it broke down the barriers of “superstition” that prevented people from hearing and responding to the Gospel. Second, it provided a means of Christian instruction and access to the Christian scriptures and other forms of Christian literature. This served both an immediate evangelistic purpose and longer term objectives of building up indigenous Christian community.
Christian Education during the missionary movement in India:
Christian Religious education is the ‘seed’ through which Christianity grew in India. It was the western missionaries who brought the seed, i.e, the word of God, and sowed it in the Indian soil. They brought with them two basic sets of missionary equipments- the Bible and the Hymnbook, in order to educate the people with the knowledge of God. Besides, Religious education it also took another form, that is, in linewith formal education system. The missionaries, both the Protestants and the Roman Catholic church, established schools at the primary, elementary and the higher levels for education.
The educational ministry that was undertaken by both the Protestant s and the Roman Catholic missions in India had common agendas in their educational policy. Apart from the general education to teach the illiterate to read and write, evangelism was one of the primary objectives. Christian educational institutions continued to train men and women, with a Christian bias, mainly to convert them. Christian Religious education started in India: the Protestant missions and the Roman Catholic missions.
(a)The Protestant Educationanal work:
It was during the 18th century that the Protestant missionaries first came to India and started Christian Religious education programme. Various Protestant missions came to India at different times and besides the preaching of the Good News to the people, their other priority was to provide educational opportunities to the people at all levels ,i,e., from primary to higher levels of education. In fact, Christian mission became a major voluntary educational agency. The nursery schools, industrial and agricultural institutions and community schools were a few examples of the educational enterprises undertaken by the Protestant missions.
As early as 1707, Protestant missionaries like Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Henrich Plutscheau were responsible in producing School text books, and later in 1712, a printing press was established in order to translate the Bible. This was how Christian Religious education initially started in India. Later, the major pioneering work on education was started by the Serampore Mission. Besides the ‘Serampore trio’ (William Carey, William Ward and John Marshman), one of the pioneers of educational mission was Alexander Duff who saw the impact of English education and thus started Christian schools for both the boys and girls which grew into colleges in the later years his effort in opening educational institutions in the land.
(b) The Roman Catholic Educational Work:
Though the Roman Catholic missions started their educational work later than the Protestants, their involvement in educational field is so great and significant. The primary purpose of education was a religious one, that is, to convert the so-called ‘pagan ‘or ‘heathen’. In fact, the great aim of educational policy of the Roman Catholic educational work was to train the Christians and also to impart good principles to non-Christians.
In the early stage of the work, education became a necessary tool of proselytization. Early pioneers like St.Francis Xavier and Robert de Nobili, emphasized education for teaching, reading, writing in addition to catechism, and for advancement in the religious life. Some of the prominent educational institutions run by the Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Carrmelites etc, are known for its great literary achievements and contributions made to the educational progress, along with the responsibility in bringing christian Religious education in India.
Looking at the history of Christianity in India, there is no doudt about the impact to Christian Religious education in the social, political, religious and educational progress in the country. In fact, it played an important role in bringing about changes and development in the life of the people and the society as a whole. Through Christian education social evils such as ‘sati’ and other suppressive practices towards women were abolished. Change of world view as a result of western knowledge and Hindu Renaissance can be attributed to the educational works done by the missionaries.
Coming home to closer to North East India, Christian Religious education brought by the Western missionaries led to change in the lives of the people and the society. The age old religious beliefs and practices including ‘superstitious’ of the people began to disappear as people, especially the tribal of North East India, accepted the new religion that spoke of the message of forgiveness and freedom granted by God. Changes took place in the lives of the people in terms of health care and better living conditions; a shift from headhunting to peaceful relationship among the people; change from fear and distrust to a new humanity, giving new dignity and better values to life; from illiteracy to literacy bringing about a modern world-view among people.
Conclusion:
From the above discussions we could understand the nature and purpose of Christian Education during the various time periods under different leaders, missionaries and so on with their ideas and motives basing on education.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sumi, Akheto. Understanding the Nature and Purpose of Christian Religious Education. Jorhat: Barkataki and Company Private Limited, 2005.
Reed, James E and Ronnie Prevost. A History of Christian Education (Nashville: B & H Publishers, 1993. (Hereafter referred to as James E. Reed…,).
Longchar, A. Wati. Chtistianity in India. Edited by F. hrangkhuma. Delhi: ISPCK, Reprinted 2000.
Sub: Introduction to Christian Education
Course lecturer: Ma’am xxx
Topic: The Nature And Purpose of Christian Education: A Brief Historical Survey:
a) Christian Education in the Modern Period.
b) The Origin and Goals of Sunday School Movement.
c) Christian Education from a Local Perspective.
d) Christian Education during the Missionary Movements in India.
Presenters: xxx
Introduction:
Christian education is a process in which teaching –learning takes place concerning Christian faith and beliefs in the lives of the individuals, family and the church as a whole.
The purpose of Christian education then is to help people attain the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ that, they may consciously make a choice to order their lives in accordance with what He would Have them to do and be. In this paper we will be dealing on the historical survey of Christian Education.
Christian Education in Modern Period:
John Amos Comenuis (1592-1670) is considered the father of modern education. The name by which he is popularly known is the Latinized version of his real name, Jan Amos Komensky. He was born in Nivnitz, Moravia. At the age of twelve, comenuis lost both parents and two of his sisters. Four years after the death of his parents, Comenuis enrolled in a Unitas Fratrem school in Prerov. Comenuis was encouraged by the rector, John Lanecius, who recognized the youth’s potential.During his three years at the Prorev school, Comenuis developed a concern with the way in which the children were taught and dedicated himself to preparation for the Moravian clergy. He received his higher education in Germany at Heborn and Heidelberg. Comenuis found the German teachers Johann Alsted, David Pareus, and Johann Fischer to be mentors who encouraged him in his faith and reliance on Scripture for direction in every area of his life, including his educational thought. After completing his education, Comenuis returned to teach at his old school in Prerov. There he composed a Latin grammar and began writing an encyclopedia. Soon after his ordination to the Moravian ministry he married and moved to fulnek. Where he served as minister and master of the church school.
During his pastorate the longstanding tension between the ruling catholic minority and the protestant churches broke into open revolt. And epidemic stuck prerov and comenius’s wife and the two children died. Comenius remarried in 1624 and, in 1625, was sent by the Moravian church to leszno in Poland. His assignment was to provide a system of resttlement among Moravians who were fleeing persecution. The need for his became apparent when an edict in 1627 was issued that required all protestants to convert to Catholicism. Comenius proved to be an incessant worker and was named in Bishop in 1632.
Comenius believed human to be the highest of created beings, imbued with the nature of God and made for communion with the divine. He understood learning as a process of discovery beginning at conception.
For Comenius, persons are rational soul with minds of virtually limitless potential and with innate desire for knowledge. However, the potential can only be realized through a proper education. This universal knowledge or pansophy was the aim of Comenius’s education structures. Noting the contrasting agesatwhich beasts of burden and persons mature, Comenuis deduced that God must have given the years of youth for the purpose of education. Thus Comenuis encouraged the establishment of common schools. Although he acknowledged the importance of the home in a child’s education, he argued that most parents had neither leisure nor the ability to teach their children properly in the strictest sense. Children of both the sexes should be given a universal education that would include the arts and sciences as well as languages, morals, and theology.comenuis divided the first twenty-four years of life into four equal grades and suggested an appropriate school for each grade. The first grade was the “school of the mother’s knee,” the school of infancy. The vernacular school was for childhood, which was the second grade. The Latin school or gymnasium was the third grade, which was during boyhood and finally the fourth grade was the university.
The Sunday school Movement
The Sunday school is the best known institution of Christian education among Evangelicals today. It is so much a part of Christian education that seems almost normative. Many presume it has always existed, but such is not the case. In fact, the Sunday school is relatively new.
The birth of Sunday school movement:
Although the Christian church established schools of biblical and catechetical instruction from its earliest days, the Sunday school traces its roots back only to the late eighteenth century. The capitalism of the industrial Revolution made the fortunes of some and increased the wealth of others. However, for most of the growing urban lower class , conditions were miserable. Housing, clothing, nutrition, and sanitation available to the urban poor were wretched. For most poor families even the children were forced to work in the factories.
Robert Raikes pioneered Sunday School Development:
The poverty-crime cycle was particularly true in Gloucester. Among the citizens of Gloucester who were disturbed by what they saw was Robert Raikes (1736-1811), a native of the city. Both of his grandfathers, Richard Drew and Timothy Raikes, were ministers.
The First Sunday School:
Raikes felt that education was an effective tool in battling vice and moral degeneration. He determined to develop an experimental school to test his theory. However, he was legally barred from doing so. Until the passage of the Enabling Act in 1779 persons outside the church of England were prevented from having schools. In 1780 he enlisted children from the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder in Gloucester in their first Sunday school. It met in Sooty Alley in the kitchen of a Mrs. Meredith. The primary aim of Raikes’s school was literary training. However, the students were also given some Christian education. They were taught to read from the bible, and they memorized catechisms and were taken to worship services. Writing was not taught.
Goals of Sunday School Movement:
a) To impart secular instruction to the children. Secular instructions like, reading, writing, good moral living, secure obedience and understanding the values of life were given.
b) To teach the word of God: in other words, the main purpose was to teach the Word of God to the learners, so that they come to know the Lord and have personal experience with Him.
c) To foster social growth: this was another opportunity in order to provide an opportunity for men and women, including the children, for social awareness and responsibility in the given society.
d) To give the right philosophy of life: it aimed to build their right philosophy of llife in terms of establishing right attitude toward the total environment and to facilitate the individuals to know the will of God. To build Christian character: it also aimed to build Christian character in each individual. It sought to foster each individual to live daily for Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and according to the principles of the Word of God.
Christian Education From a Local Prespective:
The American Baptist missionaries were the first to work among the Nagas. They reached Assam in 1836. The first thrust of Christianity among the Nagas came from a small village called Namsang (now in Arunachal Pradesh). The Bronsons settled briefly at this village. Due to illness the family had to withdraw from this work before the end of 1840. The arrival of Rev. E. W. Clark was of great significance. Thus, this became the foundation of the church on Naga soil.
The American Baptist missionaries served in Nagaland with much dedication for 83 years. Initially, the church suffered much in terms of financial needs and leadership. Slowly the church became self-supporting, and self-propagating.the introduction of modern education by the missionaries ushered in a modern worldview among the Naga society. It is interesting to know that whenever a church was formed, a school was simultaneously established by the early missionaries.
According to Downs, mission schools served two basic functions: first, it broke down the barriers of “superstition” that prevented people from hearing and responding to the Gospel. Second, it provided a means of Christian instruction and access to the Christian scriptures and other forms of Christian literature. This served both an immediate evangelistic purpose and longer term objectives of building up indigenous Christian community.
Christian Education during the missionary movement in India:
Christian Religious education is the ‘seed’ through which Christianity grew in India. It was the western missionaries who brought the seed, i.e, the word of God, and sowed it in the Indian soil. They brought with them two basic sets of missionary equipments- the Bible and the Hymnbook, in order to educate the people with the knowledge of God. Besides, Religious education it also took another form, that is, in linewith formal education system. The missionaries, both the Protestants and the Roman Catholic church, established schools at the primary, elementary and the higher levels for education.
The educational ministry that was undertaken by both the Protestant s and the Roman Catholic missions in India had common agendas in their educational policy. Apart from the general education to teach the illiterate to read and write, evangelism was one of the primary objectives. Christian educational institutions continued to train men and women, with a Christian bias, mainly to convert them. Christian Religious education started in India: the Protestant missions and the Roman Catholic missions.
(a)The Protestant Educationanal work:
It was during the 18th century that the Protestant missionaries first came to India and started Christian Religious education programme. Various Protestant missions came to India at different times and besides the preaching of the Good News to the people, their other priority was to provide educational opportunities to the people at all levels ,i,e., from primary to higher levels of education. In fact, Christian mission became a major voluntary educational agency. The nursery schools, industrial and agricultural institutions and community schools were a few examples of the educational enterprises undertaken by the Protestant missions.
As early as 1707, Protestant missionaries like Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Henrich Plutscheau were responsible in producing School text books, and later in 1712, a printing press was established in order to translate the Bible. This was how Christian Religious education initially started in India. Later, the major pioneering work on education was started by the Serampore Mission. Besides the ‘Serampore trio’ (William Carey, William Ward and John Marshman), one of the pioneers of educational mission was Alexander Duff who saw the impact of English education and thus started Christian schools for both the boys and girls which grew into colleges in the later years his effort in opening educational institutions in the land.
(b) The Roman Catholic Educational Work:
Though the Roman Catholic missions started their educational work later than the Protestants, their involvement in educational field is so great and significant. The primary purpose of education was a religious one, that is, to convert the so-called ‘pagan ‘or ‘heathen’. In fact, the great aim of educational policy of the Roman Catholic educational work was to train the Christians and also to impart good principles to non-Christians.
In the early stage of the work, education became a necessary tool of proselytization. Early pioneers like St.Francis Xavier and Robert de Nobili, emphasized education for teaching, reading, writing in addition to catechism, and for advancement in the religious life. Some of the prominent educational institutions run by the Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Carrmelites etc, are known for its great literary achievements and contributions made to the educational progress, along with the responsibility in bringing christian Religious education in India.
Looking at the history of Christianity in India, there is no doudt about the impact to Christian Religious education in the social, political, religious and educational progress in the country. In fact, it played an important role in bringing about changes and development in the life of the people and the society as a whole. Through Christian education social evils such as ‘sati’ and other suppressive practices towards women were abolished. Change of world view as a result of western knowledge and Hindu Renaissance can be attributed to the educational works done by the missionaries.
Coming home to closer to North East India, Christian Religious education brought by the Western missionaries led to change in the lives of the people and the society. The age old religious beliefs and practices including ‘superstitious’ of the people began to disappear as people, especially the tribal of North East India, accepted the new religion that spoke of the message of forgiveness and freedom granted by God. Changes took place in the lives of the people in terms of health care and better living conditions; a shift from headhunting to peaceful relationship among the people; change from fear and distrust to a new humanity, giving new dignity and better values to life; from illiteracy to literacy bringing about a modern world-view among people.
Conclusion:
From the above discussions we could understand the nature and purpose of Christian Education during the various time periods under different leaders, missionaries and so on with their ideas and motives basing on education.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sumi, Akheto. Understanding the Nature and Purpose of Christian Religious Education. Jorhat: Barkataki and Company Private Limited, 2005.
Reed, James E and Ronnie Prevost. A History of Christian Education (Nashville: B & H Publishers, 1993. (Hereafter referred to as James E. Reed…,).
Longchar, A. Wati. Chtistianity in India. Edited by F. hrangkhuma. Delhi: ISPCK, Reprinted 2000.
Thanks for sharing such an informative blog on Christian education. Christian education is not all about studying Bible and other religion related education. It involves full academic syllabus along with complete development of students. If you are looking for the Best Christian School Winnipeg then give priority to Springs Christian Academy.
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