Balancing the Need for Conservation and Growth in Religious Education
It’s called the “kumbaya approach.” Those of us too young to have experienced its emergence in the ‘60’s have most likely either run into a successor or heard it spoken of disparagingly. The principle which brought it about is simple enough. After the Second Vatican Council many perhaps well-meaning Catholics took it upon themselves to make the faith accessible and attractive to people of today as the Council Fathers urged. Unfortunately, many did so without a full understanding of the teachings in question or the guidelines which the documents laid down for the process. The outcome was inevitable; by far the easiest way to make the Creed acceptable to people is to remove the demands that it makes on our lifestyle. It was the same for Henry VIII in sixteenth century England: Reconciling faith with his personal choices was simple enough; he would simply make himself the supreme authority in the matter and the issue was resolved. Although recent approaches have been less blatant, it boils down to basically the same thing. Read the rest of this entry »








