RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR THE YOUNG
BY MRS. M. H. INOUYE
THERE is a deep sense of restlessness throughout the world, and we feel we are walking about carrying high explosives—a horrible long march of unemployed, crumbling sound of the world economic structure, hot racial hatred casting the dark shadow of another great war. These explosives we have been handling with great fear. For we know they have already passed the safety point, and we are standing in imminent danger of an explosion which would scatter us, and by which even our most cherished all over the world would be blown to atoms. Yet can we wait and act like men foredoomed to destruction? No one dare to deny that we must struggle through this age of crisis. The ablest minds of the world have been already devoting themselves to solve this great issue. And here in such a world as this the function of religion takes on new meaning as the salt of the earth.
Before religion could be dynamic power to cure the world from its critical condition, however, it must cure itself from the long suffering disease of religious conflict, which weakened men’s noble aspiration and made our spiritual progress much slower than it should have been. We know many notable religious leaders as early as in the nineteenth century attempted to reconstruct traditional religion to meet the urgent needs of that age. Any progressive religion of today owes a great debt of gratitude to these men of insight, and thanks to them for that intolerant orthodoxies have learned the necessity to transform their crude exclusive attitude towards other religions and other human interests into the spirit of concordance, since this spirit of concordance is not based on uncertainty of conviction but on a wide acquaintance with the history of other beliefs and with constantly new human needs. The Bahá’í movement with its lofty principle of spiritual concordance has also been a guiding light in showing how to seek the way of awakening the vision of one living God among all the peoples.
It is still an inexpressible pity for us to hear that the younger generation of today have nothing to do with religion, and their religious attachment seems utterly vanished. And there is a grain of truth in this. I meet many young educated men and women who openly confess that they lost belief in their family religions, most sacred in the olden times, and even felt strong repugnance against religion on the whole. They say their scientifically trained mind can not bear absurd conflicts among different sects, and hoary dogmas contrary to the intelligence of the day. Nevertheless, this religious cooling of the young does not mean they are nonreligious. On the contrary we see how ardently their devotional sentiment seeks its outburst as the worthy builders of the world tomorrow. It is not these young people’s failure even if they are indifferent to traditional religion after all, but the men who cage religion in theology and tradition should be most blamed.
Re-organizing religious education for the
young, therefore, is of most importance and
necessity. First of all we must let them know
that religion in its purest form has root in the
very interests of men to live better and
happier, and will carry them beyond these mere
interests for the sake of the highest. And for
this purpose to re-enforce religious
enthusiasm among the young I believe we need not
teach them particular forms or ideas of any
traditional religion. The one thing that we
should teach is to focus their hearts and
minds upon the experience of One Living
God, the ultimate source of their living and
being. And to my great joy as an educator
I have seen many souls awakened to
religious[Page 636]
life and ideals
so unselfish and loyal that they
will be the strong creators of “a new earth
and a new heaven.”
This does not only happen in the heart of the young but also in that of society. No keen observer can miss the fact that this matured industrial society has awakened to its spiritual want and begun to feel the necessity to fortify itself with spiritual force, faith in and loyalty for God. For the world now knows only "God centered life,” not “Man centered life” can discover the way to solve the day's impending problems most effectively and constructively, and bring better understanding and permanent peace and progress to all mankind.
Let us be thankful for this tendency of the world, and let us be ever courageous enough
Mrs. M. H. Inouye, President of Japan Women’s University, Tokyo.
to invite the whole world to work in and with One God, the spring of creative insight and abundant hope. And let me close this brief article with an old Japanese ode:
“Many pathways are there at the foot to claim the mountain,
But behold! on the summit we all see the same glorious moon.”
Provincial Convention of the Bahá’ís of Adhirbáyján, Persia.
