Search

[German Version] (Mar 1, 1906, Alton, Ontario – Jan 23, 1982, Toronto), Presbyterian theologian. Through his responsibility for the community curriculum project “Christian Faith and Life” (1944–1950), he had a great influence on the theory and practice of Christian education in the United States and Canada. Shaped by the theologians K. Barth and E. Thurneysen, he criticized liberal religious curriculum programs and civil religious opinion, especially J. Dewey’s “Common Faith.” Consequently, he ori…

[German Version] The theological justification for confirmation depends largely on the assumptions about what confirmation really is (Confirmation [Protestant], cf. Confirmation [Catholic]). It also depends on the understanding of the relation of confirmation to baptism and Eucharist implied in any particular educational/liturgical design. In the following discussion of the effectiveness of various educational designs found to be consistent with several, but not…

[German Version] (1893–1987). A professor at Duke Divinity School (1923–1963), he was widely known for his penetrating critique of Protestant liberal religious education. His book on Faith and Nurture (1941), a watershed document, was appreciative of liberal religious education but critical of its naturalism, its unrealistic views about the goodness of human nature, and its lack of a centering in a transcendent and loving God. Agreeing largely with K.P.R. Niebuhr, Smith reinterpreted the nature and role of sin, seeing it a…