ABSTRACT
One of the most perplexing problems in teaching life-themes is whether or not biblical material should be introduced and, if it is, what the practical and the theological relationships between the thematic and the biblical materials should be. Different forms of these relationships constitute different methods of religious education and should therefore be distinguished as carefully as possible. ‘Child-centred’ religious education can, in the first place, be a method of teaching in which the child’s activities are encouraged, his participation aroused, and in which the child is encouraged to find things out for himself instead of simply being told by the teacher. Such a way of teaching religion might be termed a ‘discovery method’. The character of Bible-centred teaching can be considered in the light of an interesting lesson a student teacher gave to a class of intelligent first-form girls in a secondary school. The lesson was about the choice of Rebeccah as the wife of Isaac.
