ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors derive a four-stage Model conceived to help conceptualise Religious Education and claim for this Model a wider usefulness within the General Theory of Religious Communication. Religious communication in its various forms aims for or allows the possibility of Commitment as its final result. The Communicatees need to investigate religious questions for themselves and reach their own conclusions. Learning religious facts to avoid hell and to gain heaven does not appeal to the contemporary Communicator as a form of motivation for him or her to appeal to: and such 'prudential' considerations would be ineffective ex hypothesi with those not religious. The problem with motivating secular people for religious learning is that they have no prior awareness of the importance of religious faith. The public debate on what to do in politics, culture and public affairs can proceed for ever without drawing in religious considerations. Experience in urban parishes suggests that further factors may govern the success of religious communication.
