ABSTRACT
Religious education has been undergoing a process of secularization. This means that when the nature and purposes of the subject are being explored and explained, the same types of arguments will be used as might be used in the case of any other subject of the curriculum. Religious educators today continue to value the unique public accountability and community participation which its special status offers religious education. If religious education were to ignore the impact of such studies, it would become a ‘sacred island’ in an entirely new way. Religious education should thus promote rationality in this particular area of the emotional life. To put it in a different way, theological arguments must be mediated by and through the educational arguments and will not often bear directly upon the rationale for any subject, even when that subject is religious education.
