ABSTRACT
First, a word of explanation: I use the words ‘open approach’ because that is the expression which I have heard religious educators in Newfoundland using. * I think that I would prefer simply to speak of religious education, contrasting it with religious nurture or religious instruction, the implication being that just as education is necessarily open so religious education is necessarily open. If this were conceded, then the use of the word Open’ would become unnecessary. I also dislike the word ‘open’ because it suggests that the other kind of religious education is closed. ‘Closed’ seems to carry with it a pejorative connotation. The suggestion seems to be that ‘open’ is better than ‘closed’. My own belief is that we are dealing here not with a good process and a bad process but with two different processes, each one of which is good in its proper situation. I refer, of course, to religious education and to Christian nurture. Christian nurture is a convergent activity and perhaps in some senses it may therefore be thought of as being closed, in the sense that the Christian nurturer certainly intends and hopes that the outcome of his work will be Christians and no other; but it would be wrong to describe this as if it were in some way inferior to a critical and exploratory religious education.
