Argues that an appreciation of the religious milieu of the Zenger case can help to explain the nature of the defense, the meaning of the jury's verdict, and the ambiguous legacy of the trial for freedom of expression in the United States. (FL)

A study investigated evangelist Billy Graham's numerical success in using "the invitation" and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's (BGEA) follow-up plan to preserve the beneficial effects of Christian commitment and to minimize commitment attrition. Statistics on audience response gathered throughout Graham's ministry attest to…

The effects of gender and religious affiliation on adolescents' disclosure to friends and strangers were assessed with Year 11 students (N=288). Adolescents of Catholic and Protestant denominations were willing to disclose to friends and strangers. Although females were significantly higher disclosures, religion did not play a key role. Gender was…

This historical analysis of American Protestant university-related divinity schools from the 1880s to the present focuses on powerful social and cultural ideas that decisively influenced American education in general and Protestant theological education in particular. The study argues that, in the service of ideas of specialization,…

Discusses links among religion, language, and culture in a case study of a Hmong refugee, his family, and community. Argues that religious conversion facilitates the extension of literacy. Points out that before national school systems, the church was the primary site for literacy education. Documents changes the conversion brought to family…

In Ontario, Canada, the 19th-century educational imperative of indoctrinating public school students in a common Christianity became intolerable, given the province's increasingly pluralistic population. Most vestiges of religious practice and instruction have been swept from public schools. Religious minorities' preference for a unitary,…

One cannot reflect on centuries of accumulated religious wisdom without experiencing a deepened sense of personal meaning and purpose--a phenomenon often marginalized in progressive education. Contemporary issues have religious dimensions. The four essays assembled in this special section consider religion's role in public education from different…

Laurence R. Veysey's The Emergence of the American University--one of the densely textured, lucidly written, always thoughtful accounts of the history of higher education?has been largely superseded, especially after the 1980s, in part by histories that unlike Veysey's, maintain close attention to religion, both during the period that he focused…

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) was established in 1830 by six men led by Joseph Smith. Today this group, commonly called Mormons, numbers approximately seven million members worldwide. Mormonism has sometimes been the object of public, political, and ecclesiastical animosity and misinformation. There is now a vast amount of…

In the decade and a half after the Civil War, the American public school rose and fell as a central issue in national and state politics. After a relative calm on matters of education during and immediately after the War, the Republican Party and Catholic Church leaders in the late 1860s and early 1870s joined a bitter battle of words over the…

An attempt was made to describe the experience of Christian religious education for its participants. This research is both ethnographic and hermeneutic. Thick descriptions gathered from ethnographic methods like participant observation, in-depth interviews, and journal keeping served as text for analysis. Weekly visits of one to four hours were…

This paper gives an account of the thoughts of Cornelius Van Til on the contemporary Christian school movement. An account of the historical development of Christian compromise is given, followed by a critique of the compromise among contemporary Christian educators. Van Til claims that any educational position which falls short of being founded…

Argues that religious education should be sensitive to the existential limits that are commonly shared. States the religious life of children must be respected. Maintains that the religious curriculum topics are death, freedom, aloneness, and meaninglessness. Asserts religious education teachers must be comfortable with the presence of God, and…

Nineteenth-century common schools offered no course about religion or its role in American society. Moral education up through the mid-20th century embodied a kind of generalized Christianity. If universalized versions of the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments prevail, educators should reconsider the merits of common-school philosophy. Contains…

The issue of choice in U.S. education is traced historically. Consideration is given to the purposes of publicly supported education and reasons underlying the historic distinction between public and private education. It is suggested that the issue of choice concerns the rights and obligations of the individual and the state. The relationship…