NEGRO SUNDAY SCHOOLS

In this article the phenomenological approach to religious education is subjected to careful analysis and criticism. Something of the contemporary debate on the nature of religious education between liberals and conservatives is sketched in, before the origins and nature of the phenomenological approach to the study of religion are considered. This is followed by an account of the way in which the phenomenology of religion proper has been appropriated by educationalists and developed into what is regarded as a suitable methodology for religious education. Finally, it is argued that certain features of a phenomenological approach to religion are untenable in the light of recent work in the philosophy of language and mind.