The Bible in the Sunday School

All is not well in America’s most cherished religious A institution—the Sunday School. The message of the Holy Scriptures is devitalized by teachers who are victims of competitive forces in the field of Christian education. Pastors and leaders need to examine the place and use of the Bible in their Sunday schools.

Statistical interests are more compelling than spiritual values. A common question is, “How many did you have in Sunday School today?” The inquiry is not, “Did Johnny relate himself to Jesus Christ through his study of the Bible?”

Organization, administration and methods are being fostered ahead of the spiritual, abiding influences of a dedicated teacher in whom Christ is seen.

Secular influences are at work in the Sunday Schools robbing the pupils of the privileges of learning to know the Bible that will make them wise unto salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. A student can go through Sunday School with honors for perfect attendance for 10 years and still not be able to use the Bible effectively for his daily life.

Growth And Decline

There is a paradox in the Sunday school. While the movement continues to grow in enrollment (recent estimates place the national enrollment over 41,000,000 scholars) many quarters reflect a deterioration in the quality of Sunday School teaching. There are many factors that account for the problems. Sunday School work is not as simple as it may appear to many people. Actually, the Sunday School is a complex product of many forces. Some of these pressures have historical, theological, educational, and practical implications. Throughout the 180 years of Sunday School movement, the Bible has been popularized and neglected. In order to understand and appreciate the place of the Bible and the problem of teaching it today, we must consider the development of curriculum.

The Sunday School movement has enjoyed unprecedented development in the United States. Started by Robert Raikes in 1780 in Gloucester, England, the Sunday School idea flourished in the Colonies. John Wesley did much to foster schools in America.

The earliest Sunday Schools included secular subjects in the program. Reading, writing, simple arithmetic besides the catechism and the Bible were taught.

As the number of public schools increased and assumed the function of teaching secular subjects, the Sunday Schools became distinctly religious.

Use Of The Bible

By 1820 the Bible supplanted the catechism as the essential text in the Sunday Schools. There were several factors for this change in content. The English evangelical movement of the eighteenth century placed great emphasis on the Scriptures. There was a widespread zeal in the Sunday Schools for Bible reading and memorization.

The disorganized use of the Bible in haphazard memorization led to the development of the greatest single asset and liability to the Sunday School movement—namely, the printing of lesson aids as a supplement to the Scriptures themselves.

Of the printing of Sunday School materials since 1820, there has been no end. The earliest publications were closely associated with Scripture portions but the lesson system developed order out of chaos.

There was much competition among writers and publishers to provide “the auxiliaries” or “some substitute” to help the teachers. Albert Judson developed “A Series of Questions on the Selected Scripture Lessons for Sunday Schools.” A rival system known as “A New Series of Questions on the Selected Scripture Lessons for Sabbath Schools” came from a Sunday School superintendent in Princeton, New Jersey.

Again the Bible faced neglect. It was only a matter of time until the “quarterly” and “Sunday School materials” took precedence. The place and use of the Bible itself was soon smothered by the development of competitive materials.

Frank Lankard in his authoritative volume, A History of the American Sunday School Curriculum writes of a semi-biblical commentary to be used by teachers in the Sunday School. There were lessons on the Bible, Canon, Inspiration, Division of the Sacred Scriptures, Meaning of Testament, Languages Used, Translations, and The Reason the Book Was Given to Man.

The introduction of extra-biblical materials into the Sunday School curriculum began to compete with biblical materials. The next 40 years (1830–1870) was a period of turmoil. The lessons were material-centered. The growth and needs of the pupils in relationship to Scripture was neglected. Out of this confusion, efforts were made to improve the curriculum.

A Teaching Ministry

There was a growing awareness among leaders that the Sunday School was more than an assembly of pupils. The Sunday School was to be conceived as a teaching ministry by the local church. The appreciation of the differences in abilities and interests among pupils of divergent ages was hardly significant. The child was still considered a “miniature adult.” Before the time should come when the child would be “in the midst of them,” the leaders conceived of the International Uniform Lessons. This is a type of lesson in which the same text is to be studied by all ages, children and adults, on a given Sunday.

Giants in the Sunday School movement finally agreed on a principle of developing lesson materials selected from the Bible as a whole. At the Fifth National Sunday School Convention (1872) in Indianapolis, the delegates enthusiastically accepted the Uniform system of lessons. Secretary Warren Randolph later wrote: “These lessons are largely in use throughout our land by Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Moravians, Friends, members of the Reformed Churches, Adventists—a mighty host, to be enumerated only by millions …”

Rise Of Graded Lessons

This enthusiasm for the Uniform Lesson system was challenged by leaders who were dissatisfied by lessons that ignored the interests, needs, and abilities of the pupils of various ages. The scientific method was beginning to impinge upon the Sunday School movement. There was a great deal of agitation to experiment with methods of instruction designed to help the pupil understand the relationship of the lesson to his life. There was a tendency to challenge the idea of “teaching the lesson.” Why not “teach the pupil”?

A leader in general education at the turn of the century was eager to take up the cudgel in behalf of the pupil. The experimenter was Dr. William H. Harper, first president of the University of Chicago.

Dr. Harper was elected superintendent of the Hyde Park Baptist Church in Chicago in 1899. He was assured by the church that he would have freedom to direct the Sunday School as he pleased. The first Sunday he dismissed all the teachers and pupils from the school. The following Sunday the pupils were re-enrolled and teachers were assigned to their classes. The organization of the school was closely graded.

Dr. Harper led his staff in the preparation of “appropriate” materials for each grade. The principal purpose of the school was to serve the pupils.

The crusade for grading had many supporters. A principal leader was Mrs. J. W. Barnes who advocated the principle that the general purpose of the “Graded Lessons” is: “To meet the spiritual needs of the pupil in every stage of his development.” An evaluation of this effort at that time indicates a heavy reception for the idea that extra-biblical materials were worthy of a place in the Sunday School curriculum. Thus, a 13-year-old pupil should study religious heroes of North America such as Roger Williams and Francis Asbury along with David and Elijah of the Old Testament.

The impact of the contemporary theories of science, education, and liberal theology had so fascinated the builders of Sunday School curricula that they practically eliminated the Bible from a significant place in their planning. By 1922, the year the International Council of Religious Education was formed, thousands of Sunday Schools had lost the message of redemption based on the Word of God. Methodology was a dominant concern. The Bible was secondary except in the camp of those who held steadfastly to the evangelical Christian faith.

One defender of the Scriptures was a Presbyterian minister, Clarence B. Benson, who refused to capitulate to the trend of the times. He insisted that the heart of the curriculum must be the Bible. He had a ready field for experimenting with his ideas in the slums of Chicago near the Moody Bible Institute where he served as director of the department of Christian Education. Dr. Benson lived to see the day when the Bible-centered materials were gaining ground.

Two thousand miles away in Hollywood in the midst of the “Roaring Twenties” another Presbyterian, Miss Henrietta C. Mears, was proving that the Bible taught in language that the pupils can understand builds better Sunday Schools. She prepared closely-graded Bible teaching materials that attracted thousands to the local Sunday School. The enrollment jumped in two years from 400 pupils in 1927 to 4,200 in 1929.

The Word of God was vindicated in schools throughout America. Perceptive leaders had a growing concern that biblical issues dividing Protestantism were also dividing the Sunday School movement. Local churches were increasingly exercising the right to choose materials producing results in Bible teaching.

The Sunday School movement was suffering from a schizophrenic frustration—a desire to be modern and a desire to teach the Bible. There was no alternative. The split was inevitable. The promoters of educational methodology in the Sunday School tried to salve the conscience of their constituency by jargon which sounded reliable, but a close examination of curriculum materials indicated that liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, higher criticism, the social gospel, naturalistic educational theories and the like had so emasculated the use of the Bible that the Sunday Schools were spiritually ineffective.

In contrast, the denominational and independent publishers who threw their lot with a “Bible-centered” philosophy found a ready response for their literature from millions of common people and thousands of local Sunday Schools in all denominations.

Enormous sums of money have been invested by producers of Sunday School materials. The contrast between the drab “quarterlies” of 50 years ago and the modern format, multicolored, functional styles of Sunday School books today is astonishing. But appearances are superficial. The test of the literature lies in the place and use of the Bible. Does the teacher get into the Scriptures to learn Christ of whom they speak? Are the students required to use the Bible so that they will become wise unto salvation by faith in Jesus Christ and effective examples of Christian living? Too often the answer to these inquiries leaves men and women of discerning hearts with difficult choices. Sunday School materials that once could be trusted are now suspect. What shall be used for teaching aids?

From the great variety of Sunday School materials which are available to local churches today, who is responsible for screening the “wheat” from the “tares”? What criteria should be used for the evaluation of materials?

The primary responsibility rests upon the shoulders of the pastor. He is the educational leader of the Sunday School and the local church. The pastor is the master teacher; he is the voice of God leading the congregation. He must answer to God for the teaching ministry of the church. The criteria for his judgments must be the Scripture.

As the pastor goes, so goes the Sunday School. The wise pastor will recognize that the Sunday School offers the greatest single opportunity for the church to teach the Word and to reach the community with the Gospel.

The issue is clear. In the maze of competing forces, the pastor must decide what his volunteer teachers will teach precious souls in the framework of 60 minutes on Sunday morning. They cannot teach everything. The challenge comes to the pastor to show more concern for this problem and to become competent to fulfill his divinely-appointed task.

END

Milford Sholund is Director of Biblical and Educational Research for Gospel Light Publications. He holds the Th.B. from Western Baptist Seminary, B.A. from Wheaton College, and M.Ed. from National College of Education, Evanston, Illinois. Formerly he was Dean of Education and Associate Professor of Christian Education in Trinity Seminary, Chicago.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.