ELECTIVES FOR REVITALIZING HIGH SCHOOL RELIGION

The author's thought centers on the thesis that youth has lost interest in organized religion primarily because of the way religion is taught. Her proposed electives, therefore, are intended to constitute a revamping of the techniques of religious instruction in such a way as to personalize the religious message. The proposition is well conceived and logically developed, so far as it goes; but it goes not nearly far enough. Sister Michael's concern is pedagogical, while the problem she attacks is essentially psychological and theological. She does not take into account the vital fact that the great turn-off for youth does not lie in the accidents of institutional religion, but in its substance -- that is, in the very concept of things which must be believed and of acts which must be avoided simply because ""authority"" says that they must. Until that situation is resolved in one way or another, no technique of instruction, no matter how new, is likely to rise above the level of classroom entertainment.