Religion’s Value and Truth

Abstract

This chapter examines the cultural models specifically about religion, its value, and possible truth. Grasping parents' views of these two features of religion is essential to understanding their approaches to the transmission of religion to their children. For few American parents does religion singularly determine their understanding of the ultimate purpose and expected experience of life. Instead, the expected experiences of life involve clusters of largely autonomous beliefs forming their own distinct cultural models, perhaps partly shaped by religious traditions generally but not principally determined by the specific views and priorities of those traditions. Those basic cultural models being firmly in place, religion then comes in as its own distinct issue. And when parents think about religion, the primary focus is its practical value, how it helps people, and what makes it important in this life.