DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS THINKING Eli Gottlieb Mandel Leadership Institute ferusalem, Israel Abstract Over the last fifty years, in three distinct waves of research, psy- chologists have investigated tlie religious thinking of children and adolescents. However, they have differed substantially in their con- ceptual frameworks, methods, and conclusions, making it difficult for educators to determine the overall imphcations of their findings for educational practice. In this article, the author reviews this research, identifies points of agreement and contention, derives tentative con- clusions about the nature of rehgious thinking and its development, and discusses their educational implications. Religious education has many aims: to impart knowledge, to culti- vate commitments, to train ritual competence, to sustain community, and to stimulate experiences. Religious educators differ in the em- phases they place on each of these aims. They differ even more in their views about the particular kinds of knowledge, commitment, competence, community, and experience that ought to be fostered. But they are all concerned, at least to some extent, with each of these. However, there is another aim of religious education that has received comparatively little scholarly attention: to develop rehgious thinking. "Thinking" may strike some as too coldly intellectual a term to de- scribe an aim of rehgious education. Are not religious faith and practice matters of the heart and body rather than of the mind? Well, perhaps they would be if hearts, bodies, and minds could be separated as eas- ily in practice as they can in the imagination. But religious educators must educate real people, not imaginary ones. And there is no way to educate the heart or body, save through the mind. We are thinking animals; we need reasons to act, and if we act before having any, then we make sure to find some soon afterward. Similarly, feelings do not inhabit a universe parallel to that inhabited by thoughts, nor can they be quarantined from them. We feel because we think something or other to be the case and we cannot help rationalizing our feelings after the fact. Religious Education Copyright © The Religious Education Assoeiation Vol. 101 No. 2 Spring 2006 I.SSN; 0034-4087 print DOI: 10.1080/00344080600640269 242