Religious Education as a Personality Education

Abstract

The Personality Education Promotion Act, which went into effect on July 21, 2015, states that its purpose is “to contribute to the development of national society by fostering people with sound and proper personality. In addition, Item 1 Article 2 of the Act defines personality education as "education aimed at cultivating the human nature in the righteous and sound way, and developing ones’ personality and ability necessary to live with other people, communities, and nature." The fact that personality education, which was considered to be the responsibility of individuals and families, has been institutionalized as a law at a national level, underscored the sense of the problem that society should consider personality education in full measurement. In this context, the social role of religion should also be contemplated. In this regard, it would be meaningful to have the enactment of the Personality Education Promotion Act as an opportunity to look at the direction of personality education pursued by the society and see how it is related to personality educations that are sought and performed by religious communities. In this context, this paper focuses on the possibility of religious education as a personality education. The relationship between personality education and religious education reflects the universality and speciality issues that religious education has struggled with. In other words, the question is how to find a balance between educational universality and religious speciality. In that sense, personality education in all religions should have an educational program to teach the universal truth of religion and cultivate an ideal human being.