The Historical Influence Of Christian Culture On American Moral Education

As for spirit, American cultural development is the development of Christians. Christian cultureconstitutes cultural deposits of American cultural development which has been affecting Americaneducation and moral education permanently and profoundly. In different periods of American culturaldevelopment, Christians had effects on moral education reform in many aspects. It is impossible tofully understand the essence of moral education reform, moral thoughts’ logic and practical experienceof America moral education unless the nature of Christian culture has been understood. Also, graspingit can avoid the problems of confined to imitate relative models and technology mechanically whiledifficult to seize the spiritual essence by researchers in practice process.Based on the historical method, literature analysis and comparative analysis, from the perspectiveof external research, the paper follows the American Christian cultural development history, combs thedevelopment stages of moral education, elaborate the influence of Christian culture on moraleducation in the United States systematically, and describe the influence of Christian culture on thedevelopment direction of moral education in the United States, moreover, comments were made on thedevelopment trends of moral education in American at last.The thesis consists of five parts.The first part will mainly retrospect the historical process of American Christian culturaldevelopment, analysis of the Christian culture of moral values and the development of Christianity inAmerica, interpretation all these core values related to such Christian culture based with " love " as thecore of the religious spirit, respect for equality of conduct, the ultimate belief in the fear of God,salvation ideological as cornerstone of original sin, the pursuit of universal feelings and so on.The second part of the thesis based on historical perspective, to study sequentially and analysisthe resource of Christian culture and the influence to the practice of moral education form the colonialperiod, the Early Days, the days after World War II to1960s to today’s moral education reform inUnited States.The third part is to start on the Christian spirit focusing around moral education practice in theUnited States. On the one hand, Christian culture is penetrating into the target of moral education, aswell as, moral schema evolved from Christ religious instruction is accessing to the moral domain. Onthe other hand, the U.S. daily moral education curriculums and contents are full of Christian culturalelements; the method of moral education like Socratic methods (questions and answers) and practicesmethod also contains the methodology of Christianity culture.The fourth part of thesis is to explore the issues and future development encountered in today’sAmerican society. In the context of globalization and the impact of multiculturalism，there is facing adilemma of moral education in Immigration and local residents. Christian culture, as its indispensableelement, plays an important role in today’s America society. Whether it is a traditional Puritan moralcharacter advocated in the New Character Education movement, or the Christian moral in theimplementation of the New Thomas ideology, Christian culture has always been accompanying andpromoting the development and reform of moral education in America.The conclusion part summarize the historical reasons, process and the influence of Christianculture for affecting the moral education of United States, and explain the spirit meaning and practicevalues of "belief" education on era of globalization.