Featuring a unique comparative approach to religious education, the book first explores the importance of studying the styles and methods of religious education within differing social contexts, and it presents modernization, globalization, and postmodernism as key frameworks for such research. Next, central figures and texts in twentieth-century religious education in both Germany and the United States are examined and compared. The last section of the book points out the challenges facing religious education in the new millennium and offers constructive proposals that will interest not only Protestants and Catholics but also members of Jewish, Muslim, and other faith communities.