Background
Sophia Blanche Lyon Fahs was born on August 2, 1876, in Hangchow, China, but her family returned to America when she was a young girl. She was a daughter of David Lyon, a missionary, and Mandana Lyon, a missionary as well.
1189 Beall Ave, Wooster, OH 44691, United States
Fans graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wooster College in 1897.
525 W 120th St, New York, NY 10027, United States
Fans took a Master of Arts degree from Teachers College of the Columbia University in 1904.
3041 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, United States
Fans graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1927.
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Fans attended the University of Chicago.
(A Philosophy of Creative Religious Development; Teachers,...)
A Philosophy of Creative Religious Development; Teachers, students, home-schoolers, parents, anyone interested in teaching and learning: Sophia Lyon Fahs, Today's Children and Yesterday's Heritage is a wonder of a book, an argument for experiential learning first published in 1952, way ahead of its time.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RG786G/?tag=2022091-20
1952
(Uganda's White Man of Work: A Story of Alexander M. Macka...)
Uganda's White Man of Work: A Story of Alexander M. Mackay; Military history texts discuss the historical record of armed conflict in the history of humanity, its impact on people, societies, and their cultures.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DSC2FD6/?tag=2022091-20
1970
(An appreciative understanding of the issues explored in O...)
An appreciative understanding of the issues explored in Old Tales for a New Day will surely help children deal more effectively with modern problems and also stimulate discussion among children, parents, and teachers.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879757302/?tag=2022091-20
1980
Sophia Blanche Lyon Fahs was born on August 2, 1876, in Hangchow, China, but her family returned to America when she was a young girl. She was a daughter of David Lyon, a missionary, and Mandana Lyon, a missionary as well.
Fans graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wooster College in 1897. She attended the University of Chicago and took a Master of Arts degree from Teachers College of the Columbia University in 1904. She graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1927.
Fahs spent more than a half-century in service to her religion, the Unitarian Universalist congregation, as a religious education curriculum developer and later, at age eighty-two, was ordained a Unitarian minister as well. Among her many writings are religious education materials for children with supporting materials for adults, and works for adults that deal with faith development.
Fahs is known for her natural approach to learning religion, which contrasted sharply with the doctrinaire and authoritarian approaches of her day, and the direct and descriptive style in which she wrote juvenile works.
Fahs’s most renowned work on religious education is Today’s Children and Yesterday’s Heritage: A Philosophy of Creative Religious Development (1952), written after many years of work in religious education at the Riverside Church in New York City. In this work she stressed the “natural” acquisition of religion, contending that children form a religious belief system based on their personal faith experiences.
For older children Fahs wrote works that explore biblical history and doctrine. Based on archaeological and biblical material and replete with illustrations and maps, Drama of Ancient Israel (1950) is a history of Israel, covering five hundred years beginning in 1377 B.C. In the Crozer Quarterly J. P. Berkeley praised the work as a secular history but admitted that it does not “awaken awareness of God at work confronting man in his political and economic life”. Jesus: The Carpenter's Son (1945) is a biography of Jesus from his birth to crucifixion that focuses on Jesus’s humanity and incorporates historical details. This work caught the attention of critics. In The Old Story of Salvation (1955), Fahs summarized the basic Christian tenets of sin and salvation. A Kirkus Reviews critic found the work to be “a most intriguing book for use in study groups of young people and adults”.
Fahs drew widely from world literature and mythology in her writings. Focusing on the fellowship of human beings, From Long Ago and Many Lands: Stories for Children Told Anew (1948) includes religious legends from German, Greek, Italian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic and Burmese sources.
In addition, Beginnings: Earth, Sky, Life, Death (1958), a revision of two early works, introduces children to comparative religion by presenting the ancient myths of different people.
At her death in 1978 at age one hundred and one, Fahs left unfinished a collection of stories from various cultures that was later completed and published by Fahs’s former student, Alice Cobb, a religion professor. Old Tales for a New Day: Early Answers to Life’s Eternal Questions (1981) deals with themes of good and evil and is intended for use by teachers and parents.
(A Philosophy of Creative Religious Development; Teachers,...)
1952(An appreciative understanding of the issues explored in O...)
1980(Uganda's White Man of Work: A Story of Alexander M. Macka...)
1970(Ten services with themes related to nature)
1943(Stories Old and New)
1937(Stories Old and New)
1938Fahs was married to Charles Harvey Fahs, an aspiring Methodist missionary and research librarian. The marriage produced five children.