The Latin American Church has succeeded in formulating valid theological perceptions and pastoral initiatives based upon its reality. It has also forged terms which accurately express newly formulated concepts of Latin America's self-understanding, self-identity and world role within the context of man's salvific quest. These terms adequately describe the Latin American reality and are clearly understood in the milieu to which they pertain. However, they have not gained currency in the glossary of inter-American dialogue and sometimes create confusion rather than clarity in the minds of North Americans who are unfamiliar with their true meaning.

The Latin American Church speaks to us of the legitimate aspirations of its people for liberation and the term conjures up threatening images of rebellion, anarchy and chaos in the North American subconscious. The Latin American Church speaks of communitarianism and North Americans subconsciously envision some menacing form of welfare state which threatens our national deification of the work-and prosper Protestant ethic. The Latin American Church speaks of educational philosophy or Conscientization and North Americans subconsciously equate this with some devious form of brain-washing.

Five years ago West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard and Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder launched a tentative “Opening to the East” which marked a break with Konrad Adenauer's relatively rigid approach to, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The “Grand Conbtion” of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats continued the experiment from 1966-1969. The Hallstein Doctrine—no diplomatic relations with any country which had such relations with East Germany (the Soviet Union being the sole exception)—was abandoned. West Germany established diplomatic relations with the maverick Rumanian regime, and re-established relations with Tito's Yugoslavia. Several trade and cultural exchange agreements were entered into with East European Communist nations.

Towards the end of his tenure as president of Sarah Lawrence College Harold Taylor attacked “the present system of lectures textbooks survey courses standard requirements of subject matter examinations md grades” for failing “to touch the inner consciousness of the student or to dtil with his motivations his emotions his aims ind his needs.” It was a typical call for relevance in education.

What I want to do is examine some of the puzzles and hidden assumptions that attach to the relevance-in-education controversy, We need not raise such misty questions is What is the relevance of relevance? (although this is sometimes done) But it does seem imperative to begin with the basic question: Relevant to what? Taylor's answer to that question would appear clear enough.