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Purgatory : Should Christianity be taught to children?
Robert Armin
Shipmate, Glory
This is an idea that's been buzzing round my mind for years, but came up again when talking to my counsellor the other day. I think the Christian virtue of forgiving your enemies, loving them even, isn't only a religious plus, but the answer to a happy life.
However, when kids are taught it, it easily becomes "be nice to everyone and never get cross". It seems to me that, until you've accepted that you can get angry, violent even, the message of forbidding is not liberating, but constricting. If I'm right, and I'm not sure I am, then is there a case for not teaching these virtues until people are adults? And what would that do to all our youth work?
However, when kids are taught it, it easily becomes "be nice to everyone and never get cross". It seems to me that, until you've accepted that you can get angry, violent even, the message of forbidding is not liberating, but constricting. If I'm right, and I'm not sure I am, then is there a case for not teaching these virtues until people are adults? And what would that do to all our youth work?
Comments
We certainly taught our kids that it’s okay to be angry, and then worked on appropriate and inappropriate ways of expressing or acting on that anger.
Children still need to be taught to understand what is a lie, what is a broken promise, what are the specific forms of behaviour that result in damaged feelings, relationships and environments.
The mythology that surrounds Christianity is less useful IMO in a purely didactic sense. The Bible is full of horrors and traumas and adult content, and I feel it's better to leave this for later in a child's development.
IMO it's OK to leave out the story of the life, torture, death and resurrection until the child has developed the emotional maturity to encompass some kind of concept of a world that facilitates this kind of treatment of one another, even as we try to teach behaviour to the contrary.
AFF
So anger and the word "Fuck" have featured prominently in our parental modeling (foul language makes a pretty good substitute for strangling certain parishioners!). And as for forgiveness, well, he's seen that modeled too, along with all the eye-rolling it sometimes involves (for example, when Person X has barely the least notion of the trouble she's caused, and yet must be forgiven and cared for instead of yeeted into the sun).
Why, yes, I AM a little stressed about a certain person at church just now. What gave you the first clue?
Forgiveness is more challenging, as people have widely different views about when it should be applied e.g. ‘I can forgive but I’ll never forget’!
Preferably the other, less cynical one.
I see some ideas of what teaching Christianity is to be problematic in multi-cultural school settings and appears to be relying on a remnant of a past Christian culture.
Yes, I agree, but I wonder how all this affects what we do (or don't do) in church.
'Sunday School' seems to have died out in many parishes/churches (but by no means all), so how do we teach those children who do come to church the rudiments of the Faith, if we feel that this is necessary?
Messy Church?
I am becoming more and more convinced that Messy Church, whilst it has enormous value, should not be seen as, of itself, Church, but as a stepping stone. I know that has been stated not to be the intention, but it seems to me that it only meets a need as church for a certain period in a family’s life, and something more is needed if those family members are to grow in their understanding and faith.
My local parish church has Messy Church monthly (on a Sunday afternoon), and AIUI there is a fair attendance of children and adults - a few of whom do go to the Parish Communion on other Sundays. I'm told that Messy Church has resulted in a number of baptisms, and that one or two of the families concerned have entered further into faith, and the life of the church.
Obviously, children should be taught about Christianity, just as they are taught about religions and beliefs as part of Religious Education, and about geography, history, physics, and all manner of subjects. There's also subjects such as sport, art, drama, and music, which are slightly different as the child gets to participate rather than simply absorb information.
If the child is lucky they will find one or more subjects that sparks their interest and which becomes more than just an academic qualification.
Should they be taught to be Christians? No of course not.
As for the idea that there are virtues which are specifically Christian or which require a Christian framework, well, no. If there were then we would see that the children of non-Christians are specifically lacking in virtues, which they are not.
I belong to a church which practises infant/child baptism, but I appreciate the view of those who prefer the practice of 'believer's baptism' at a later stage...
The OP is perhaps a little ambiguous, I agree.
I was careful to say that these values are of importance to everyone, not only religious folk. But I think it's uncontroversial to say they lie at the heart of Jesus' teaching, and therefore the Christian way of life.
And as for specifically Christian virtues, are those not the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and love (in the specifically Christian variants--tge ones that look like stupidity to non-Christians?
Because being Christian is a matter of choice and as with all choices in life I would rather children grow and discover what they wish to believe in through experience and experimentation rather than having one position thrust upon them when they are too immature to understand the alternatives on offer.
Faith hope and love do not look like stupidity to non-Christians. On the contrary, I believe particular Christian values are immensely useful to Christians. I just happen to believe they are not universally applicable or relevant to all people.
Except that historically (and even today) countless Christians ignored those values and perverted Christianity to justify all manner of horrors.
Not quite grasping what you mean. Do you mean children raised as Christians usually turn to Christianity, or the opposite?
This discussion often turns on atheism versus Christianity, but in real life at the moment I know a Buddhist, a Daoist, a Christian, one atheist, one non-anything, and a few pagans, so I really do see Christianity as simply one choice among many.
They're not even remotely the same thing.
And your point is? Ignoring, or failing to live up to, core values does not make them any less central.
You can support a child in making a good choice while still leaving the choice up to them. If you believe that following Christ is a good choice then you will necessarily want to instruct your child in how to do that, even if you don't (and indeed can't possibly) force them to do so.
There are lots of people out there who were raised as Christian and who, as they grew up, made the decision on their own to reject how they’d been raised.
Holland says he was an atheist as a young man; nothing suggests that's changed.
(I believed that before reading Holland's book: many of the entries in the general section of his bibliography are familiar. But it was fun reading and Holland is sufficiently interested in the crimes and follies of humanity not to appear one-sided. Indeed, I frequently felt that he leaves the reader too much to make his case for themselves.)
A child brought up in a mainstream secular home in Europe is being brought up with Christian values. Indeed, the very idea that there is a default called the secular that exists without something called religion is an artifact of Christian theology.
Christians in the US, perhaps the OP question should be altered to read, "Can Christianity be taught to children (or indeed anybody)?"
I think that's getting very close to it. You can't teach a child to be Christian (Buddhist, Muslim, or any other) by sitting them down and teaching them the various principles of the religion. They will learn what adherents of that religion believe, but the belief itself can not be taught in an academic manner. It can be by example - how many came to be Christians by having a smattering of the article of belief and then observing how Mother Theresa put those into action as her daily life.
Not only is the answer, Yes, but it's obviously and self-evidently Yes. If an assortment of atheists and agnostics think otherwise, then, so what?
The best teaching was certainly done by specialist R.E. teachers, and I think benefitted from being about religions rather than just Christianity. One of the most effective R.E. teachers I can remember in our all-white school was a moslem lady. Towards the end of my teaching career, our school went through a period of not hiring specialist R.E. staff. I joined with the rest of the Humanities staff in refusing to take over the teaching of R.E. alongside our History and Geography teaching, partly because there was no syllabus and the text book just focussed on festivals. It nearly came to the point where I, a Christian, would have had to exercise my legal right not to teach ‘Christianity’!
I don’t think things have changed much since. I imagine Christianity is taught well in some secondary schools, but our fragmented education system is particularly fragmented when it comes to R.E.
But there's also this: If you have something in your life that you seriously believe to be the way, the truth, and the life, the best thing that ever happened to you, the thing that humanity was made for, and so on and so forth--why ever would you withhold it from your child? It would be worse than withholding vaccinations on the grounds that the child can "choose" to be vaccinated as an adult.
Not quibbling at all with what you say in your first paragraph, which is much what Lamb Chopped has said. What I'm saying is that you can't teach belief as you can teach mathematics etc. That sort of teaching can only pass on details of what it is that you believe. The only way you can teach the belief itself is from their observation of your life and how your belief guides and directs that.
The Barna Group has been looking at this for the past five years. They have come up with six main reasons.
*Churches seem overprotective
*Christianity seems too shallow
*Churches are antagonistic to science
*The church comes across as judgmental to sexuality
*Churches come across as exclusive
*Churches are unfriendly to doubt."
I know I all but left the church because of the third reason. I grew up in a denomination that taught the six 24 hour day creation. I enjoyed science. I still do. My favorite TV series has to be Cosmos with both Carl Sagan and Neal deGrasse Tyson as hosts. But it was my uncle who had a PhD in Geology that helped me start to make sense of it all, namely while science can explain how things evolved, it cannot explain why or who might be behind it.
Churches certainly come across as unfriendly to doubt, but my mantra is that the enemy of faith is not doubt but certitude.
The sexuality issue is certainly a killer among many young people I know. However, I think Pete Buttigieg is showing that a gay person can indeed be a faithful member of the church. He is Episcopalian and his message of social justice is definitely reflective of his denomination's message.
Every 500 years the church has to transform itself to make it more relative to the people--it might have to do it much more often, but I would definitely say it needs to repackage its message and address the concerns of young people.
?For me, the answer is straightforward: all religious beliefs should be taught ABOUT as they are an integral part of history, but to teach a child that beliefs which entirely lack credibility as definite truths Is, yes, a no-no.
Atheists are not neutral in this. They want "faith" to be completely mistaught, misunderstood, to wither in each passing generation. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not neutrality. It is active hostility. The wrinkle is that certain religious people agree with them, notably those who treat faith like a set of terms and conditions to which believers must adhere.
"It seems to me that, until you've accepted that you can get angry, violent even, the message of forbidding is not liberating, but constricting."
If we deny the darker side of ourselves, which is temptingly easy to do no matter how often we confess our sins, how can we practise forgiveness, or receive it? As a child the message I heard was, "Be nice and don't get angry," so I pushed a lot of my more unpleasant emotions away. Many years later I am having to deal with them. As Prospero said of Caliban, "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine."
My point is there is nothing particularly Christian about those values. They are core to every culture because they are part of human social behaviour.
Utterly absurd comment re atheists. I'd also point out that atheism is also a belief and a way of "relating to the world and everything in it which has to be experienced".
My main point is that Christianity is only one our of a myriad of possible faith positions any one of which may be a best fit with someone's needs and all of which are of equal value and validity.