Tuesday, January 18, 2005 AD
Unbelieving children
The Internet Monk tackles that moment every Christian parent dreads: "Mum, Dad: I don't believe in Jesus anymore".
I was about to say, "I hope never to have to face this issue, but if I do, I hope I have the presence of mind to search out this article". In fact, I'm not sure I quite mean that. I would be devastated if our children rejected the faith permanently and outright as they grew up. But there is an alternative trajectory, one not all that dissimilar from my own, in which adolescent rejection of a childish faith gives way to a re-embracing of that faith in a more solid and lasting way in adulthood.
As the IM says:
In the same way, doubting God and the Gospel are things that it is, perhaps, not wise to leave until adulthood before experiencing for the first time.
I would not wish my own experience of atheism - of godlessness, in the most desolate sense of the word - on anyone, let alone my sons. But at least I now have a memory of how doubt and unbelief need not be the last word in my own life, of how the questions and accusations against Christianity can be answered or at least lived with, rather than finding myself mugged by first encountering these objections - many of which are facile, all of which the church has lived with in one form or another for 2,000 years - only in adulthood, perhaps in circumstances that make them more spiritually dangerous: for example, when suffering comes, and we are invited to "curse God and die".
So I can see where the IM is coming from when he counsels against "declaring a 'three alarm fire' over an unbelieving child". And many of his practical suggestions are very helpful: finding appropriate Christian peer groups in which your child can participate (though some church youth groups may do more harm than good); maintaining the practice of family devotions and church attendance in the home ("When [your child] has his own family, he may do what he wants. Your family will worship, pray, etc."); and above all, praying for your children.
That said, I don't always find it easy to resist the pleadings/pesterings of our children for a new toy or (yet) another biscuit. In a consumerist society, it feels almost like a form of child abuse to withhold material things from our children. ("He'll grow up hating me for not having bought him [x]", I find myself thinking; minutes later, having steeled myself to say "no" and endured the cries of anger and disappointment, the unpurchased [x] is completely forgotten.) It also feels hypocritical: I'm scarcely a model of restraint when if comes to buying myself a new "toy" or (yet) another biscuit.
And in the same way, it is difficult not to feel a twinge of panic at some of the things one's children can say, even at a very young age (as when our older son, not yet four, opined recently as we said grace that "God can't really hear us when we talk to Him, can He?"); and equally, not to feel a warm glow of proud satisfaction at the occasional flashes of childhood piety (for example, the insistence on having a Bible story every night, "as they're more important than other stories"). So I can't pretend it will be easy to take such a detached, "big picture" approach in practice, as our sons grow older and this becomes more of a live issue.
One other piece of advice in the article touched a particular nerve for me: ensuring the participation of children and young people in public worship, rather than hustling them off into separate activities. As the IM puts it:
I was about to say, "I hope never to have to face this issue, but if I do, I hope I have the presence of mind to search out this article". In fact, I'm not sure I quite mean that. I would be devastated if our children rejected the faith permanently and outright as they grew up. But there is an alternative trajectory, one not all that dissimilar from my own, in which adolescent rejection of a childish faith gives way to a re-embracing of that faith in a more solid and lasting way in adulthood.
As the IM says:
Why are we so convinced that an adolescent rejection of religion is to be avoided at all costs? I would far prefer to deal with the possibility of rejection early on than later, when a college age or young adult child decides to abandon Christ with true finality, fueled by resentment and a sense of being confined in a failed effort to produce an unsullied, and unchosen, Christianity.An analogy may be helpful here. Any halfway decent parent knows it is not healthy for children never to be contradicted, never to to be denied what they want (or think they want). One reason for that is that our children will experience contradiction and frustration throughout their adult lives, and they will be very poorly equipped to handle this if they have to wait until adulthood for their first experience of it.
In the same way, doubting God and the Gospel are things that it is, perhaps, not wise to leave until adulthood before experiencing for the first time.
I would not wish my own experience of atheism - of godlessness, in the most desolate sense of the word - on anyone, let alone my sons. But at least I now have a memory of how doubt and unbelief need not be the last word in my own life, of how the questions and accusations against Christianity can be answered or at least lived with, rather than finding myself mugged by first encountering these objections - many of which are facile, all of which the church has lived with in one form or another for 2,000 years - only in adulthood, perhaps in circumstances that make them more spiritually dangerous: for example, when suffering comes, and we are invited to "curse God and die".
So I can see where the IM is coming from when he counsels against "declaring a 'three alarm fire' over an unbelieving child". And many of his practical suggestions are very helpful: finding appropriate Christian peer groups in which your child can participate (though some church youth groups may do more harm than good); maintaining the practice of family devotions and church attendance in the home ("When [your child] has his own family, he may do what he wants. Your family will worship, pray, etc."); and above all, praying for your children.
That said, I don't always find it easy to resist the pleadings/pesterings of our children for a new toy or (yet) another biscuit. In a consumerist society, it feels almost like a form of child abuse to withhold material things from our children. ("He'll grow up hating me for not having bought him [x]", I find myself thinking; minutes later, having steeled myself to say "no" and endured the cries of anger and disappointment, the unpurchased [x] is completely forgotten.) It also feels hypocritical: I'm scarcely a model of restraint when if comes to buying myself a new "toy" or (yet) another biscuit.
And in the same way, it is difficult not to feel a twinge of panic at some of the things one's children can say, even at a very young age (as when our older son, not yet four, opined recently as we said grace that "God can't really hear us when we talk to Him, can He?"); and equally, not to feel a warm glow of proud satisfaction at the occasional flashes of childhood piety (for example, the insistence on having a Bible story every night, "as they're more important than other stories"). So I can't pretend it will be easy to take such a detached, "big picture" approach in practice, as our sons grow older and this becomes more of a live issue.
One other piece of advice in the article touched a particular nerve for me: ensuring the participation of children and young people in public worship, rather than hustling them off into separate activities. As the IM puts it:
You won't be surprised to hear me say that every church doesn't help you deal with a young person like Alex. Many trust the "youth program" to do the foundational work. This is a critical error. Church should be a family event, not an age-grouped event. Alex needs to hear the Gospel, even if he is bored with it and doesn't believe it. He needs to hear the Gospel and nothing else. He doesn't need a lot of manipulation or emotion. He needs to hear about Jesus Christ, the savior of sinners. He needs to hear it over and over, plainly and simply. I can't say this enough: find a church that is Gospel centered and go there regularly. If Alex is going to reject the idea of God and the message of Jesus, let's be sure he's hearing it so there is no confusion.It depresses me intensely that in 99.9% of churches, it seems the first experience most children will have of regular participation in public worship and the liturgy will come only after they have turned 18. I'm determined that, one way or another, that will not be our sons' experience. So I agree wholeheartedly, with sung hosannas indeed, with Pr Joel Humann's observation that:
As the "conservatives" and the "liberals" continue to devour one another, neither consider the more fundamental way in which they are cut from the same cloth ... no one thinks it the slightest bit curious that the catechesis of the young does not make praying and expounding the liturgy its first (would it be too bombastic to say "only"?) order of business.The principle that we are called to believe, not an abstract Gospel, but the Gospel as proclaimed to us in and through the church's ministry of Word and Sacrament, surely applies to our children as much as it applies to us.
