Over the last two weeks I’ve discussed 5 guidelines I want to follow as I teach Yosi about the Bible as she grows. I want to offer a paragraph from each here and encourage you to go back and read the full posts if you have time. I would love to hear from some parents about whether or not you think these are good guidelines, and any further suggestions you might have.
1. What the Bible actually says - “Still, at some point I will have to expose her even to that passage [Abraham offering Isaac], and the ones where God seems to encourage genocide and rape and slavery, and the ones that talk about Hell, and Romans 9-11, and a dozen others I would rather avoid. And somehow, in presenting texts that I don’t understand and in admitting as much, she will hopefully come to 1) know the Bible, 2) read the Bible without fear, 3) trust me to be honest about the Bible, and 4) reach adulthood with an open mind about the Bible rather than one I’ve programmed to my purposes.”
2. What we believe to be true - “I know I am wrong on some things when it comes to the Bible and faith. A lot of things, actually. And because of that I expect and even hope Yosi will reach adulthood with the freedom to disagree with me on any number of faith topics. But she’ll never learn how to formulate her beliefs and opinions if I don’t show her how I came to mine, and that means I have to show her what mine are. Actual, real answers and how I got them. There’s a time for withholding an opinion for the sake of allowing a pupil to work through some questions on their own, but at some point the opinion has to be shared for fair discussion to take place. So we share what we think is true, with humility, and we talk about it. And we try not to call any of the Old Testament Patriarchs bad names.”
3. The available, reasonable interpretations- “So, when my daughter comes to me at different points with questions I will owe it to her not only to share what I think is true on a particular issue, but also to disclose that other Christians disagree and how they disagree. I am not a Calvinist, but there will be points when I need to explain the Calvinist perspective, and assure her that a lot of good and loving people hold to it. Even though I am a theistic evolutionist, I owe it to her to explain that a lot of Christians believe young earth creationism to be true, and they are not (most of them) silly or unintelligent for doing so. There are a lot of ways to follow Jesus because there are a lot of different people who follow Jesus, and we’re all wrong about some things and we’re probably all right about some things.”
4. When we just don’t know the answer- “By admitting to our children that there are issues big and small in the Bible that we really don’t know the answers to we are actually helping them spiritually in a number of ways. We are helping them see that no one has everything figured out. We are building trust that we will always deal honestly with them on these matters. We are helping them see the complexity and ambiguity that often accompanies Bible reading. We are removing from them the burden of ever needing to have all the answers, and the illusion that they ever can. Perhaps most importantly, we are helping them love the Bible as something other than a textbook of doctrinal exam preparation.”
5. When there aren’t any good answers- “Doing that means I have to be honest when certain questions the Bible raises don’t have answers, and certain stories it tells don’t have positive messages, and certain pictures it paints of God are less than glorious. I don’t know what to do with those parts, but I’m not allowed to make up answers to soften the blow. When there is no good answer I will have to tell her so, and hold her hand through it, and all the while pray that the God who eschewed the violence of fire and cyclone for a whisper will tell her He is love, and that He too longs for the day when the foggy glass is removed and we see Him as He is.”
Feel free to suggest changes, additions, subtractions, or rant and rave about how far off base I am. If you’re a parent, what guidelines have you followed with your own kids? Parent or not, how was the Bible presented to you as a child and do you agree or disagree with that method?
Aw, come on Dave–you’re predestined to be a Calvinist. You just don’t know it yet! (Sorry, couldn’t help myself).
I think you’ve hit on important themes here–though you may want to wait for age-appropriate years to hit on stories like that of Judah and Tamer, for instance. I remember substitute teaching third grade Sunday School and being stuck with a lesson on “Do not commit adultery.” I got a lot of blank stares.
The only additions I would make are: grace to fill up where you are lacking (because you will be), and the work of the Holy Spirit to breathe life into God’s word.
I snickered at your first line. Not funny! The worst fear of a non-Calvinist is that we’re dead wrong, but our reassurance if we are is that there’s nothing we could have done about it.
That is a caricature at best… and you know it is! Its whitty, dismissive comments like this (and 5-8 hours at a Calvanist’s house every other week) that will turn Yosi into a staunch Reformed Theologian!
Hee hee. It made you chuckle though. And welcome to the blog. This is your first ever comment here!
i esp. liked #5 – when there are no good answers…often enough there seem to be the wrong answers or no answers at all and i agree..it’s not our job to invent or tweak answers to soften the blow
I agree. “I don’t know” is one of my default answers when my daughter asks me a question
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I must say I like how you approach faith and child-rearing. I want to pass on my faith to my children while teaching them to think for themselves.
“When there is no good answer I will have to tell her so, and hold her hand through it, and all the while pray that the God who eschewed the violence of fire and cyclone for a whisper will tell her He is love, and that He too longs for the day when the foggy glass is removed and we see Him as He is.”
I heart this line.
“I want to pass on my faith to my children while teaching them to think for themselves.”
That’s really the kicker. If you figure out how, let me know!
I think these are good guidelines. As a non-parent, but a person who benefited from her own parent’s perspective, I would suggest one other: teach her to view the Bible as a variety of genres, and not just a set of premises or instructions. I’m especially attached to the idea of the Bible as the story of human’s relationship with God, and stories are easy for children to understand anyway. My dad has a book where he talks about this and other things, consider checking it out: http://www.amazon.com/Helping-Our-Children-Grow-Faith/dp/B002U0KSO6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1307024691&sr=8-1
I will definitely check out the book. Thanks for the recommendation.
I like your additional guideline. Hmmm…might have to work that in somehow.
I think these are fantastic, I’ll have to go back and read this rest, while I believe in age appropriateness, I’m often surprised at how easily my daughter takes the bible stories we do tell her, even if they involve death such as the cross.
I think the point on teaching her what others think is important. I grew up thinking that what I was taught, and what I knew about the bible was not only the “only” way, but it didn’t occur to me that other christians actually believe something else. It has been huge for my spiritual journey to explore what other’s believe even while disagreeing with them. I have had to deconstruct a lot of my upbringing though.
I know what you mean. I reached adulthood assuming all Catholics and mainliners were heathens and young earth Creationism was indisputable.
I think these are fantastic guidelines, something both my husband and I keep in mind when teaching our little ones. I especially like #1-teaching what the Bible actually says. I think its important that our kids know the real stories. I remember growing up knowing the story of Samson (for example) one way, and upon reading it for myself as a teenager, being completely shocked that I hadn’t been told what had really happened..something that made me bitter for a while, and it also caused me to doubt other things that I had been taught, wondering if there was information missing.
All that to say….you got good stuff here! I will definitely take a look at the longer versions!
It’s tough to be age-appropriate while still telling the truth. It has surprised me though how well my preschool daughter understands stories when they are explained honestly.
Well, I don’t have any kids so this is well beyond me…
But the one insightful thing that has always helped me has been to find joy in the doubt: the things we don’t know about God are what makes him so great, so I’m glad God created question-asking, even though he doesn’t always give us the answers.
I agree. I want to help her see that having the answers isn’t the point. I want her to be free to love the Bible even when its “meaning” is ambiguous, just like I want her to love God even when His ways seem confusing.
i love your heart, david.
i don’t have the answers. i’m so new to all of this. but i just pray, and try to associate the name “Jesus” with beautiful, loving things throughout the day, and we read The Jesus Storybook at supper and that is just a stunning gift for children everywhere, and their parents… never has the gospel been more beautiful.
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I know you’re trying to be nice here…
But yes, those people who believe that the Earth’s age is measured in thousands of years and who don’t accept evolution are *absolutely* silly and unintelligent for believing that nonsense. You should do a better job of calling them out on it.
I know what you mean, Hemant, but I know young earth creationists – they aren’t stupid people. I was raised as one and remained one into early adulthood. I remember the reasons I held to it, and it was wrapped up in loyalties and false evidences and imagined conflicts that made it hard to break out of. The evidence for evolution and an old universe is incontrovertible and the American church’s ongoing insistence in propogating a false science is frustrating to me, but I’m sympathetic to the people involved because I know they are sincere and think reason is on their side. Do you see what I mean?
Hi! Since I had took a little break from the computer I haven’t read your other previous posts about this yet, but 1. You always make me smarter when I read here. I google a lot of your words because I have no idea what you are talking about! (theistic evolutionist, fundementalism, Calvinist), and 2. Yosi is blessed to have parents who know Jesus, and who teach her about Jesus, parents who pray for her, who teach her how to pray. You were blessed to be raised by such parents also. Of course you know all this…. (I recall I was given a bible on my 8th birthday after my dad died, and it took me almost 27 years to know what to do with it, me with no church upbringing, no bible stories, no understanding of a most amazing Jesus)- you are doing a great job with that baby girl just simply by reading the stories to her, just by getting them in her brain files at a young age, just as your parents did for you.
I hear so many stories about kids who grew up in the faith, who now as adults have such different views about it than their parents had. So it is a given that she will eventually disagree with you, as you most likely disagree with your parents view (just guessing here). And I think you are right in saying that we are all a little bit right, all a little bit wrong. Actually we are probably all really really wrong! Who knows? God knows. Maybe He’ll tell us, maybe He won’t. I am loving the mystery of it all more every day.
This is a timely post as my two oldest are about to get baptized, and so I had planned on doing a summer Bible study with them. Great points. thanks.
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