My second oldest child is going to be twenty on Sunday. I’m glad I looked at the calendar and noticed before the day came upon me. It’s so hard to remember these things, especially when the children are out living their lives, at work till one in the morning, studying in all the other hours. I guess I will be spending the next twenty-four hours trying to make Bouillabaisse, for that is what he has ordered for Luncheon.
I finished Sarah McCammon’s book yesterday and am pondering what kinds of things to draw out in my official review, but, spoiler alert, I found the book heartbreaking. That McCammon feels ill-used, that she is embarrassed and hurt about the things she was taught, and that she yet desires her family to accept her in her rejection of all they offered her feels a little bit like a Greek tragedy.
The central issue, as far as I see it, and one I’ve been thinking about for the last twenty years, is the catechizing and disciplining of children into the faith. This is the crux of the drama, not only in her work but in so many others I’ve read.
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Catechizing children into faith isn’t something only evangelicals have “struggled”* to accomplish. As the Great Dechurching authors pointed out, people are leaving every denomination and Christian tradition in droves. Catholics are well known for the ‘get confirmed and wander away’ trope, mainline churches are, well, mostly empty. Even filling an Episcopal church with rainbow flags isn’t tempting enough to bring the people back who wandered away. And lots of evangelical churches training children in the way they should go involved too much dried macaroni and paste. Why is it so hard? Why does nothing seem to work?
I couldn’t possibly answer those two questions in a full and satisfying way, but I have a lot of scattered opinions about it. My oldest is 21 and my youngest just turned 13. I long, indeed hope, that they will all remain in the faith. Heck, I’m going to be disappointed if they don’t all stay Anglican, though I’m not going to endure many sleepless nights over their loyalty to the ACNA. I want them to be true Christians, in whatever form that happens to take. It’s the most basic and sane desire any parent ought to have—unchurched/dechurched/ex-churched ‘I just want my child to be healthy, happy, and safe’ nonsense notwithstanding.
Where did evangelicalism in particular go wrong? I think the first way was to treat children as if they needed to be saved as if they were pagans, and not as integral members of a covenant community from birth. Children born into Christian families should be treated as if they are Christians until they display evidence that they are not. They shouldn’t have to pray the sinner’s prayer. They shouldn’t have to walk the sawdust trail. The faith of a child should be likened to a plant. You plant the seed—baptism or dedication—and then you water and feed it—the ordinary work of a Christian life. What you don’t do is dig it up all the time to see if it is growing. Nor do you take its measure when it’s tired and needs a proper nap after a long day at church where it melted down in the middle of the aisle and was disrespectful to Mrs. Smith when you most particularly wanted it to be on its best behavior. You probably also shouldn’t look at it too closely at its soul, except to revel in the mystery of its inexorable growth.
The second way that many many many evangelical churches and families fall into the ditch of badly catechizing children is by confusing the law and the gospel. Reading McCammon and literally everyone else, not a single one seems able to tell the difference between the commandments and God and the gospel that redeems the sinner who does not follow those same commandments. Children, in particular, are sensitive to this distinction, and if it is not properly made, they will understand that to be saved, they must keep the law, which, of course, they cannot do. It is a very great sorrow to me that so many adults don’t know the difference between the law and the gospel, nor the relationship of one to the other, but discovering that a child has confused them just makes me angry because it’s not her fault.
McCammon, in the spirit of the age, jettisons the idea of original sin. It appalls her that anyone would think that children are wicked. And this leads me to the third thing that evangelicals need to face. Children are sinners in need of the grace of God. But they are not little adults. Their entry into the kingdom of God, and the manner in which they encounter the gospel is not, or at least, should not be the way of the adult. And that is because they don’t need to repent of the vast pile of sins that the adult does. They haven’t made sin a practice and habit of life. Best of all, they have not had a lot of time to use their intelligence to explain away the presence of God, either in the cosmos, or anywhere else. They have, in the words of Sofia Cavalletti, religious potential.
How ought the adult world to steward this potential? What should parents, pastors, Sunday School teachers, and schoolteachers do with so easy an apprehension and even communion with God? Well, they should go straight to Jesus—that’s what they should do. They should not spend time on Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon, or the End Times until they have given the youngest of children a full measure, shaken down, pressed together, spilling over of Jesus.
Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus the Light of the World, Jesus the Precious Pearl, Jesus the Grain that Falls into the Ground and Dies, Jesus the Bread, Jesus the Living Water, Jesus the Wine, Jesus the Vine, Jesus the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. In everything Jesus.
But also, not Jesus in a trite and preachy way. Not Jesus with a lot of jumping around and getting excited. Not Jesus hopelessly enmired in primary colors, unsingable theologically vacuous praise tunes, and emotionally laden moral tales. The Jesus that the child needs to encounter is the one right there on the page, the Jesus of the Bible who invites each of us, through parables (I’m quoting the Pugcast here) “to perceive reality in a different way” and “ordinary things in a strange way.” This Jesus will meet the child in reverence, solemnity, wonder, and love. This Jesus opens the door for the child to encounter the whole world and the scriptures from the standpoint of real belief and faith, of seeing the world he has made from the inside, from being at home, and not like a stranger or an alien.
Plenty of churches and families are discovering the lack, the anemia, the sort of frenzied anxiety that breeds hopelessness and unbelief. There are so many churches you can take your children to that will open up the Way of Life for them, instead of barring the door. But here’s what all true Christians today should not do. They should not change their doctrine, their commitment to and belief in the reliability and perspicacity of scripture, their trust in the saving work of Christ, their love of the Law, their strongly bounded cultures and communities, nor even their posture toward the world. In all these, they were not wrong.
And on that note, I have to run around and see if I can find a desk for my birthday child, who needs more space for his oil paints, his computer, all his piles of junk, and his ebullient spirit.
Have a nice day!
*Matt always says “struggle” is the Christian word for failure.
"Where did evangelicalism in particular go wrong? I think the first way was to treat children as if they needed to be saved as if they were pagans, and not as integral members of a covenant community from birth. Children born into Christian families should be treated as if they are Christians until they display evidence that they are not. They shouldn’t have to pray the sinner’s prayer."
Another outstanding piece, Anne, and an important one for young Christian parents and future Christian parents to read. What is so sad is that so many Christians thought the "sinner's prayer" path to salvation was what they should teach their children. I was well into my adult years before I learned the law/gospel distinction, the distinction between our justification and sanctification in Christ, and so many other basic fundamental truths of the faith, including God's overarching redemptive plan from Genesis to Revelation, that I could have known and rejoiced in if someone knew to teach them to me.
Great thoughts, Anne!
I think I mostly agree with this part: "They should not spend time on Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon, or the End Times until they have given the youngest of children a full measure, shaken down, pressed together, spilling over of Jesus." But it is actually a new-ish thought to me. I just assumed, from my Sunday School days, that we needed to begin with the Old Testament stories. I think that can still be done, as long as every lesson eventually drives back home to Jesus.
I think the people who raised me in the church (parents, teachers, role models, etc.) did a pretty good job. That I eventually became a rebel for a while is entirely my fault. One possible exception was being strongly urged, at age 4, to say the Sinner's Prayer. That and my parents' complete lack of appreciation for the power and importance of Baptism. In the Sinner's Prayer episode (as I recall it), they literally came into my room at bedtime and said: "Look, you have a choice to make. You can accept Jesus now, or suffer eternal torment in the lake of fire. Would you like to pray with us?" It seemed like a no-brainer kind of decision, so I prayed the prayer.
But WAY more than that, there was Miss Searle, my kindergarten Sunday School teacher (a "spinster" as they might have said back then, seemingly, to me, in her 90s, but probably actually in her 70s). I fondly recall a song she taught us, using the words of Psalm 122:1 -- "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." And I was glad. I still am.