This weekend, while driving, I tuned into National Public Radio. A show came on entitled “Speaking of Faith.” It is Public Radio’s attempt to address spirituality and religion. This was the first of their shows that I have listened to, and I can see that it might have some real possibilities to start conversation and debate. This particular episode dealt with the ‘Spirituality of Parenting’ and was an interview with a female Rabbi on how to raise your children with a sense of the ‘spiritual.’ You can hear the whole interview here:

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/spiritualityofparenting/

About twelve minutes into the show they play a clip from a caller, in which the caller asks how to instill spirituality in her children while avoiding a “parent-forced religion.”

The guest Rabbi goes on to expound her theories concerning this and then offers some sample prayers from one of her books for children. I was totally shocked. Prayer as speaking to God was non-existent. These were poems or free verse not directed really to the deity. My question is, how is it even really prayer if you are not addressing deity? The emphasis was on instilling a vague sense of fairness, niceness, and compassion (i.e. when a squirrel gets hit by a car), and avoiding any real content or doctrine (dogma in the Rabbi’s parlance) and allowing the naturally spiritual nature of children to be nurtured and encouraged.

Hmmm… maybe I should let the naturally hedonistic tendencies of my children dictate their learning experiences with sex and drugs. Their self assertiveness and self esteem should be bolstered on the playground by their natural inclination to bullying and going along with the crowd. We wouldn’t want to be guilty of “parent-forced” sobriety or chastity, inflicting our arbitrary values on our innocent young. Of course this is insanity, and I would never abuse my kids in such a manner. But apparently our culture thinks this is the way to do it with our children’s spiritual development.

Why would you want to impart any kind of spirituality to a child that you didn’t think was true? These people evidently reject dogma and doctrine as not true (or not true for them) or in the case of the caller to the show, true for her but maybe not true for her children, but then feel the need to impart a set of values that they have made up or arbitrarily elevated to importance. The whole thing seemed empty and pointless; an effort to instill in children character traits that our feminized culture deems appropriate. (Note: I am not saying that these traits are wrong or there is no place for them in our children’s development, just that these are not the primary stuff of the Christian faith.) Times are tough for theologically liberal Christians and Jews if the above example is indicative of their best efforts at handing down their faith to their children.

Thank God for the Scriptures and the catechisms. These allow us to impart to our children God’s answers to their questions from His Word. They give form and structure to our spirituality, teach us to pray, and impart content that we have not just made up. These answers are time tested, and connect us to those who have believed and gone before us. They illumine God’s grace and action toward you in Christ. They impart to us God’s wisdom and truth.

If you listen to the podcast, or at least part of it, you will be struck by the huge contrast between the Christian/Lutheran way of catechesis and the generic spirituality of modern liberal religion. I think it is pretty informative and is worth five or ten minutes of your time.

By Pat K

Posted in General