{"id":46046,"date":"2013-08-05T00:07:15","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T07:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=46046"},"modified":"2014-12-29T22:17:29","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T05:17:29","slug":"a-question-about-answering-faith-questions-from-kids-in-atheist-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/08\/a-question-about-answering-faith-questions-from-kids-in-atheist-families.html","title":{"rendered":"A question about answering faith questions from kids in atheist families"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>A reader writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>So, I live with a family that is vaguely religious. They don\u2019t seem to be Christian and seem to belong to a spiritual community of some kind, but I\u2019ve never heard them say anything about religion, spirituality, etc. They have a couple of small children who often take an interest in me and I\u2019m not bashful about walking around with my sacramentals. So, I was thinking, what do you think I should do if they begin asking questions about sacramentals or God, if things went that way? I\u2019ve been thinking about this also, because my brother is an atheist and has a child that I love dearly. Is it prudent to offer some catechesis or direct their questions to their parents? Thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think you should answer the questions honestly and let the chips fall where they may.\u00a0 You aren\u2019t proselytizing or pressuring, just responding to a kid\u2019s honest curiosity.\u00a0 They have a right to hear the truth.\u00a0 You have a right to speak it.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have to be presented as a challenge to parental authority.\u00a0 It can be spoken simply as \u201cHere is my experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A reader writes: So, I live with a family that is vaguely religious. They don\u2019t seem to be Christian and seem to belong to a spiritual community of some kind, but I\u2019ve never heard them say anything about religion, spirituality, etc. They have a couple of small children who often take an interest in me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-46046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mailbag"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A question about answering faith questions from kids in atheist families<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A reader writes: So, I live with a family that is vaguely religious. They don&#039;t seem to be Christian and seem to belong to a spiritual community of some\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/08\/a-question-about-answering-faith-questions-from-kids-in-atheist-families.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A question about answering faith questions from kids in atheist families\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A reader writes: So, I live with a family that is vaguely religious. They don&#039;t seem to be Christian and seem to belong to a spiritual community of some\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/08\/a-question-about-answering-faith-questions-from-kids-in-atheist-families.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-05T07:07:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-30T05:17:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/08\/a-question-about-answering-faith-questions-from-kids-in-atheist-families.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/08\/a-question-about-answering-faith-questions-from-kids-in-atheist-families.html\",\"name\":\"A question about answering faith questions from kids in atheist families\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-08-05T07:07:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-30T05:17:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\"},\"description\":\"A reader writes: So, I live with a family that is vaguely religious. 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