These are measures of protection we afford ourselves and our children \u2013 before they ever sit down on a bike or jump in a pool. But these devices, the seatbelts and the floaties, aren\u2019t there to prevent one from having the experience of a car ride or an afternoon swim. They exist to foster a\u00a0safe<\/i>\u00a0experience of the minivan and the deep end. Safety\u00a0first.<\/i>\u00a0We seek out and invent these devices to uphold and encase our bodies because our physical existence is greatly valued. As it should be.<\/span><\/p>\n But what about our spiritual existence and its protection?<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in small-town Alabama. One of the things I remember participating in as a kid was \u201csword drill.\u201d I\u2019d gear gear up, standing with closed bible (the sword) in hand, waiting for the countdown and listening for the scripture reference and BOOM \u2013 I was off, frantically flipping the crunchy thin pages to find the verses called out in hopes that I would locate it before everyone else. The purpose of all of it? To hone my sword-wielding abilities, to be able to expertly play with the sharpest object in my \u201carmor of God toolkit,\u201d to be \u201cready to give a defense\u201d when my faith was questioned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While I am eternally grateful for my upbringing I realized something as I began studying the Bible more closely and in academic settings \u2013 swords are sharp and very heavy. And I had no idea what I was playing with in those drills. I was never told, \u201cHey, this thing that you have in your hands \u2013 this is ancient sacred text, it\u2019s complex, it\u2019s dense, it\u2019s been irresponsibly used to hurt people for hundreds of years so to avoid that, use it wisely.\u201d No. I was taught to use the Bible before I was ever told what it was.<\/span><\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t allowed to watch the Nickelodeon cartoon, \u201cRugrats\u201d (remember that, 90s kids?) until the 6th Grade because Angelica was \u201cdisrespectful.\u201d Yet, by that time, I had memorized the stories of David and Bathsheba, of God drowning humanity in a flood, and of Jesus\u2019s very public and gruesome execution. See the disconnect? More care and caution was given to Saturday morning cartoons than to the images of God to which I was exposed. It\u2019s the pattern of American Christianity and it deserves attention because\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n \u2026the Bible is not a children\u2019s book. It\u2019s a brash thing to say, and perhaps an obvious thing but I\u2019ll say it again: <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Bible is not a children\u2019s book.\u201d<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n Let me explain.<\/span><\/p>\n Image: Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n The reality is that the Bible is an ancient compilation of myth, poetry, law, and letter, strategically selected and edited. It was a library once restricted to the interpretive minds of those in power, later popularized and translated into languages for all to read and hear. it is text necessarily bound to its context of time and place (as we are bound to the same). Narratively, it is the story of various people groups trying to sort out their place in the world and how God fits into all of that. It is the diary of their wrestlings with questions of who, where, and why, all directed at God, and of their best attempts at providing themselves answers to make sense of those wonderings. And they are questions and wonderings we still have today. It\u2019s an attempt to understand the Divine and our own humanity. This is what the Bible is.<\/span><\/p>\n The Bible is also a collection of texts which seem to depict, on the surface, severe and holy punishment for human mistakes dealt out by a male deity who asks a father to murder his child, orders armies to slaughter indigenous peoples, and plays favorites from a distance. This is what I mean when I say, \u201cThe Bible is not a children\u2019s book.\u201d These are not simply black and red words on white crunchy-thin pages. They are wonderings about God, wonderings that often come to dangerous and hurtful conclusions that I cannot stand by. They are wonderings and conclusions that provide an image of God that I don\u2019t want for the children in my care. I understand them. But they are not my conclusions.<\/span><\/p>\n At this point you may be thinking, \u201cYeah, but all those things \u2013 those are just on the surface. If we just read closer, deeper\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Yes. But one has to possess the cognitive abilities to do that \u2013 to process the beautiful subtlety of various literary forms, contextualize historical and cultural realities, and understand nebulous concepts to mine that profundity from much of the text. We cannot expect young children to have the capacity to do that yet. Not until age 11-12 can children truly begin to process heavily abstract concepts, understand time in a more complex way, and translate historic events to their every-day lives.<\/span><\/p>\n This is\u00a0why Disney World works; why Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and magic work. It\u2019s because developmentally, children do not fully distinguish between fantasy and reality. It\u2019s why, when you see 3 different Cinderella\u2019s all in one, long day at the Magic Kingdom, your child FULLY believes that every single one of those girls is the\u00a0real\u00a0<\/i>Cinderella. Your child doesn\u2019t see beyond \u201cthe surface\u201d to the 25 yr old in a costume, wig, and heavy makeup who also waits tables part-time and lives in the apartments down the road with her two best friends. They see the same character from the cartoons. Literally\u20262D and 3D are no different in their mind. <\/span><\/p>\n So when you read a child a story that says, \u201cGod told Abraham to take his son Isaac to the mountaintop and sacrifice him\u201d do you know what that means to a child? It means that God ACTUALLY told Abraham to kill his kid. Nothing more, nothing less. It is unfair to expect our children to walk away with an understanding beyond what they hear; thus we have a responsibility to them to speak beauty, truth, and goodness about God, ourselves, and others, and to give them clear and healthy images of God \u2013 and we have the freedom (truly, we do) to use the best tools available to us with which to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n As a Children\u2019s Pastor, I see it as my job to help strap on spiritual knee pads (\u201cGod is love and is bigger than we can imagine\u201d), seatbelts (\u201cPeople have been asking questions about God for forever \u2013 our ideas about God change, but God does not\u201d), and helmets (\u201cYou are good, and safe, and made in the image of God \u2013 so is everyone else\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n For these most precious, concrete minds, these concepts will be difficult to see through much of the Biblical narrative. But I\u2019ve come to trust that God is truly the \u201cGround of All Being\u201d (or Being Itself, Tillich), and I find myself free to explore images of God anywhere and everywhere, in nature, in children\u2019s literature, in active relationship with others.<\/span><\/p>\n The Bible is ONE tool we have to explore ideas of God. ONE \u2013 out of millions. When your God is bigger than the ONE resource, the world opens up and there is no obligation to ensure that a 6 year old knows the potentially damaging story of the great flood. After all, it isn\u2019t a fair expectation that they learn from that particular story that God is love. (Quite frankly, it doesn\u2019t seem to be a fair expectation of\u00a0anyone<\/i>\u00a0to get that from the text). It is our responsibility as adults to give them the ground on which to stand as they begin to explore ancient stories and letters, to give them the addition and subtraction of our faith, as one of my mentors puts it, so that they can build upon it to later learn geometry, algebra, and calculus. <\/span><\/p>\n And simply giving them the basics of \u201cYou are good. God is love. You and everyone else are made in the image of God\u201d is enough.<\/span><\/p>\n I had a mother recently ask me \u201cWhat is the spiritual work I should be doing with my children?\u201d (ages 1 & 4). My response was this, \u201cChildren develop their earliest notions of the Divine directly from their parents. <\/span>Being a loving mother\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0the spiritual work.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n A child\u2019s immediate reality is all they know \u2013 meet them there, validate that reality, and show them God.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"UnfundamentalistParenting\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/648\/2016\/09\/UnfundamentalistParenting.png\")
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