rivka | Parents as Resident Theologians, Session 2.

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Parents as Resident Theologians, Session 2.

Yesterday was the second session of my new adult RE class. With last week's introductory stuff out of the way, this week's class felt much meatier. It was thought-provoking and fun.

We started by going around the room and saying our names and one awesome thing about our kids. I couldn't think of anything that applied to both of my kids, so I just said that an awesome thing about Alex is that her mind never stops working, and she comes up with ideas I never would've imagined. The awesome thing I would've mentioned about Colin is how good he smells. Then there was an opening reading brought by a group member, and as Becky lit the chalice we each in turn said our children's full names.

The focus of this week's session was children's theological questions, but because it's important to get your own thoughts clarified before you try to answer your kids' questions, we began with a discussion of religious language. On the left side of a sheet of paper, we made a list of terms we associated with our childhood experiences of religion. Then on the right side we generated a list of the religious terms we use currently. We circled words that appeared on both lists, underlined pairs of words that seemed to us to be different ways of expressing the same concept (such as "God" and "Spirit of Life," or "baptism" and "child dedication"), and crossed out words we have rejected. Then we compared and discussed the words we had each circled, underlined, and crossed out.

That led to some interesting discussion. I have always felt lucky that, in contrast to many UUs, I didn't come to my present religion because of past religious trauma. I come from a liberal, loving, social-justice-focused Protestant tradition, and words like "sin" and "hell" didn't appear on my list of childhood religious terms. But there were nevertheless words on there that I've rejected ("Father" as an identity for God, heaven, crucifixion, resurrection) and that I'll have to figure out how to address with my kids.

Becky made a couple of good points about religious language: (1) When we have a specialized term that we prefer to a more common term used in society, our kids are probably going to encounter the common version more often unless we make a special effort to use and discuss our preferred term. (2) Some words and concepts are painful to some of us because of past experiences - but our kids haven't had those experiences, and so the words won't have the same resonance for them. Keeping that in mind may make those words easier to discuss.

We moved on to a discussion of religious beliefs, and how you have to know what you believe before you can answer your kids' questions in a satisfactory way. This is harder for UUs because we are a noncreedal religion - there is no set of beliefs that we are expected to hold, and so there isn't a predefined set of answers to theological questions our kids ask. Also, because UU is a noncreedal religion, there might well be issues about which we as individual parents don't know what we believe. UU adults are usually comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, but children typically pass through developmental stages in which it's very important to them to be sure about things. We may like the idea of giving them explanations in the form of "some people believe X, and others believe Y," but our children are unlikely to find that satisfying. They want to know what we believe. An additional complication in UU families is that the parents may disagree on key religious issues.

Becky stopped us for an important footnote: we tend to think of ourselves as a bunch of special snowflakes exhibiting marvelous diversity of opinion, and Christians as a monolithic bloc with identical beliefs. This is selling Christians short; there are ranges of belief within Christian churches as well. One of the parents in the group challenged this; she thought ranges of belief occurred between Christian churches, but that people in the same church believed the same things. The discussion got derailed for a while into a debate about whether "cafeteria Catholics" (and similar) are practicing their religion in a valid way. It was a fascinating discussion, but probably beside the point for this class.

Eventually Becky wrenched us back on track, and had us stand up to do an exercise in which we physically placed ourselves along a continuum of religious belief. For example: "I believe in God" vs. "I believe there is no God," and "I believe in life after death" vs. "I believe there is no life after death." The fascinating thing to me was how broad a spectrum of beliefs there are just within this class. Every inch of the the spectrum was represented on almost every question.

We sat back down and each generated a list of three religious questions our kids have asked, or (for those with preverbal kids) religious questions we had as children. Alex has had tons of religious questions; the three I chose were "Where is God?" "Was Jesus a king?" and "Why did people kill Jesus?" Our lists of questions were combined into one big list. (My favorite: "Was Jesus a good guy or a bad guy?") We divided into groups of three to tackle answering them. "Because when your kids ask you a religious question, you need to come up with an answer FAST" each group was given a suprise question on a slip of paper and had about three minutes to come up with answers before moving on to another surprise question.

My group answered the questions "Who made the world?" "What happens when you die?" and "Is there a God?" (My reaction to the first one was that it's a scientific question, not a religious question.) "What happens when you die" is an interesting one for me, because although I know it's supposed to be one of the great all-consuming issues for humanity, I have never been very interested in it myself. It just doesn't matter much to me - it doesn't seem relevant to how we live our lives. But of course I need to be prepared for it to potentially matter much more to Alex and Colin.

So we answered and discussed our theological questions in our small groups, and then as a larger group we talked a little about which questions were hardest to answer. (I think we all agreed that the group who were handed "why do people do bad things" won the hardest-to-answer prize.) I pointed out that in some ways it's comforting to know that these are questions people have wrestled with for thousands of years. We need to have some kind of answer for our kids, but it's okay to let them know that these questions are incredibly hard and that no one has been able to resolve them entirely, in a way that satisfies everyone.

Our homework assignment: to notice and record questions our children ask that are either explicitly theological or have theological implications.

It was a great class. I'm looking forward to the rest of the sessions.

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One of the parents in the group challenged this; she thought ranges of belief occurred between Christian churches, but that people in the same church believed the same things.

She is so, so wrong. I majored in Religion in college, and for one of my classes (New Religious Movements in America) I attended a Charismatic (neo-Pentacostalist) church in town for several weeks, interviewed the Pastor and various people who attended, and wrote my term paper about them. This church attracted a large number of people who take the Bible as literally as possible, and quite a few people who would self-describe as Fundamentalist Christians. And yet I found an incredible diversity of belief there. Just one example: the Pastor, for the most part, believed that only men should be pastors. However, two of the female students who attended believed that they were being called to the ministry, so he was helping them prepare their applications to seminaries.

Some of the diversity here was propelled by the fact that this was a church where people were supposed to be having intense mystical experiences on a regular basis; I routinely saw people stand up and interrupt the Pastor's sermons to "prophesy," and things like that. When everyone has a direct wavelength to God, and everyone's getting somewhat contradictory messages, you need to have a fair amount of tolerance for ambiguity.

Still. This church was absolutely nothing like I'd expected. That project taught me to question a lot of my assumptions about the spiritual lives of others, and I realized that conservative Christians are a FAR more diverse group than they seem from the outside.

Also, my favorite current teaching tool for the question about why people do bad things is the Harry Potter series, which Molly has now read in its entirety four times. You see a wide range of answers to that question. There are characters who do evil out of fear; out of hunger for power; because they're overly loyal to their own family to the exclusion of all else; from racist beliefs; etc. There are also genuinely good characters who make the wrong choice out of the best intentions.

I'm not a parent, but my reaction to "Why do people do bad things?" is to ask the child if she has ever done anything bad. If she answers, "No", at least I've bought a few seconds to think of a proper answer.

And then the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._E._M._Joad>C.E.M. Joad</a> catchphrase applies: "It all depends on what you mean by bad." (Just typing that makes me feel horribly old.)

This question made me wonder - how young is too young to start talking about (or warning about )evolutionary psychology? ;)

This is selling Christians short; there are ranges of belief within Christian churches as well. This would totally get me off-topic, too. Because I believe it and I think it's important. I grew up in a relatively-Liberal Baptist church. I didn't realize when I was a kid how much other people's beliefs there varied from my parents', because they didn't tend to celebrate that or to bring it up except when we had weird Sunday School teachers or when people were on a faith-healing kick.

As an adult, I've been in an American Baptist congregation and several United Church of Canada churches. All of them acknowledged and celebrated that people found their way to those churches often by rejecting more rigid traditions, and people were more comfortable talking about their personal beliefs and customs. I've been to Baptist Sunday School with people who believed in reincarnation and were matter-of-factly open about it, for example.

"Because when your kids ask you a religious question, you need to come up with an answer FAST"

I disagree. In fact, I love the answer I learned from another parent when the Munchkins were little: "Hmmm. I'll have to think about that. What do YOU think?"

I think that there are times for a response like that, and times when that response is not sufficient.

I think "I don't know" is *always* a sufficient answer, especially followed up by an effort to find out.

If someone asked you what your spouse's name is, then "I don't know" isn't going to get you many points. :)

In the theological realm, I would want to emphasize to a child that curiosity and wonder are absolutely a part of the discipline, and I'd be concerned that not having some ready thoughts after a lifetime of investigation into the Big Questions doesn't communicate that well.

Another risk (perhaps especially poignant for UU children) is that children have schoolmates whose parents do have and pass down "the answers" to these questions. If you don't seem readily informed with an alternative, you may wind up raising a child who is burdened with all of the Christian "baggage" you had hoped to avoid.

If someone asked you what your spouse's name is, then "I don't know" isn't going to get you many points. :)

Sure, but I do know the answer to that. There are many, many things I don't know the answers to, and if I try to make sure I have them all, just in case a kid asks me the answers, my brain will explode.

In the theological realm, I would want to emphasize to a child that curiosity and wonder are absolutely a part of the discipline, and I'd be concerned that not having some ready thoughts after a lifetime of investigation into the Big Questions doesn't communicate that well.

I never said anything about not having some ready thoughts. I said I think it's good to admit that you don't know if you don't know, even if what you don't know is what you think about something.

My first church was a part of the Disciples of Christ, which was every bit as exploratory as the UU community. The start and end of our creed was "I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and my personal Savior." Beyond that and a respect for the rituals of baptism and communion, everything is on the table. I'm currently a Presbyterian, which I feared would be a theological straight jacket since their collection of creeds is nearly as long and much denser than the New Testament. But even there there is a duty to find your own path; we all have personal faiths that reflect and are influenced by each of our personal relationships with God. I am free, for instance, to reject John Calvin's doctrine of predestination, provided I know what I'm rejecting and why.

My group answered the questions "Who made the world?" "What happens when you die?" and "Is there a God?" (My reaction to the first one was that it's a scientific question, not a religious question.)

One of the things I appreciated from The Tao of Pooh is that Eastern wisdom holds that science, theology, and philosophy are complementary processes for gaining and applying knowledge, rather than opposing ones. "By what processes was the world created?" and "For what purpose (if any) was the world created?" are two relevant questions that cannot be well analyzed without working across disciplines. I couldn't be immediately certain where a child's interest is if she asks "Who made the world?" Sometimes I ask "Who made this dessert?" because I want to adore the chef and sometimes because I want the recipe, you know?

I totally want to get to know whoever made the world so I can get the recipe.

This is harder for UUs because we are a noncreedal religion - there is no set of beliefs that we are expected to hold

You know, it may be noncreedal, but I've been getting a strong impression that, at least at a local level, there are definitely sets of beliefs that you're expected to hold. And if you don't, you're either unenlightened, gullible and/or fearful (and so susceptible to The Man), or just plain malevolent.

I think there are certain people within various UU congregations who act like that, but it hasn't been my experience that such positions are generally held. I'm not going to generalize my limited experience with a few congregations to the broader Association, but what sort of thing did you have in mind? I know that politics are a particular sore point, but are you talking about something broader?

The ones I run into are the politics and the tacit understanding that Christians are Bad.

I know that's not an official UU position, but unofficially it feels awfully pervasive.

Yeah, the social creed is separate from the (lack of) religious creed, and sometimes it really sucks. In our church, and probably most other UU churches, the assumption that everyone has liberal politics is a huge and problematic part of the social creed. I've seen class assumptions discussed as a huge part of the social creed at some UU churches, to an extent that is unimaginable to me, but I'm sure First Unitarian has blinders in that regard as well.

I may be wrong about this - I hope not - but I think that much of the social creed operates on the level of assumptions and not on the level of actual rejection. I hope that when people are called on the assumptions they make, or when you express a differing opinion, they are willing to listen and think. I understand, though, that no one wants to have to battle all the time, and that when enough of those assumptions/incidents pile up you can wind up feeling too alienated to want to bother with arguing.

The Christian thing, yeah. I certainly noticed it when I identified as a Christian at our church. It seems to be somewhat cyclical, in that there have been times when there has been a much more organized and vocal Christian presence - I used to belong to a Christian covenant group, for example. And John Manwell provided a good Christian perspective.

I understand that a lot of UUs come in damaged by prior experiences in Christian churches, and that they have definite sore spots where Christianity is concerned. But I'd like to think that we have a responsibility to work to get past that, and see American Christianity for the complex and diverse and mulitlayered thing that it is.

The thing that I struggle with the most about being a UU is the idea that the First Principle ("affirming and promoting the worth and dignity of every person") applies to everyone, no kidding, no matter how alien I find their perspective, no matter what they've done, no matter what they believe. I work hard at the First Principle, and often fall short. It's difficult stuff.

I think it really all comes down to the fact that UUs are not so different from anyone else. If you take ten Christians and ten UUs, it's pretty likely that each of them will be "open minded" (such a prized thing for us!) about some things and "closed minded" about some others. In my life I have met radically accepting Christians (and Jews, and Muslims) and incredibly intolerant UUs, and vice versa. (I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it literally.)

I think the problem for UUs is that many of us constantly define ourselves against a Christian example (I fall into this too.) "more tolerant than" "less strict than," etc. But in order to do that, we have to limit Christianity to just one very narrow thing. I think we see again and again that that's no good for anyone and can actually be radically unfair. And it--obviously--puts the UU Christian in a frustrating place.

Regardless of what church we go to, I think we all have to work at being the people we want to be.

In my experience is that within a congregation beliefs vary quite a bit.

I almost always answer questions like that with a pause and "I have to think about that for a minute". Then I usually say "I think" or "I believe", rather than "we believe". I hope that conveys that the answers are not simple and people don't always agree on them.

What did your group think about "What happens when you die?" I've already had to answer that one in the abstract, but I they've never experienced the real thing- I suspect it will be much harder to answer then.

Thanks so much for posting about the class! It's great to read about your thoughts on it! I thought our conversation was especially great this time. I wish we had more time to follow all our tangents, since (in a way) nothing is really off topic.

It is incredibly helpful to have your voice in the class. I think the point you made at the end about how humans have been doing this for ages is an excellent one. A companion point is probably that the kinds of questions our kids are asking are questions they'll be working on their whole lives (our conversations Sunday being a case in point.) All we are asked to do—all we can do is provide a framework for their exploring.

I went to a Catholic grade school and a Jesuit high school. The difference is as follows:

At my grade school, when I had a thorny, complex problem, the religion teacher would say, "Well, this is what we believe about that," and all discussion would then end. If I thought something seemed contradictory or complex, I was told that it wasn't, it was simple, and there was one Right Answer.

In high school, when I brought a thorny, complex issue to the teacher (hesitantly, because of the reactions I got in grade school), her eyes lit up and she said, "Yeah, that's a really interesting one. Well, Augustine thought THIS," (supplied book to read) "but Aquinas thought THIS," (another book thumps down) "and Liberation Theology has THIS really interesting spin on it," (another two books) ... etc.

Kids HAVE been asking these same questions since humans got enough language to wrestle with them. And we can share some past people's solutions of similar/the same thorny problems, as well as telling them our personal answer for same. Or we can tell them there is One Right Answer and nothing else matters ... obviously, that latter is not a common UU response. :->

I was going to reply, but it got long (and stopped really relating to THIS discussion), so I made an entry (http://almeda.livejournal.com/340295.html) in my own journal instead.

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Parents as Resident Theologians, Session 2.

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