Learning about world religions is a standard part of the sixth grade world history curriculum in California. Juxtapose that with the fact that our kids have significant knowledge gaps when it comes to their own religion (such as the lack of Bible understanding I wrote about last week) and the problem presents itself: we have some choices to make. It would be irresponsible not to teach kids something about other belief systems, but what, and how much?
For the record, I think the "choose your favorite god/goddess" assignment is offensive to people of any religion. Gods are sacred, a concept we've lost hold of in today's world. They are not toys or Disney characters to be merely admired or be printed on t-shirts. I don't have to be a relativist to believe that, nor to understand that disrespect for spiritual beings in general leads to disrespect in specific - literally, profanity. If I ever hope to bring someone to a belief in God, the specialness of God must be preserved.
So a good starting point with kids is to have them recognize the sacred/secular distinction, that a spiritual reality exists and that man has long reached out for it and wanted to connect with it. And that from a Christian perspective, God has reciprocated, not staying distant, but offering himself in relation to people - Emmanuel, "God with us".
I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of "teaching" another religion because I'm not an expert in other religions and I'd probably get it wrong. And, on the other hand, I don't like the idea of a non-Christian - either a schoolteacher or another religious leader - representing Christianity. I've long thought that in education, when presenting an ideology or philosophy, it's best to let kids hear from primary sources, and I would hope anyone doing a comparative religions course would incorporate that practice. A high school teacher once extended me that courtesy and it was a privilege to have an hour to speak to her students and field their questions.
No, I can't teach about other religions and do them justice. Instead, I think it's much more helpful to ground kids in the distinctives of their faith and guide them to an understanding of where Christian thought clashes with what passes for contemporary American spirituality, a kind of pop paganism that values the power of positive thinking, materialism, and self-gratification. After all, it's rare to encounter someone - even someone who professes to follow another religion - who is pure in their ideology. Among Christians alone there is great variety of belief on all sorts of minor issues, and regarding the majors, some Christians hold on more tightly than others. But what entices people away often isn't whole bodies of thought, but individual nuggets of truth that work for them - a belief in karma, for example - and at the same time lead them away from a Christian worldview.
It would be easy to teach kids that other religions are weird or strange or nonsensical, but is it helpful? All that has to happen is that they meet one person (a Buddhist, say) who shatters the stereotype they were taught and they begin to suspect that everything they were taught about other belief systems was based on suspicion and ignorance. Better to get into the "stuff" of the religion and examine those elements upon which the worldview is founded, in light of what the Bible tells us about who we are and why we're here and what is real.
These are the "distinctives" we're going to explore. I believe that each is threatened by a modernist, pop spirituality:
- The eternality of the soul (or, one life, one death, one judgment)
- A created being's purpose is tied to its creator
- God is a God of intimate involvement, not distant administration
- Humans have a sinful nature
- Only the power of God, not works or moral choices, can free us from the consequences of our sin
- The inherent imbalances in a world filled with free choices (or, why karma cannot explain the world)
Obviously, what you see above is the adult-language version of what the kids will get - "eternality" isn't a 10-year-old's word, but it is a 10-year-old's concept. Can a kid understand that we were created to worship and serve God, or that we possess an unquenchable desire to do wrong, or that their creator wants to personally shepherd them? I think they can. And come to think of it, they'd better, if we ever have hope of passing on a body of belief in a culture that increasingly brings a consumerist and pragmatic mindset to the practice of religion.
