Marcia Bunge takes kids' spiritual lives seriously. A decade ago, few people could make that claim. There had been no systematic study of how the Church as a whole regarded children, no critical analysis of what we were teaching kids and why, and only a handful of studies to substantiate best practices for nurturing spiritual and moral development. Now, however, the field of research into children's spirituality is growing. The question is, are churches and families listening?
Because, for so many years, there was no cohesive theology of children in the Church, it was relatively useless to hone in on any best practices because if you don't know where you're going, the route you take or the way you travel doesn't matter much. Christian thinkers certainly had written about children, but their theologies (and therefore approaches) varied. Some saw children as bundles of wild impulses that needed to be trained; others saw them as pure, innocent, and unspoiled; while others held babies to be blameless, but saw the sin nature as something that took hold of the child as they grew. Some regarded childhood romantically, while others saw it as a stage to grow out of as quickly as possible.
Christian thinking today toward children bears the marks of all of those philosophies, especially insofar as they influenced the development of educational theories, all of which begin with an idea about the learner. If I believe, for instance, that the primary purpose of schooling is to teach kids to restrain their own impulses, and that content mastery is secondary, then I'll assign lots and lots of seatwork, much of it mindless, and impose harsh discipline on those who don't complete it. If I hold a positive view of a learner's potential, I might allow kids to choose their own project to research; but if I believe kids' minds are basically lazy and need to be trained in rigor, I would probably assign the subject myself, believing that the student isn't up to that task.
Bunge directs the Child in Religion and Ethics Project at Valparaiso University and is the editor of such works as The Child in Christian Thought (2000) and the forthcoming The Child in the Bible. She acknowledges that the study of children and work with children was and is marginalized, as if it's not territory for serious researchers, who should be studying adults. Next year she'll speak at a triennial conclave that draws together children's researchers who are in pursuit of a common goal. You can read about the work of the Children's Spirituality Conference here.
The field of child spirituality research has a ways to go in hammering out a definition of "what we want". After all, some studies have examined practices that produce a "spiritual" child. But that's not necessarily the same thing as a spiritually mature Christian. "Spiritual" people believe in the supernatural and in the individual's ability to connect with unseen powers; being spiritual is a start, but it is incomplete. Others measure "faith maturity", defined as meaningful engagement in the life of one's church. Does church involvement translate into spiritual vitality? Ideally yes, but that's an assumption that needs to be acknowledged and further explored.
The second task for researchers is to gain the attention of the practitioners - the churches and parents - for whom this research is intended. It is by no means a given that because an idea is research-based that it will be embraced by Christian educators or Christian parents. We all have biases towards what we "feel" is effective. We all look at our own experience as normative: "It worked for me; it should work for them." We're all, to a degree, nostalgic for our own childhood and fearful of abandoning traditional practices because they just feel right. This inertia should not be underestimated. People who work with children - parents and professionals - are busy, wary of quick fixes, and pragmatic. It isn't greatly helpful to tell people only what doesn't work without giving them a workable alternative.
- Reading and discussing the Bible and interpretations of it with children.
- Worshipping with a community; and carrying out family rituals and traditions of worship and prayer.
- Introducing children to good examples, mentors, and stories of service and compassion. Bunge rightly pointed out that our kids know the Bible characters, but how many could tell you anything about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, William Wilberforce, or John Wesley?
- Participating in service projects with parents or other caring adults; teaching financial responsibility. The side-by-side aspect of service is key. It's not enough for parents to send their kids away to an afternoon at a homeless shelter or park clean-up. And as to finances, Bunge says it is one thing churches never talk about with kids (if they even talk about it with adults), mainly because so many parents are embarrassed by their own credit card debt and don't feel in a position to lay down any guidance. As a result, Christian kids grow up with the same worldly desires and worldly spending habits as everybody else - and accrue the same sort of debt soon after leaving college.
- Singing together and exposing children to the spiritual gifts of music and the arts. (Blogger's note: Go see Prince Caspian with your kid.)
- Appreciating the natural world and cultivating a reverence for creation; attending a "family camp". The fact that a camp takes place outside is huge; programming delivered at a resort or conference center or over eight weeks at the church doesn't have the same effect.
- Educating children; and helping them discern their vocations. Bunge sees a problem when parents only focus on the education of "their" child without regard for the education of all children. After all, children will grow up into a culture populated by - surprise - other people, who were either well-prepared or ill-prepared for the future by their early education.
- Fostering live-giving attitudes toward the body, sexuality, and marriage. This is the other topic that Bunge says is taboo in churches, and as a result, churched folk suffer through as many relationship difficulties as non-churched people. Rectifying this means talking about sex, yes, but also relationships in general: how to date wisely, how to choose a mate, how to resolve conflict. (Considering the degree to which money and sex shape California culture, we would all do well to take heed of #4 and #8.)
- Listening to and learning from children. This includes having the humility to admit when we don't know and when we've been wrong, genuinely valuing kids' insights and opinions.
- Taking up a Christ-centered approach to discipline, authority, and obedience; recognizing that in the Christian tradition, parental authority is always limited. Jewish tradition: we do not teach kids to obey parents, but to honor parents. We only obey God. Christians, she says, tend to obscure the line between "honor" and "obey", as if they were the same thing. In the Jewish tradition, parents are to be honored, but only God is to be obeyed, a mindset that has huge ramifications for discipline and parenting.
