Theology Matters!

Here I am, ranting again. And this is a rant that's been festering for a REALLY long time. Although for people who know me well they would say that this is a rant that they've heard for years. But it's a new rant for my blog and I'm feeling ticked, so here I go (again). 

Theology matters! It really does. And when I say this a lot of people would say, yeah, of course theology matters. It matters what we believe, how we interpret scripture, how we preach, how we explain our beliefs to other people, how we worship, how we live. These things matter. I don't know a lot of regular church-going people who would disagree with this statement. Theology matters, but does it matter all the time? Do we seriously pay attention to our words and practice consistently? By consistently I mean does our theology matter in various places, times, and with various groups of people? Well of course it does, right? Of course theology matters all the time. We can't just turn it on and off whenever we feel like it. Or can we?

I work a lot with children. I've read a lot of curriculum. I've heard a lot of children's times. I've led a lot of children's times. And one of the things I have noticed repeatedly is that theology doesn't matter for kids. Or at least adults seem to think it doesn't. Kids just need to be entertained. They don't really understand anyway. This stuff is really above their heads. We need to be age-appropriate. And even though a lot of people I meet wouldn't actually say these things, I've heard the stories, I've listened to the children's times, I've read the curriculum, and I've read between the lines and what I hear is that theology does not matter for kids.

Here I need to note that what I've noticed is not true across all times and places. I have read GREAT curriculum where the authors and editors have paid an incredible amount of attention to their theology (hear Gather 'Round here). I have read great children's Bibles such as those by Ralph Milton and Eugene Peterson and Desmond Tutu. And I have listened to fabulous children's times (I won't name all the people here because I'd forget someone). But generally I find that theology just doesn't matter when adults present things for children. 

I know, this sounds harsh. But when I hear a children's time that presents exactly the opposite theology as the sermon (in the same service) I just shake my head. When I read a children's Bible that moves straight from Jesus' ascension to Revelation I just shake my head (what happened to the rest of the NT?). When I listen to adults talk about how they have wrestled throughout their lives to reconcile some piece of their faith because of what they were taught when they were 5, I just shake my head. When I hear a theology of atonement taught to little ones that their parents would absolutely reject if it was preached from the pulpit, I just shake my head. And when churches require a master's degree for their lead pastor, and at the very least an undergrad degree for their associate or youth pastor, but have just anybody doing the work of leading the ministry to their children, including researching curriculum, I just shake my head. 

And I'm not saying that every single church needs to hire a person with a master's degree to work with Sunday school, but we do need to pay attention. The theology taught in our Sunday schools is the theology that our churches will follow in 20 years, I can almost guarantee it. A church that embraces a peace position but uses a generic "non-denomination" curriculum mass-produced in the U.S. will eventually have no peace position. What we teach our children, how we nurture our children's faith matter. A LOT! Our images of God and our understanding of our relationship to God is formed really really early on. This was only too evident in the atonement class I took in seminary where students struggled to hear various atonement theories, not able to release or augment whatever they had learned as young children, even if intellectually they knew that understanding to be deficient or in some cases simply wrong.

Theology matters for everyone. With every ounce of my energy with every cell in my body I know this. My heart aches when I hear children taught carelessly because I know that down the road those children will struggle and in some cases suffer greatly because of the lack of thought that went into their nurture. I will never forget the video we saw in our Human Sexuality and Christian Ethics class where a woman shared about her experience of being sexually abused; an experience exacerbated by the ill chosen words and detrimental theology presented to her in her Sunday school classes. My heart ached as I heard her story knowing that, while her church likely could not have prevented the abuse she experienced, they could have provided her with an understanding of God, of love, and of community that would have greatly impacted her healing. And though I can't remember exactly what her Sunday school teachers said to her, I remember thinking that I had heard those words from countless other mouths. They were not intentionally hurtful words, they were simply careless. 

And I know it is difficult to take theological concepts and complex biblical stories and present them to young children. I know this very well. However, I also know that it is possible to do so without compromising the message. I most often think of it as progressive revelation. Whatever we teach our children now must be consistent with what we hope they will know and grow into throughout their faith journey. It may be somewhat incomplete, but it cannot be in opposition. It cannot be in opposition! I cannot say this loudly or emphatically enough!

Right now I am marking papers for an undergrad class and sometimes I am shocked. These kids are struggling. Their theological world is being shattered in many cases, and not because they come from churches that embrace a different theological position than their professor or the school, though this is the case for a few individuals. Primarily their faith is being shattered because they have been entrusted with a simplistic and theologically compromised Gospel that in many cases is no Gospel at all. It is a list of dos and don'ts. It is a vending machine God. It is simplistic and individualistic. It is moral therapeutic deism. It is not a firm foundation on which to stand. It is not a foundation on which to grow. It is a shaky foundation that at best leads them to semi-regular church attendance and guilt-laden prayers and at worst leaves them feeling morally superior to non-Christians or those who share different understandings of morality. 

It is not okay to read a story to children in church about how we should be nice to people. It is not okay, even implicitly, to teach children that God is like a cosmic vending machine who is there to solve all our problems. It is not okay to teach our children that if we behave ourselves and are "good" little boys and girls then we will have everything we want. It is not okay to allow children's time or Sunday school to become less than a genuine proclamation of the Gospel message. And by genuine I mean full, deep, whole, biblically-based, theologically sound, and consistent with the teachings of our congregations. This is what we strive to offer our adults, what we strive to offer our youth, and what we have the responsibility to offer every child in our midst.

My heart aches.