The Value of Grey?

Black and White
Left and Right
Right and Wrong
Us and Them
This or That

Dichotomous thinking. One of the most popular ways to teach children it seems. And probably the single most unhelpful thing that I have encountered in working with younger and older adults. Nothing shuts down learning and dialogue like being told that the idea being presented is simply wrong because they didn't learn it when they were little. Because if they were told when they were five that the Bible is exactly "this way" and they are supposed to stand firm and not be shaken then by golly they will, regardless of whether or not they retain a five-year old faith for the rest of their lives.

This is indeed a rant. 

And I am angry. 

I'm angry that we teach young children that there is one answer to most of life's problems or questions. 

I'm angry that we teach children that "this way" is right but "that way" is wrong, meaning we are right and they are wrong. 

I'm angry that we present the Bible to children in boxes (in a parochial sense).

I'm angry that we forget that children need to learn how to think, not just what to think.

Because that's how they grow.

Dichotomous thinking stunts their growth!

I meet so many people who struggle with engaging the Bible in new ways, with stretching themselves, with accepting new ideas, or even knowing how to challenge and critique new ideas (and I am one of them!). And when I meet these people I don't feel angry at them, I feel angry at their childhood Sunday school teachers, their devotional materials "Christian" songs, their Bible storybooks and all the other people that told them all the answers instead of challenging them to imagine all the possibilities and to discern wisely, remaining open to change when new information comes along. 

Yes, children need safety and security, they need to know that it is not a good idea to put the grilled cheese sandwich in the VCR (yes I'm that old), they need to know that pulling out their brother's hair is wrong, they need to know that swallowing poison is going to hurt them. And they need to know some things with a degree of certainty. But what is life if everything is certain? How do we grow if everything that we learn is certain, and not open to change?

How do we experience God as mystery if the mystery has been solved?

What does it mean for the Spirit to move when we read scripture if there is only one way to interpret the Bible? 

How small does God become if everything we know about God can be fully understood and explained when we are five years old?

How boring are those stories if I can only learn one lesson from them?  

Sometimes people look at me like I'm nuts when I say stuff like this. They think I'm crazy to make so much of what and how we teach our children because after all, real learning comes later. But in my experience (and that of other learned people thankfully), that's simply not the case. We do learn later, but the way we learn, our worldview, our concepts of how to interpret information, and how we understand God are shaped very early on. And each time I'm in a group discussing atonement, each time I'm in a group discussing sexuality, each time I mark a paper discussing the Bible, people will bring up what they learned when they were little. Each and every time. And that learning has a lot of power. Even when faced with direct evidence to the contrary (informational or experiential), it is very hard to change those childhood perspectives.

So if it's hard to change the perspectives we learn when we are children, then what happens when the perspective we learn is dichotomous or parochial thought? 

What happens when a child's worldview involves only certainty and no mystery? 

What happens when we teach a child that the Bible is absolutely true (in an historically accurate factual way) and then they are confronted with the impossibility of that "fact"? 

What happens when we teach children that Jesus loves "good" children (Jesus loves me when I'm good, when I do the things I should), and then they do something "bad"? 

What happens when a child's only concept of God is of a bearded white haired man and then they are raped by a man just like that?

Conversely, 

What happens when we teach children to listen in the Spirit as we discern together?

What happens when we wonder together and are honest when we really don't know the answer, or that perhaps there is not one?

What happens when we invite children into the biblical story and help them to see themselves as part of that story?

What happens when we teach children that they are loved unconditionally and are valued for who they are as part of God's diverse family?

What happens when we present children with many images for God so they are able to encounter God in many faces and places?



And now, because my rant has become very long as usual I will close with a quote from Picasso (I rarely quote Picasso!):

"There is only one way to see things,
until someone shows us how to look at them
with different eyes"

 Let us keep that in mind as we live and learn together with our children.