The Value of Children for the Church

I recently attended a church business meeting focused on the future ministry goals of the church.

A lot of talk centered on the financial and membership value of children and young families for the longevity of the local and universal church.

There wasn’t universal agreement on how to attract and retain these people, but there was a general consensus that it matters. 

But, why? What privileges young children over others? 

Ideology and Belonging

This emphasis on children is not unique to Christianity or religion. I have heard scientists, environmentalists, atheists, political parties, and others issue the same alarm: we must reach a younger demographic with our ideas or else our message will perish with us.

Christians are not accepting of the notion that God would let belief in Christ totally fizzle out, but a reduction in faith is a continual concern.

The methodology of these various groups for forestalling the decline in adherence to their beliefs is presenting the right information in the right way, so as to stimulate and maintain a personal connection to the beliefs and practices of the community in question.

But: what does this look like and how do we achieve it?

Derision, Downplaying, and Ignoring 

One method of safeguarding belief is to downplay, deride, or teach children to ignore input contrary to the beliefs and values of the Christian community. 

Yet, this apparent faithfulness to Christian principles can lead to unintended consequences. To wit: ironically, I first learned about undirected evolution from our church library. 

Specifically, I read a college biology textbook that the church librarian claimed invalidated evolution. This, she observed, came by the authors acknowledging that radioactive dating could be off by five-or-ten thousands of years on a timescale of millions of years.

I was in junior high, and old enough to realize the gaps in her logic: it was a big leap from billions or millions of years, even allowing for the margins of error, to 6000. What began as honest–if cursory–attempt at a rebuttal on the librarian’s part ended in confusion for me.

Worse still: no one explained away the rest of the time difference for me, and the book was quietly withdrawn from circulation. Looking back, this seems like a missed opportunity for someone to really drive home their young earth creationist position.

I had heard there were gaps in the fossil record and a “missing link,” connecting people and apes, but had no concept of what that really meant. The evolution I had heretofore been introduced to was a caricature of the real thing and did not prepare me to deal with it when I encountered it.

“The Way They Should Go”

Nonetheless, this anecdote highlights the general demeanor of evangelicalism in my experience: if I, as a child, were exposed to the “right stuff,” and shown the dangers and errors of everything else I might believe, then I’d be a powerful soldier against these moral and spiritual ills in our society.

Proverbs 22:6 was often cited in support of this: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

I often struggled with the question of whether I was being “trained up” in the church for my own sanctification or as a means to an end. I suspect at least some of the time it was the latter. 

Even more jarringly, I was taught that, by the time I was an adult, I might well expect persecution to the point of torture and death for my beliefs. (I’ve yet to be personally ridiculed, even in secular university settings, but who knows why.)

But, if I persevered in the faith, I would receive a great heavenly reward.

Onward, Christian Soldiers!

All this leads me to the question: “Is it ok to view children as our warriors in the culture wars?”

I cannot shake the impression that Evangelicals view themselves as involved in warfare, and that childhood is the key to training new recruits for the cause.

After all, this viewpoint isn’t unique to Evangelicalism.

Ask a scientist, LBGT+ advocate, political organization, religious group, environmentalist organization, or anyone else when the seeds of their cherished ideas need to be planted, and–without fail–you will hear “childhood.”

Again, we fear the indoctrination of children with ideas we disagree with, but wholeheartedly embrace the exposure of our kids to the religious, cultural, and political ideas that appeal to us. 

But, what if the way to ensure that children share our convictions isn’t sheltering them from attacks on our ideas and beliefs?

What if Christian’s should be different to the world around us?

What if the effective approach to safeguarding belief is gradually exploring and dealing with the objections to belief?

An Attack on our Convictions 

In graduate school, I studied the atheist thinker Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that having untested convictions is not a source of personal growth: “[A] very popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions—? Rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions.”

The virtue of courage is really seeing if the testing  of our faith can lead to a deeper understanding of and conviction for what we believe.

Have we ever had the courage to subject our beliefs to a rigorous analysis to see if they’d hold up?–or are we patching together half-justifications?

If it is the latter, are we any better than those we fear will instruct our children in the dogmas of scientism, liberalism, conservatism, or whatever other -ism we disagree with?

Attacking Strongholds 

When we’re training the next generation, what should we focus on, if not our pet causes?

Look at 2 Corinthians 10:3-5: “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Is an idea getting in the way of the knowledge of God? How can we tell? 

If it takes our focus off of God and onto supporting or opposing another entity and its purposes, it is a distraction. 

Our politics, for example, can be a means toward just ends, but can take our focus away from what God wants and focus as politics as an alternative path to salvation through legislation, Supreme Court Nominees, or government programs (universal health care, for instance).

Growing up, my church was always engaging with with military and Republican personalities. There’s nothing necessarily wrong, if the aims of a political or social entity are just, with supporting it. 

But, we should hold loosely to such connections. They are at best temporary alliances. Democrats, Independents, Republicans–these are not ends in themselves.

The end goal is the knowledge of God, and we need to teach children not to depart from that.

Paul is fairly clear: human institutions or conditions are a means to an end: “I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I might share with them in its blessings.” (1 Corinthians 9:22b-23)

If we show that to our children, we will show them a unique vision of the world beyond partisanship and petty squabbles into the grace of God. If we conflate our personal convictions or experiences  with Christianity, we are rather demanding that all things are remade in our image: a worldview that is perhaps familiar to everyone, but as a false gospel compelling only to few outside ourselves.

What if the way to ensure that children share our convictions isn't sheltering them from attacks on our ideas and beliefs? Click To Tweet