Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Debelak
That is, you raised the notion that kids might not be ready or want the Bible itself, and yet you instead engage them to think about the world from a "Christian" perspective, knowing they don't have the underlying faith required to interact with it. What you end up with are kids who have the self-righteous blanket of "a Christian perspective" spewing their "wisdom" on myriad matters of life that affect others. It often gets ugly.
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This was exactly what I went through growing up in the church life. I was a completely self-righteous Christian. I did not know faith, but thought I did. I was not rebellious against God and bible as other kids were. I was self-righteous but not in a gang...all on my own. Looking back, sometimes I wished I had been rebellious like my peers. Within me there is often a bitterness when I look at my childhood. I felt like I missed out on life because I was too good. And that good didn't really benefit me since it was not a real good but a self-proclaimed good. In my heart I condemned all others who were not as good as me.
Now that I am a relatively new parent, I am also considering how to raise my child (and hopefully children in the future). How to raise them in the faith? How to make sure they don't go through what I went through. Peter, I like what you said about your father saying that you raise them not as Christians but as good people with high human aspirations. That is an interesting thought.
Another point I have been thinking about is whether 6th grade baptism is too early. This is what most LCs have been doing. Maybe we need to put all this in another thread. But I would love to have some discussion on how to raise our children in the Lord.