Is the Bible Fit for Kids?

I went to a Sunday School teachers’ convention over two decades ago.   It was a dull affair except for one workshop which I attended, entitled “How to Teach the Bible to Kids”.  The leader came into the room with a stack of musty old illustrated Bible story books.  He opened up one of the books, with its florid pictures of muscle-bound Philistines, heavily-bearded, grimacing patriarchs, and heavy-robed women kneeling in agonized supplication.  He then read aloud some of the most gruesome and salacious of the Bible’s stories, showing the pictures to the horrified Sunday School teachers.   

The workshop leader then closed the book and declared, “Kids love this stuff!”  He went on.  “Throw out that namby-pamby denominational curricula for Sunday School, and go to a thrift store and buy an old Bible story book and read it to your kids.  They won’t let you stop reading it to them.  They’ll be riveted.  They see violence on TV. It’s in the Bible, too.  They know somebody in their family or among their friends who has been molested or abused.  Stories of incest are also in the Bible.  They play computer games with action figures who perform amazing feats with miraculous powers, and that’s all in the Bible, as well.  The difference is that there’s more to the story, there’s redemption in the Bible, that is lacking in the mayhem on television and in the movies.”

His message stayed with me.  Just because kids discover that Samson slaughtered a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass (a fresh jawbone, the book of Judges would have us know), that doesn’t mean they will go and do the same.  Let kids see the many ways that the Bible describes the human and divine condition.  Let them see God described as a hoary, jealous tyrant sitting on a throne on the other side of the sky, and also let them see God described as the mystical ground of being and unconditional love.  Let them learn from the negative example of deceitful King David and oversexed King Solomon, as they also discover the wisdom of the Proverbs and the compassion of the Christ.  Let them reflect on life in full as they read the Bible in full, including both the sickening and the sublime.  I’m not in favor of emphasizing all the disgusting parts of the Bible.  But I do think a certain amount of exposure to it is not only okay, but a good thing for kids.

When my daughter was little, she loved it when I read illustrated Bible stories to her.  With trepidation I read her the story of the crucifixion when she was about 4 years old.  I told her that some folks were mad at Jesus because he helped people that they didn’t want him to help, so they killed him, and it was a terrible thing.  She was transfixed by the picture of Jesus on the cross.  I continued reading and flipping the pages, but Liz kept saying, “Jesus on the wood!  Jesus on the wood!” because she wanted me to flip back to that picture so she could look at it some more.  She was equally impressed by our visit to the old Spanish mission at Santa Clara when she was about 5 years old.  Inside, she stared for a long time, her mouth hanging open, as she faced the big statue of the beaten, bleeding Christ on the cross.  I wanted to whisk her away from it, but then I realized that something important was happening inside of her.  She needed to process that image of the tortured Christ in her soul, and begin to come to terms with the suffering and death that touches all of our lives.

Recently, during the “time with children” in our church’s worship service, I put our big, heavy pulpit Bible on the floor and gathered the kids around it.  I asked them, “What were your first words, when you were little?”  (My favorite answer:  “Mommy’s tired!”)  I then said that the Bible was a lot like little toddlers who learn how to talk with just a few simple words, and then as they get older they learn how to talk in bigger and more complicated words.  The Bible starts out talking about God as if he was a man who ruled the world like an old-fashioned king.  Then later on in the Bible, people grow in faith and begin to understand God as love that lives in our hearts.  After flipping through the pages of that big Bible, from start to finish, I flipped imaginary pages past the book of Revelation, illustrating that the Bible isn’t the end of the story of our growth in love, and that our children can add new and better chapters to it.

(For a list of Bible passages - none of them gory or gross! -  that I  recommend for children, see:  www.sausalitopresbyterian.com/spc/go/youth/byheart)

(To see a letter that reflects my deep concerns about the war in Lebanon, see www.pcu-la.org .  I've sent the President and my senators and congresswoman letters asking for an immediate cease-fire.  I hope you'll join me in speaking out about this terrible escalation of the violence in the Middle East.)