The
Musings 15
Thursday,
January 24
Read:
John 10
Transmitting faith to the next generation
is an important function in the life of families, the church and other
religious institutions. It is the family that is the primary agency in the transmission
of faith. Both family and the church are supposed to play the role of being
hand in hand, to transmit faith to the
next generation so that they are also able to come to a personal commitment to
the Lord. But somehow many of the families have not taken the role of transmission
of faith seriously and often thinks that
church and its related organizations like Sunday School are solely responsible
for the transmission of faith to the next generations. But because of the
absence of strong family nurturing often misconstrued understanding of faith is
conceived by our children. This could be
seen by the responses received in respect to any article published in the I
Report of CNN news agency, titled "Why I Raise My Children Without
God" . This was an essay written by Deborah Mitchell from Texas, who is a mother
of two teenage children and her essay had more than 650, 000 people viewing the
article. This essay is creating ripples in the life of people out here. Most of the people who have viewed this
article are in total agreement with the precepts that Mitchell is trying to
communicate as to why she raised children without God, though there are lot of
others who have expressed differences of opinion with her. Some have been very
critical of her while some have vocally supported her in her argument and the
reasoning behind as to why she wanted to raise her children without God. The
arguments that Mitchell has brought out through her essay is that she does not
believe that she should not lie to her children
when they asked her about heaven and about those questions like what will
happen when we die?, what will be the state of our body and so on?, and other questions
which she is not able to answer honestly. According to Mitchell she started lying to her
children about these aspects which she herself was not sure off. Above all this
came the questions about the concept of all powerful God. If God was all
powerful then why does murder, child abuse and torture happen? She could not co
relate the concept of all powerful God and the suffering that is happening all
around. Mitchell felt in order to answer
all these questions one may need to either brain wash ones children, or instill
a fear in them about God so that they will follow him blindly without raising any
questions. But she chose to do something that no mother would dare to do.
According to Mitchell, she believes that her children should not come to a
belief of an imaginary God by fear but by choice and she believes that religion
is very personal and is should be something that one should keep it at home or
church just like we keep our too brush or pair of shoes at home. It is not
supposed to be carried wherever you are. The focus of her essay is all about
how the concept of heaven and after life is good for the community and for
giving some hope in life, but she believes that she and her children should
lead a life where the fear of an imaginary God does not rule their life but
life ruled by the conscious decision taken by each of their children in terms
of what is logical, just and fair. I think we need to appreciate and respect
Mitchell for her honest affirmation about her concept of religion, God and
other matters related to transmission of faith. But I think there are lot of
people among believers also who are also guilty in propagating and transmitting
faith more in terms of fear and punishment, brushing under the carpet the issue
of why innocent suffer if God was loving and powerful. Believing in Jesus
Christ is all about getting an entry to heaven and not getting punished by
being condemned to hell. This has been the focus of teaching in church's and Sunday
School and families. This is very beneficial because in this focus of teaching
there is an element of fear and when fear is instilled, our children will obey the people in authority
whether it is parents, the clergy or the significant others. But instead of
instilling fear as a method of transmitting faith, can we use a different
channel that is more meaningful, relevant and scripturally oriented?
In the Gospel of
John Chapter 10, Jesus describes his ministry. He teaches his disciple the focus
and objective of his ministry. He tells his disciples that He is the good
shepherd that He has come to the world so that " we all may have life and
life in all its fullness". Here is Jesus Christ conveying that the whole
concept of his coming to the earth was the everyone who has relationship with
him will have abundant life, life that is eternal [ John 3:16]. Here i believe
what our Lord is emphasizing is that when a person comes into a relationship
with Him, he will be able to experience life with a difference, life that is meaningful,
life that is full and abundant. This would be in stark contrast to what the
world considers as to what blessedness in life is all about. Here love of God
is not to be seen in terms of fear and punishment, though one may need to
understand that there is a judgment day, but more of making our lives meaningful
specifically in the world that we live and also in the process viewing life in
the perspective of eternity. If only eternity is stressed forgetting about
living responsible, faithful and committed Christian living, I think we are misconstruing the teaching of
our Lord. It is when we only stress about our after life experience and whether
we will be in heaven or hell that the whole problem arises. In such a context,
fear is instilled, Christian lfie and commitment being reduced to just
momentarily responding to the message of gospel so as to be "saved"
rather than stressing on the responsibility of living authentic Christian life
in response to ones commitment to the Lord.
This authentic living entails us to walk daily with the Lord and being a
witness to the gospel in every day experience of our life. It is this message
of gospel or faith nurturing that we need to communicate to the next
generation. Only when we move to this concept of faith transmission, I believe
we can present more living, and truthful presentation about God, about faith
and faith living, rather than a faith transmission based on fear, and blind
following without a true and genuine understanding about what one believes.
