As we have headed into the active summer months and now a busy-as-ever school-year, I have taken very little time to blog. By the end of the day I can barely decide whether to read or watch a movie, no less construct coherent written sentences and paragraphs! Over the next few months I want to share with you something that has been very heavy on my heart for the American Church, and which has greatly convicted, challenged and changed me, my faith and my family.
Over the last 15 years, we have watched children from "good Christian homes" grow up and leave the faith with, at best, an indifferent tolerance for the church or, all too frequently, outright rejection and hatred. We have watched even more children gain the ability to do and say the right things, but show very little heart understanding of our faith in their lives. They were motivated "be good" and to "make Daddy and God happy"- living as if their salvation, acceptance, and worth relied on their actions. We saw the same things in the most liberal families and the most fundamentalist, conservative families. Most painful, was the day we realized our children were no exception. They knew the stories, the songs, the Sunday School answers, but when it came to real heart-felt motivations and answering deeper questions - it just wasn't there. We were raising "good" kids who didn't truly understand the depth of the love and grace of God.
It began what is a continuing quest of mine to question "christian" parenting across the fundamental to progressive spectrum of theology - because, quite frankly, it doesn't work. If generation, after generation of children raised in Christian homes are continually, and with increasing frequency, turning its back on the faith, than we, the parents, are not passing the faith on to them. We have done a fantastic job of passing down religion, but not the faith and love of a gracious Savior.
So what I want to do over the next several months is share with you what we will be sharing with our church. Not because we have all the answers, or have come upon any new revelations, or are perfect in parenting ourselves, but because I believe every Christian, especially every Western Christian, needs to take a very good, hard look at themselves, their families, and their churches before we completely loose the next generation.
One of the things we quickly realized, is our "parenting theology" is a big part of the problem. For some reason, we tend to drop good hermeneutics at the door when it comes to parenting. We need to start with "rules" for reading the Bible. (We are beginning with an assumption in the inerrency, authority and divine authorship of all of Scripture.)
1 - Context, context, context - Every verse, every word of Scripture must be read within the context it was written. Probably some of the most frequent mis-uses of scripture come from pulling passages out of context. A very common one is Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord" Begin and end it there and you have a verse that demands wives be subservient to their husbands. The entire context though, completely changes the meaning. The prior verse end with "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ". Verse 25 commands "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." Verse 33 reflects 22 with "let the wife see that she respects her husband". No longer do we have a dominating relationship, but one of mutual submission, self-sacrificing love and respect.
2- Literary Genres are Important - It rarely fails when going to a parenting workshop, Proverbs 13:24 is quoted. "Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him." This is coming from Proverbs, a book of wisdom literature. Wisdom literature, by its nature, intent and structure, is different from law, history, and gospels. Quite frequently this Proverb is used as law - children must be spanked. But it isn't law, it is wisdom. Its intent is not to demand spanking, but to impart the wisdom of firmly disciplining children.
3 - Redemptive History- All of scripture should be read in light of God's promise to redeem man, namely through Jesus Christ. Without the light of redemptive history, one could claim that Genesis 22 teaches child sacrifice!
4 - Reading in Light of the Whole - Scripture cannot be the Word of God and conflict with itself. Our interpretation of one passage, must be consistent with what is in the rest of scripture. It is inconsistent to think we can predict the date of the return of Christ from Revelation and Daniel in light of Jesus' words in Matthew 24, "no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son".
5 - Avoid moralisms - This has become one of my personal pet peeves, especially when teaching children Bible stories. David and Goliath. How many children have been told that they have to "be like David" and God will help them defeat the Goliaths in their lives? There are several problems with this: 1- the passage is mainly about God's redemption of His people (Redemptive History) 2- The passage is quite clear that David gave God the credit for the victory, and it was not David's actions, but God's power through David that saved the Israelites 3-God does not always allow our Goliaths to be defeated. Sometimes we must walk through a fiery furnace. Sometimes we are stoned to death. My all time favorite was the Sunday School lesson that directed me to teach the Tower of Babel The curriculum's goal: That the children would understand that every language was created by God, so we should love people of all languages. Um, that is no where near the message of the passage. Different languages were given as a curse for pride and idolatry!
6 - Read more complex passages in light of more clear ones - Much of scripture can be very difficult to understand and accept. Some of it makes me scratch my head and say "Why in the world would God put this in here?" Fortunately many of those passages are more easily understood in light of easier passages (and when #1-5 are also applied). Read Song of Solomon 7:7. I wouldn't allow my children to touch any other book with this type of imagery in it!
Now that we have laid basic ground work on how to read scripture, next week we will look at the defining and most unique concept of our faith - Grace.
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