January meme: Jan 6

[cahn]

seekingferret asked what we were doing/planning for E's religious education. (Warning: I expect this will be a somewhat unsatisfying answer, not least because I feel like every step brings up more questions, and I can't write forever.)

This is really (at least) a two-part question. The first part is the question: what are we doing with her religious education given my tortured relationship with faith? The second is the question: what are we doing given that I am LDS and D is Lutheran?

To partially answer the second question: E goes to two churches on Sundays. She goes to D's church with both of us at 8am for a one-hour service. Then she sometimes directly goes with me to my church (for 3 hours, often 4 when there is choir practice) and sometimes goes to Sunday School at D's church (where she is the only member of her class) and then goes to my church (where she is one of about seven children in nursery, and one of four in her year starting "Primary" (kid Sunday School) this year). (This year, my ward is starting at 1pm, and then she will go to both every week.) The vast majority of our social circle is LDS with a couple of Lutheran couples sprinkled in. All of her church agemates, as you may have been able to figure out from the above, are LDS. (There are several reasons for this. Demographics of the Lutheran church we attend are, um, heavily skewed towards older folks. Demographics of LDS always include loooots of kids. But also, I'm the one who does much of the social planning, and I'm quite frankly more comfortable with LDS folks than with Lutheran folks, simply because I grew up with them and understand them, and I understand much better how to navigate socially in the LDS world than in the Lutheran world.)

We'll keep doing this as long as we can. My expectation is that conflicts will be resolved on the LDS side, since a) I tend to be the one who is more committed to regular attendance/participation, and b) all her friends are there. But if she decides she will be committed to being a faithful Lutheran, I will honor that. (The big thing that I foresee at this point that could turn her towards Lutheranism is that she thinks her dad hung the moon. Also that theologically I have many fewer problems with Lutheranism than D has with Mormonism. And that he has fewer theological problems with Lutheranism than I do with Mormonism, for that matter.)

The first question: At this point, I tend not to talk that much explicitly about God, Jesus, and so on, except as it naturally comes up (which it does because of the 5 hrs of church/week, things church friends say, the fact that her nanny is LDS, etc.), and then of course I punted hard with the introducing her to death (though that of course was a relatively small part of her life). This is also how I was raised, for different though related reasons. We do have nightly prayer but not nightly scripture reading (which I did when she was very small, stopped for no good reason, and need to get back to).

I have made the conscious choice not to introduce any concept as "because God said we need to do it this way," because I really don't like it. (I consider as distinct the concept of "God has asked us to do this because this helps us become closer to God," which I think is perfectly fine.) I talk to her about caring about other people, and how we do acts of service because we care about other people, and how it is good to be nice to and care about other people even if we don't know them personally, and when she gets a little older we'll connect that to helping us become closer to God, but not explicitly because God says to do so.

Random recent occurrence to illustrate the heretical beliefs she's growing up with: I very much do not believe that God is angry with us when we sin, and informed both E and D of this fact in perhaps a very emphatic tone of voice when her (Lutheran) Sunday School class did David and Bathsheba (which, by the way, was hilarious, the way they tried to explain it on a kid level). (This is straight from some parenting book or other. Frustrated that the kid isn't doing what's best, sad, fearful for the kid's safety, even annoyed -- this I buy. That it may even appear to us as anger, okay. But anger is a secondary emotion arising from these, and I say that if I as an extremely imperfect parent am trying to disentangle all this, God should be past that.)

(...did I answer the intended question at all?)

Comments

[seekingferret]

I think the intended question was primarily the second question with an expectation that the first question would inevitably factor in. So yes, it did answer the question intended! At least partially. :P

I think your intuition that "Because God said we need to do it this way" is not appropriate for children is probably right. I think that's something you need to grapple with when you're old enough to grapple with things.

I'm curious if interfaith education figures in your plans in any way. You make it sound like most of E's friends at the moment are affiliated with your churches, but has she had exposure to children with other religious traditions and how have you contextualized the differences?

I also wonder, I mean, E is young for this to factor into it, but do you have any thoughts on what to do if she doesn't want to go to church? If she drifts OTD? (Which I realize is not actually a term that Christians use, but they should because it's a really good term with a mixture of irony and inconclusive value judgement that lets both people who are OTD and people who are critical of the lifestyle use it) Feel free not to answer that question if you don't want to.

I also really want to know how you teach David and Bathsheba to kids her age. That sounds hilarious.

[cahn]

Ha. It is nice to get the validation of "God said we need to do it this way" not being appropriate for children, because it comes up a LOT, if not in that precise form. Sigh.

Interfaith education is not a thing for me yet, except inasmuch as interChristian education is obviously going to happen. Most of our non-LDS friends are in fact atheist, so I suppose she'll be exposed to that. Exposure to other faiths may take a while to organically happen; the school we are hoping to put her in has an interfaith class, and the one she goes to now does very superficial holiday stuff. I don't have much in the way of plans to educate her at this point, mostly due to laziness and not thinking ahead rather than not thinking it's a good idea.

She will go to some church as long as she's living with us, but if she doesn't choose to once she's not, that's her choice. (This does seem to be a somewhat likely outcome of a mixed-faith marriage.) I hope that she will feel that she can tell me about whatever she feels about faith. I think it is appropriate to mandate church for children even if the faith isn't really there, however. (I also think it is unlikely for her to come to any such conclusions before college, given that she appears to have about the same amount of self-awareness that I did as a child, which is: not much.)

...There was a lot of mealymouthed "So, David and Bathsheba did something bad and God was angry." I... I wonder what Elena is thinking they did. Perhaps they ate food in the living room and got lots of crumbs on the carpet!

[thistleingrey]

Speaking as an agnostic individual, who has at times been a staunch atheist: I too think it's appropriate for E to attend church, given that you and D attend. I went to Methodist services while I was living with my aunt (a few months at age 3.5, then a week or so every summer thereafter), and aside from the fact that it would've taken heroic measures to have someone watch me while everyone else went to church, I learned some things despite gaining zero faith. I gained some cynicism about organized religion, TBH, but at least it was something to think through during my early teens--and I also read the entire King James, since silent reading was allowed during services. (There was a brief attempt to make me attend youth group, but neither the other kids nor I liked it at all.)

[cahn]

Ha, I think cynicism about organized religion is a valid thing to learn from going to church services :) And reading the King James, I feel, is a good thing for general Great Books literacy, whether one believes in it or not :)

K mentioned baptism/confirmation to me, which is another whole kettle of fish. While I think it's appropriate for E to attend church, I certainly wouldn't want her to get baptized if she didn't feel it was the right thing to do.

[thistleingrey]

Definitely, re: general literacy.

Makes sense--it's an expression of conviction, at least when not performed upon tiny infants.

[ollipop]

if I as an extremely imperfect parent am trying to disentangle all this, God should be past that.

Ha! And yes, one would hope. I love the level of thought in this explanation, also the reality that there's an amount of social planning with other young families/kids that will factor into E's religious education.

Our religious education with kiddo has been nontraditional up to this point... both parents are pretty committed atheists, but we go to church more often than any of the Protestant families I know save one. (Why do we go to church all the time? Maybe we're doing it wrong. :D) Because of our geographic area, we don't have a huge amount of contact with folks from other faiths.

Most of our friends-with-kids are Protestant. Kiddo's bestest friend, the boy he wants to marry, has a mother who is a minister at a charismatic Christian church operating out of a storefront down the street. We have so far treated religion as a demilitarized zone until the boys are older. ZOMG.

[cahn]

I bet I go to church more than you! ;) (I wish I didn't! Well, I mean, not really, given that I could presumably stop at any time... isn't that what they all say... but I could do with, oh, half the church I have now.)

Yeah, I hear you about religion as a demilitarized zone... we have a while, I think, until it's an issue with E. Although there are a bunch more atheists around than when I was growing up, including my best friend and her daughter, so I guess we will probably have to talk about that fairly early. Which is probably a good thing, given my particular sometimes-agnostic, sometimes-atheist, sometimes-not approach to the world :)

[sophia_gratia]

I am in no way qualified to respond to this, but I'm glad that you wrote it and am absorbing it.

I am also cracking up about David And Bathsheba For Kids, wow.

[cahn]

Oh, glad you enjoyed reading my random thoughts :) I know, right? It was mealy-mouthed "So... David and Bathsheba did something bad" which must be super confusing to a preschooler. Did they hit each other? Or throw food at the table? :)