What shall we tell the children? (Sunday Reflections for September 26, 2010)

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. (1 Corinthians 13)

Once again I am about to begin a new year of teaching confirmation. I have been doing this for a long time—almost 30 years if you count my seminary internship. It’s a bit frightening to realize some of my first students could now have children of their own in confirmation class (if they’re still in the church).

For as long as I have been in the ministry, confirmation has been an unsolvable mystery. The attitude of most clergy I know was revealed in a candid moment at the time the new ELCA was electing its first synod bishops. Upon hearing of his election, one about-to-be bishop blurted out, “I don’t have to teach confirmation anymore!” I lost count long ago of how many confirmation programs Augsburg Fortress or its predecessors have offered. It seems there is a new one almost every year. Then there are those from independent publishers, plus the churches or pastors who make up their own (I’m now basically in this category).

I think what makes confirmation so problematic for pastors is that it forces us to confront the most difficult puzzles of the church and of Christianity, ones we would often rather avoid. If they are honest, I would guess every pastor would admit to thinking at least once, and possibly every year, “What the hell are we doing?” It’s not enough that we’re dealing with one of the most difficult times of life: junior high and early adolescence. We’re also trying to answer, for these theologically innocent young people, all the questions the church can no longer answer for itself.

Historically, the primary resource for Lutheran confirmation preparation has been Martin Luther’s Small Catechism (1529). Luther wrote it, he says in the book’s preface, in horrified reaction to the theological ignorance he found while visiting small town and rural parishes in Germany. Thus, it was intended for use by adults, as much as for older children.

The Small Catechism (and yes there is a Large Catechism, read mostly by theological over-achievers who usually are or become pastors) provides a simple explanation of the basic elements of Christianity: the Ten Commandments, Apostles’ Creed, Lord’s Prayer, and the sacraments of baptism and communion. It is a classic and, for Lutherans, the book has become an icon in itself.

In some ways this was the high watermark of traditional Christianity, for it essentially has been all downhill from there. It wasn’t long before all the things Luther sought to make clear with his little guidebook were being questioned for their meaning, accuracy or value. After nearly 500 years the contents of Luther’s Small Catechism and the confirmation preparation efforts it inspired are creaking and stumbling to near collapse. For that reason, publishers crank out one new program after another (“Now Online!”), trying to keep the old machine going just a little longer.

Like the Small Catechism, confirmation preparation has primarily been about conveying ideas and content—people, events, beliefs, rules, vocabulary, memorization, etc. In the past, the primary motivation for young people to cram this stuff into their little heads has been fear of the thundering wrath of a Herr Pastor and/or one’s own parents. The days of such motivation are, of course, long gone. As a result, the content of confirmation has changed to . . . what?

It seems to be all over the map. Learning this content isn’t as important anymore because . . . well, because the content isn’t as important anymore. The simple reality is that much of what Luther was so sure Christians needed to know we just aren’t sure about. Here we again face the yawning gap between our world and Luther’s and the Bible’s, between ancient times and modernity.

Consider this “simple” question: Where is God? Ancient people knew and Luther knew. God was in heaven and heaven was “up there.” There are even ancient and medieval maps that show where heaven is. Now: Your answer? Uh huh, that’s what I thought. Why do we have trouble believing in heaven? Because we have no place to put it. “Up there” has no objective meaning anymore. There is no up or down in the universe; there isn’t even a beginning or end. So today God is “in our hearts,” or “all around us,” or “everywhere,” or—fill in the blank.

Now I can work with all that, and some of those ideas are even in the Bible, but they’re not the mainstream. So we have to be honest and admit we’re not really talking about our ancestors’ Christianity anymore. We’re moving on, and that’s okay. We need to because the world certainly has moved on. In doing so, however, we’re leaving things behind, not unlike when we grow up and leave home. And as the saying says, once you’ve left you can never really go back.

Our world is in flux, and that includes Christianity and religion generally. We’re now in a mode of exploration and experimentation. To do that effectively, I think it’s important we know where we are coming from. For that reason, teaching the Christian tradition is important because it has profoundly shaped us and the world around us. In doing so, however, we have to be honest with ourselves and with our kids that this was the world of our ancestors but it isn’t ours anymore.

In education today, teaching content isn’t nearly as important as it once was. We have more content at our fingertips than we know what to do with. Answers to more questions than we can even imagine are seconds away via Google and Wikipedia. No, the challenge is learning what to do with all that information: how to find it, sort it, evaluate it, judge it, and synthesize it.

I think something like that is what we should be doing with our kids in the church. The goal is no longer to teach them “The Truth.” First, we’re not sure what that is or means. Second, even if we had it, it’s not what they need. Why not? Because truth is not something handed to us on a silver platter. It doesn’t arrive in a box labeled, “Contents: The Truth.” In fact, when something does show up like that, alarm bells should go off because it almost certainly is a fraud.

In the past, young people were taught lots of practical survival skills: how to hunt, fish, plant, cook, sew, build, and so on. Religion, however, was pretty much handed to them ready-made. Today I think the reverse is true. Most of the “stuff” we need to live is made for us, but our religious beliefs and practices are what we need to learn how to develop and construct. Some techniques are better than others and some materials are better than others. There are good sources for these things and there are hucksters peddling crap and we need to learn how to distinguish between them.

If we can convey to our young people the basics of the Christian tradition, something about the world’s other historic religious traditions, an understanding and appreciation of the great questions of life, an ability to sort through and judge possible answers to those questions, and—most importantly—an appreciation of what a gift life is and what a joy and responsibility it is to be a part of that life—If we can provide them some basic tools to start down that path, then I think we will have done them a great service. We will have helped them become truly good persons—and that’s what it’s about, isn’t it?

Now, how am I actually going to do that starting next Sunday? Well, that’s another question.