"Children's Questions About Religion"
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
February 29, 2004

Reading: from the Prophet, Kahlil Gibran
      And a woman who held a babe against
      her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
      And he said:
      Your children are not your children.
      They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
      They come through you but not from you,
      And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

      You give them your love but not your thoughts,
      For they have their own thoughts.
      You may house their bodies but not their souls,
      For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
      You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
      For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

      You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
      The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
      Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness:
      For even as He loves the arrow that flies so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Sermon:
“What do you believe about God?” “Is there a heaven and hell?” “What is the temperature in heaven?” “Do you believe that I will see dad in heaven?” “What if we all become babies in heaven – that’s a lot for God to do.” “Are you really a witch?” “Where do we go after we die?”

Children’s religious questions are cute, sometimes funny, and often challenging. They are probably second only to questions about sex in terms of grabbing the attention of adults. How do we answer their innocent questions in a way that is respectful, truthful and age appropriate? This is particularly challenging for religious liberals, as we may not have concrete answers ourselves. Whether these are questions that come from grandchildren, nieces and nephews, neighbors or our own children, being a religious liberal means our answers will be different then what children hear in the dominate culture. In order to answer children’s questions we need to sort through our own emotions, understand the developmental place of the child and listen for what they are really asking.

Religion is around us every day. We can’t avoid the influence of traditional religion on our families. It is important that we be able to offer help and guidance to the children we encounter as many of the messages they will hear are freighting and guilt producing. When my daughter was in fourth grade she encountered a girl in her class who attended a literalist Christian church. This little girl brought her bible to school each day and preached the word of God on the playground. While I gave this child credit for her convictions, it was a challenging time for my child. “Why does she think we are all going to hell?” “Why does she hate gays?” “Why is everyone listening to her?” At this age children need to know they belong and religion is one piece of that belonging. We were fortunate that we belonged to a Unitarian Universalist Church so my daughter knew there were others who didn’t agree with the teachings of that particular Christian church. We were also fortunate to have thought about some of our own answers in advance. Still it was a challenging time for all of us as “I don’t know” rarely feels like a satisfactory answer, as truthful as it may be.

First and foremost when answering children’s questions we have to deal with our own sometimes negative emotions. We are religious liberals, thus many of us are come-outers. We did not grow up in this faith and have intentionally left many of the traditional religious answers behind. Sometimes we have very painful memories associated with the faith of our childhood. These negative emotions can add energy to our answers in ways we would rather they didn’t. When our children come home from a visit with their grandparents and they want to say the prayers Grandma taught them we might have an experience of our own feelings of guilt and sin from childhood. These memories can get in the way of helping our children come to an understanding of religion and its place in the life of a child.

In addition to our past, we may have emotions about the present situation in our world. We are a religious minority. We are to a large extent a silent minority. Religious liberals may feel defensive and overly-emotional simply because we different than the dominate culture. These feelings can affect our responses to children. And still for us it is easier than for our children. We have chosen this church of difference our children have not. They, who developmentally have a strong need to belong, may resent being different. While it is important to encourage our children to be free thinking people our emotional overreaction born of that difference can create a defensiveness that breeds just the opposite. In answering our children’s questions we need to be aware of the emotional baggage we carry about our past and our present.

We will struggle with people who have not heard of Unitarian Universalists or who don’t understand our faith, but for our children this is one of the biggest hurdles. It is important that we prepare ourselves and our children for being misunderstood. Ours is not a religion many have heard of. Ours is not a faith that has God as a central figure. Religious freedom is a vague and complex concept that is hard for other adults let alone children to understand. We need to find words and situations to positively express what we believe. Our children will hear from others, with strong positive emotion, what they believe. We need to offer the same, every day at every opportunity.

Once we have begun to deal with the emotional part of children’s questions the next big element is question itself. What is being asked? What is a developmentally appropriate answer? I am sure you have all heard about the little boy who asked, “Where do babies come from?” Prompting his mother to get out the books and explain reproduction. When she had finished he said, “O.K. but Johnny comes from Chicago where did I come from?” The same can be said of religious questions. Before launching into a long-winded explanation of the theological differences between faiths it is wise to ask a few questions of your own. What brought up the question? What is the child really asking? And what is appropriate for an answer?

Young children are often asking questions of a concrete nature. Four and five year olds are mostly about sorting the real from the pretend. My four-year-old asked about Santa this year. We explained that it is a story that some people believe. He decided that he was going to continue to believe it. At this stage in their development children often hear about God from friends. Their beliefs are based in a very concrete understanding of the world. God is a man with a white beard to them because other metaphysical explanations are beyond their ability to grasp. They will believe because they choose too or not. They perhaps don’t believe in God because they can’t see it or they do believe in Santa because they have seen him on TV.

Buy six or seven “why” enters the picture. Edith Hunter in her classic book, “The Questioning Child and Religion” relates the story of a seven-year-old asking, “Why do we go to our church instead of St. Ann ’s?” The mother in an emotional moment answers, “We would never go to a Catholic church. Catholics believe in so many things that aren’t true.” While this may have answered the question “why aren’t we Catholic?” it did not answer the underlying question of why she didn’t go to church with her best friends? And now of course the little girl had a new question, “What awful things do Catholics believe?”[1] The seven-year-old’s questions had become why, she was looking for more than fact answers, more than “we are different” as a response, but it was still a question of a concrete nature. She had to go to the church she did on Sunday because that’s what people do, they go to different houses of worship on Sunday, Friday or Saturday. Catholics go to St. Ann ’s, Jews go to Temple Beth El and Muslims go to the Mosque. If we allow kids a chance to tell us more about the questions they are asking we will learn about more about their world thus giving answers that satisfy rather than confuse.

By the time they are ten many children are beginning to develop abstract thinking. They are beginning to be able to understand the differences between different faiths. However, as I said earlier the biggest pressure on kids this age is to be able to belong and identify with a their peers. “I just wish we were more like other people,” is often heard in a religiously liberal family. I can remember vividly attending a Baptist service that a friend had invited me to at the age of 12. I left the service fearing for my life as it was presented that we could all die at any moment and without being saved we would be damned. Much of this information though graspable for older children is still frightening. I wanted to be like my friends but found it only created nightmares. My Unitarian Universalist parents offered that the next time I wanted to visit another church they would go along. We all make different decisions about many aspects of child rearing from television to curfews. As our children grow older the answers to their questions can become more complex and complete but it is still important to weigh the values of exploration with the importance of protecting our children.

Besides the emotions, and developmental components of an answer there is also the content. What is the being asked for? Is the child asking for facts? Did Jesus die? Or value judgments? Susan says Jews killed Jesus so she hates them. Do you hate Jews? Or is this the question of an older child with some deeper impact? Can you tell me what happens after we die? Even with the fact questions we need to give the children what they are asking and can understand developmentally. Knowing what is being asked for gives us a better chance of giving a satisfying answer.

Edith Hunter suggests playing a game with children to help them to understand the different kinds of questions thus developing an understanding of questions and their importance in our lives. Is it a “look it up or look at it question,” a “think of how I feel about it question” or a “do some more wondering” question?[2] Today’s children must formulate their own opinions with so much more data than we had as children. There is television, the Internet, and school with more and more different expressions of faith each day. Teaching them to ask all kinds of questions and know what kind of answers they need will help them to build a critical mind essential in our world.

Perhaps the most important aspect to remember about children’s questions is that no answer will be adequate for a lifetime. Different answers will suit children and adults at different points in life. At five when they ask, “Who is God?” we can answer with. “Many people believe in God and others don’t.” When they are six and seven and the Whys enter the picture we can talk about the different aspects of God and that people have written stories about God to help them feel safe. And by the time they are ten and they want to understand the concept of God we can teach them about world religions.

As adults our goal is to develop independent critical thinkers who are comfortable with their emotions because we know that the burden of their religious journey lies squarely on their shoulders. When I was an advisor for a Unitarian Universalist youth group, I met a young person who grew up UU and also Catholic. His mother took the children to a Catholic church and the family attended UU services as well. The children were all baptized, went catechism and were confirmed in the Catholic faith as well as being dedicated and attending UU Sunday school. When this young man, the oldest, was graduating he shared how important both pieces of his religious education were. He said, “I learned from my Unitarian Universalist upbringing the importance of reason and in the daylight I appreciate that carefully trained mind, but at night when I am scared I am grateful for having learned to pray.” He was not confused just very clear of the value of each part of his religious training. His parents weren’t fighting about the differences of faith, but each offered the children their beliefs. Just as the reading this morning suggests, we will not be able choose beliefs for our children, but with our own emotional issues out of the way they will be free to choose what satisfies their journey most.

The best we can hope for is to be a supportive guide for our young people as they take on more and more of the burden of their own faith. We can encourage questions and answer questions with attention to our own emotions, the content of the question and the developmental age of the questioner. All of this with an understanding that our children are not our own they are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. We cannot make them like us. We can only love them. We love them best by understanding our own religious journey, by answering their questions honestly and carefully, by providing a religious community that supports them. May we continue to be such a place. Namaste.