Maya published a thoughtful post yesterday contrasting the Jewish and Muslim communities’ dedicated approach to the religious education of their children with that of Christians. She said that in her experience (and that of Following the Ancient Paths who commented), not enough emphasis is placed by Christian churches on establishing a foundation of faith in children.
This was interesting to me, as I had thought my woefully inadequate experience of faith learning as a Catholic child and young adult was atypical of Christianity, or perhaps that it was merely a Catholic approach.
My best experience was my first, and it was invaluable: that of my parents by both teaching and example. As a young child, Jesus was simply a part of my life, there was no peculiarity or separation. We went to Mass every Sunday, we prayed before meals, which we ate together. We didn’t eat meat on Friday, we knew the Saints’ feast days, kept Lent and marked Advent. Christmas was clearly first and foremost a celebration of the birth of Christ. (We weren’t allowed to open presents until after Mass on Christmas Day. Imagine!)
And my first school experiences at five or six of learning about Christianity were positive. We were taught by Mrs Jordan, who told us we would always remember her name “because it is the same as the river Jordan, where Jesus was baptised by John”. And she was right, we never did forget her name and I can see her face now.
There was a simplicity to our preparation for our First Holy Communion with its complicated teaching of transubstantiation (which it never occurred to us to question).
Those first experiences were of a personal relationship with Jesus that a child could understand.
But even then, we had the beginnings of an emphasis on correct behaviour (being good boys and girls) and also the beginnings of an unspoken understanding that you shouldn’t ask too many questions. And all formal teaching about our faith was the responsibility of the school. We had no Sunday schools at our churches, and little contact with the priests or the other parishioners.
Things took a distinct downturn when I went to a convent school at age eleven. There any awkward questions were dealt with brusquely by the nuns. I took religious knowledge as a subject until I was sixteen and I think it appeared on the timetable maybe two or three times a week. (Religious knowledge in those days, of course, was knowledge of the religion of Christianity only…) Looking back, I’m utterly amazed at how little I learned. So little that it certainly didn’t stick: I can barely remember it.
What I do remember is that we never touched the Old Testament. How can anyone possibly be expected to understand their faith without understanding its history? I don’t think it dawned on me that Jesus was Jewish until I was well into my teens. And not to discover the richness of the Psalms until I was nearly 40 – what a waste!
We concentrated on the life of Jesus, with plenty of the Virgin Mary thrown in (and no awkward questions please about apparent Gospel references to Jesus having brothers and sisters). The “nicer” saints were on the menu, but nothing on all those peculiar mystics who might have helped us understand the difference between a spiritual relationship with God and religious observance by rote. (Ironically I first learned about Julian of Norwich at 17 while reading Anya Seton’s historical romance of John of Gaunt and his mistress, Katherine. Julian appears as a character in the novel.)
The teaching order of nuns at our school never mentioned the contemplative orders where we might have discovered a history of learning, brilliant contemporary men and women (Thomas Merton? Who?), and a richer way of living and praying. Even if it didn’t “take” at the time, we could have stored up the knowledge for the future.
Talking to other Catholics, I think this experience was fairly typical of the times (1960s). I don’t know if it has changed, but looking at the newsletters in the local Catholic parishes from time to time the flavour seems remarkably the same.
It strikes me that my Catholic religious education echoed only the early stages of our development as people of faith. If we are brought up to it, we must see faith first with uncomplicated, childish eyes, where clear definitions and boundaries are important.
The trouble is that a fully rounded faith must go through a period of testing and questioning in which we bring all the facets of our adult personalities to bear: our intellect, our emotions, our experiences, our instincts. And it’s at this point that formal religious education, and indeed the whole approach of the institutional Catholic church seems to me to stop.
I’m not talking about those lucky people who go on to do a degree in theology or study at a seminary, I’m talking about the vast majority of Catholics who are discouraged by their Church (and experiences with their Church) from taking a fully adult approach to their faith.
Because I suspect it is only by acquiring knowledge of our own and other religious beliefs, by looking at history, by going through the questioning and testing phase that we can arrive at a considered adult faith. A faith that is not stunted, that has wings and recognises our rational human interpretations can only ever be a dim shadow of the reality of God.
And so if we are lucky we regain in a way a child-like element to our faith, accepting that we cannot hope to understand fully, but resting and renewing ourselves in our imperfect human religious practices and concepts of God, whatever they may be.
I’d be very interested to hear about the experiences of others growing up and learning about faith.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for linking to my post, first of all. I was raised Catholic, although I never attended parochial school. Being raised in the military meant I attended military base schools. However, I was required to attend the once-weekly CCD classes wherever we went and to attend Mass. Unfortunately, my parents never spoke of our faith at home and I was left to “figure things out” on my own. Even approaching the local priest was a very disappointing experience. Oh how I wish we were taught the biblical languages like Jewish children, and to speak freely about our faith in practical ways like I have seen the Muslim clerics do with their students. There is so much potential that we have yet to realize. Excellent post. Thank you for sharing your experience.
I was raised in the Lutheran church and can honestly say it (meaning the one Lutheran church I attended – not the entire Lutheran denomination) did next to nothing to help promote a loving relationship with Jesus Christ when I was a child. Like you, I remember next to none of it – even during the three years of working towards my confirmation at the age of 16.
It wasn’t until two and a half years ago (at the age of 45) that I ran head long into God again and spent the first two years doing exactly what you described – testing what I was learning with unlimited questions, a driving instinct, surprising emotions, and a growing intellect. I still have a very long way to go but already can see how this drive to get answers over the past two years has brought me further in my faith than many people I know who consider themselves to be lifelong Christians. Where is their hunger for knowledge? Where is their thirst for Jesus? Did it die in a youth full of boring sermons and organ music as mine once did?
In any case, I will continue to ask and to question and to build upon my base of knowledge and will do so for one reason: Jesus came to earth to be our teacher and then became our Savior. Accepting Him as one and not the other is, to me, only half fulfillment in my sharing of His legacy. If I’m not learning then He’s not teaching and that means it is ME who is preventing Him from doing what He came here to do.
Thank you for linking to my site as well. I grew up in a home where my mother was a teacher at the christian school we attended and my father worked for a major missionary agency and traeled the globe. We attended Baptist and Lutheran churches as I grew up. I knew enough about the Bible to know that there had to be more than what I knew. Growing up I became rebellious because I couldn’t reconcile the various things I had been taught – they didn’t seem to line up and make sense. So in my teen years I walked away from the teachings I had been given up to that point. It wasn’t until I was expecting my first child that I started to reconsider my chosen path and call on the things I had been taught as a child. It was at this time I consider myself having truly turned to my Master and Creator for the first time.
I remember, as a child, asking how various things could work together because I couldn’t understand how what I was being told could be true. For example: How could a God who is love, so much that He sent His Son to die for us, wipe out the entire earth (people, animals and plants) save for one man and his immediate family? How did that make sense?
It wasn’t until about 7 years ago that my husband and I began to really have our questions answered and begin to understand things. We thought we had a good grasp of Scripture and that we were set in our theology – we thought we were “experts” at that time. But as the Father began, by His Spirit, to remove the scales from our eyes so we could truly see and unstop our ears so we could hear we began to understand that we really knew nothing. What an exciting time it has been!
Now raising our own children and calling on the memories of our own childhood experiences, we put emphasis on talking as a family and reading the Scriptures together every night. As my husband and I grow in our relationship with our Master and our understanding of the Scriptures, we work to teach our children what we are learning and how it applies to them. I am confident that when my children tell the story of their childhood, in regards to their faith and learning of the Father, that their stories will not be very much like my own.
However, they too will have their frustrations and disapointments to share. We are not perfect parents.
i was raised in the methodist church in oklahoma. i vaguely remember vacation bible school where we principally did arts and crafts. i went to church often as a young adolescent because we went on fun trips and my friends were there. i remember virtually nothing about a personal relationship with Jesus, just that he was the son of God and if we didn’t believe that we were going to hell like all the “unsaved” people of the world. i did not realize there were other religions until i was in about the 7th grade. my french teacher was jewish and didn’t celebrate christmas which i thought was weird. one of my best friends in high school was catholic and i loved going to mass with her. i dated a boy who was mormon and didn’t drink coca-cola because of the caffeine. basically, all other religions were considered an oddity because they didn’t believe the “right” things.
much of this school of thought followed me throughout my life until i attended graduate school in my late 40′s. while i was not in seminary, several of my classes were religion based. my understanding of the world and people continues to get broader and broader while at the same time moving back to simplicity of a child that you spoke to so well.
“And so if we are lucky we regain in a way a child-like element to our faith, accepting that we cannot hope to understand fully, but resting and renewing ourselves in our imperfect human religious practices and concepts of God, whatever they may be.”
how have we gotten so far away from “love God and love your neighbor as yourself?”
Maya, HeyJules, Lisa, Lucy, thank you all so much for sharing these stories. I think Lucy says it for all of us: “how have we gotten so far away?”
I agree. Lucy said it very well and I “ditto” her response. This subject has been on my mind a lot lately so I appreciate your posting on this subject.