| Teaching Christian Mimicry |
As I munched on cereal for breakfast this morning I casually examined a shiny new children's book that someone had left upon the kitchen table. It was written by some lady - a doctor, and was just one in a series of children's books intended to teach biblical virtues to toddlers. This particular tome was focused on thankfulness.
It was illustrated in soft pastels, the text was large and simple, and notably focused on thankfulness to God, as opposed to thankfulness in general. By and large, I think most Christians would consider this one of the better toddler books. After all, given the choice of reading a book to your child whose theme is based on some popular children's show or reading one whose theme is a biblical virtue, the latter is probably the wiser choice.
Or is it?
Can I share a peeve of mine? I get frustrated (and a little bit angry!) whenever I hear a sermon wherein the preacher takes pains to prescribe a litany of activities that every good and healthy Christian ought to be doing. We should be loving our neighbours, we should be doing good deeds, we should be loving God above all else, we should be providing for the needy, we should sharing the gospel with a lost world, etc. etc. I agree that we should be doing these things, but I contend that a healthy Christian will be doing these things when his or her life is focused on God and not self. I am convinced that telling a believer what he or she should be doing something is somewhat naive and consequently, misguided. Perhaps what we ought to be telling them is that this shopping list of virtuous behaviour describes what Christian health looks like - the life of Christ flowing out of you. It looks that way, not because you have a list of things that Christians should be doing and in your zeal you are struggling to conform yourself to the list.
You may have heard me argue that the Christian ought not to pray for patience, since patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and no one can have that kind of patience without the Spirit, and no one who is walking in the Spirit can lack that kind of patience. What we ought to be doing is walking in the Spirit, and not asking to have the fruit of the Spirit in the absence of the Spirit.
It is the same sort of wrong-headed thinking that I am talking about, the kind that says, here is what godliness looks like, now make yourself look like that. No one, believer or otherwise can become godly by acting godly.
Which is where my beef with this children's book comes in. Teaching children to act thankful or to try and be thankful, apart from God is setting them up from the very beginning to not only try to look the part, but to imagine that looking the part is what it is all about. How many of us, in our adult faith, have to de-program ourselves because we were taught (to use a metaphor) to act married rather than to be married. That is, we were told what godliness looks like, then led to believe that godliness happens when we determine to act in accord with what it looks like. We never stop to think that we are trying to be godly in order to be with God, when it actually works the other way, when we resting in God, we are naturally godly.
Such it was with this book. I mean, sure, we need to teach our children what thankfulness looks like - but not in order that they say thank you to God when they are not walking in the Spirit, that is, it is not in order that they might learn to mimic the Christian walk by aping the sort of behaviour that flows from walking in the Spirit; rather it is so that they will know that thankfulness flows from living in the Spirit, and that a lack of thankfulness indicates that we are not living in the Spirit.
I am willing to assume that a lot of people couldn't care less about the distinctions I am making. We all want thankful children, and they need to learn the concept of thankfulness before they can apply that concept to their own abundance or lack - my concern is that we put off teaching the truth until well after we have established the habit of "godly" mimicry.
What are your thoughts?Labels: mimicry |
posted by Daniel @
8:42 AM
2 comment(s)
 
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