The Parental Nightmare of Religious Kids

Remember the good old days when all parents had to worry about was their kids getting on drugs. Now, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal, parents have to worry about religion. The story reports on the emerging trend of kids from good, solid, respectable secular parents finding a new sense of spirituality through one religion or another -- and in so doing, scaring the parents to death. So, here is the new scenario: kids worrying that their parents are going to hell, and parents telling their kids to get off their backs. It is, it seems to me, an ironic reversal. It would have been like me, in junior high, begging my parents for a haircut and them insisting that I wear it long.

So, what is a modern parent to do?

I am tempted to say, "get real and get over it and thank your lucky stars." But I suppose I shouldn't be too flippant. There are, after all, plenty of religious fanatics -- within every religious tradition -- of whom I would be terrified should my children become devotees. Religion, unfortunately, attracts some strange and dangerous characters who serve tainted Kool-Aid and bomb clinics and fly planes into buildings (and yes, I do lump them all together). But such miscreants are thankfully the minority.

What concerns me most about the story is not the reaction of the parents; it is, rather, that the fingerprint religion has left on so many people's psyche is so negative. If I am inclined to ask "how is it that religious reputations have sunk so low," I need only look around. While I want to counter that religion has done so much good -- and my deep conviction is that this is so -- I cannot deny that it has also caused much pain. Never mind the historic examples like the Inquisition and the Holocaust, the exit aisles from too many churches are stained with the blood of children and neighbors and parents and friends whose identities and aspirations have been summarily shredded by holy condemnation. I'm sure it always happened in good Christian love, but those rejected and wounded almost certainly missed the agape.

And so the church has apparently redoubled its evangelism efforts among those with whom it stands the biggest chance of finding success: those too young to have much of a memory.

I can't speak for Muslims or Jews, but perhaps secular parents might be less frightened of the Christianity their children are bringing home if the Gospel they saw Christians espousing really seemed like "good news" -- joyful rather than cursing; affirming rather than condemning; encouraging rather than demeaning; life-giving rather than...

...well, you get the point. It gives me pause to wonder how a parent might react should their kid come home with the Gospel I proclaim. Maybe Sunday's sermon -- and the life that proceeds from it -- isn't quite finished after all.