Read: John 10
Transmitting faith to the next generation is an
important function in the life of families, the church and other religious
institutions. It is the family that is the primary agency in the transmission
of faith. Both family and the church are supposed to play the role of being
hand in hand, to transmit faith to the next generation so that they are
also able to come to a personal commitment to the Lord. But somehow many of the
families have not taken the role of transmission of faith seriously and
often thinks that church and its related organizations like Sunday School are
solely responsible for the transmission of faith to the next generations. But
because of the absence of strong family nurturing often misconstrued
understanding of faith is conceived by our children. This could be seen
by the responses received in respect to any article published in the I Report
of CNN news agency, titled "Why I Raise My Children Without God" .
This was an essay written by Deborah Mitchell from Texas, who is a mother of
two teenage children and her essay had more than 650, 000 people viewing the
article. This essay is creating ripples in the life of people out here.
Most of the people who have viewed this article are in total agreement with the
precepts that Mitchell is trying to communicate as to why she raised children
without God, though there are lot of others who have expressed differences of
opinion with her. Some have been very critical of her while some have vocally
supported her in her argument and the reasoning behind as to why she wanted to
raise her children without God. The arguments that Mitchell has brought out
through her essay is that she does not believe that she should not lie to
her children when they asked her about heaven and about those questions like
what will happen when we die?, what will be the state of our body and so on?,
and other questions which she is not able to answer honestly. According
to Mitchell she started lying to her children about these aspects which she
herself was not sure off. Above all this came the questions about the concept
of all powerful God. If God was all powerful then why does murder, child abuse
and torture happen? She could not co relate the concept of all powerful God and
the suffering that is happening all around. Mitchell felt in order to
answer all these questions one may need to either brain wash ones children, or
instill a fear in them about God so that they will follow him blindly
without raising any questions. But she chose to do something that no mother
would dare to do. According to Mitchell, she believes that her children should
not come to a belief of an imaginary God by fear but by choice and she believes
that religion is very personal and is should be something that one should keep
it at home or church just like we keep our too brush or pair of shoes at home.
It is not supposed to be carried wherever you are. The focus of her essay is
all about how the concept of heaven and after life is good for the community
and for giving some hope in life, but she believes that she and her children
should lead a life where the fear of an imaginary God does not rule their life
but life ruled by the conscious decision taken by each of their children in
terms of what is logical, just and fair. I think we need to appreciate and
respect Mitchell for her honest affirmation about her concept of religion, God
and other matters related to transmission of faith. But I think there are lot
of people among believers also who are also guilty in propagating and
transmitting faith more in terms of fear and punishment, brushing under the
carpet the issue of why innocent suffer if God was loving and powerful.
Believing in Jesus Christ is all about getting an entry to heaven and not
getting punished by being condemned to hell. This has been the focus of
teaching in church's and Sunday School and families. This is very beneficial
because in this focus of teaching there is an element of fear and when fear is
instilled, our children will obey the people in authority whether it is
parents, the clergy or the significant others. But instead of instilling fear
as a method of transmitting faith, can we use a different channel that is more
meaningful, relevant and scripturally oriented?
In the Gospel of John Chapter 10, Jesus describes his ministry. He teaches his
disciple the focus and objective of his ministry. He tells his disciples that
He is the good shepherd that He has come to the world so that " we all may
have life and life in all its fullness". Here is Jesus Christ conveying
that the whole concept of his coming to the earth was the everyone who has
relationship with him will have abundant life, life that is eternal [ John
3:16]. Here i believe what our Lord is emphasizing is that when a person comes
into a relationship with Him, he will be able to experience life with a
difference, life that is meaningful, life that is full and abundant. This would
be in stark contrast to what the world considers as to what blessedness in life
is all about. Here love of God is not to be seen in terms of fear and punishment,
though one may need to understand that there is a judgment day, but more of
making our lives meaningful specifically in the world that we live and also in
the process viewing life in the perspective of eternity. If only eternity is
stressed forgetting about living responsible, faithful and committed Christian
living, I think we are misconstruing the teaching of our Lord. It is when
we only stress about our after life experience and whether we will be in heaven
or hell that the whole problem arises. In such a context, fear is instilled,
Christian lfie and commitment being reduced to just momentarily responding to
the message of gospel so as to be "saved" rather than stressing on
the responsibility of living authentic Christian life in response to ones commitment
to the Lord. This authentic living entails us to walk daily with the Lord
and being a witness to the gospel in every day experience of our life. It is
this message of gospel or faith nurturing that we need to communicate to the
next generation. Only when we move to this concept of faith transmission, I
believe we can present more living, and truthful presentation about God, about
faith and faith living, rather than a faith transmission based on fear, and
blind following without a true and genuine understanding about what one
believes.