Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (mike.siemon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: A Commendation of Atheism Message-ID: Date: 15 Nov 89 08:22:54 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 31 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu our moderator comments, on religious teaching of adolescents: > a proposal that Christian education should cease between the ages of > 12 and 18, because people in this age group generally aren't ready > to approach things as an adult, but are far enough along to reject > a non-adult approach. With a certain reservation, this is close to my sense of things. If children have been taught with honesty, they should be "cut loose" of any churchly leading-strings. Adolescents are discovering themselves, and can't really work on the relation of that "self" to God until it has assumed some more or less stable form. (This is not a denial of their continuing search for God, but in order to "love our neighbors as ourselves" it is the spiritual task of this age to learn what one's self *is* and learn that it is lovable.) The reservation is implicit in the proposal, I think: in not thrusting "the answers" on them, in withdrawing from active "teaching," the church must assume a *reactive* model of spiritual direction. Be role models, aides, to troubled youth and they will learn far more from you than you could possible put in a lesson plan. Like younger children, adolescents are *very* willing to learn by following examples -- but they need the sense that *they* are choosing the examples, and that they have to work at this, it isn't just handed to them. (And if you think about *this* for a little bit, it may give a new perspective on God's gift of grace, and the need for a free choice out of our will.) -- Michael L. Siemon "O stand, stand at the window, ...!cucard!dasys1!mls As the tears scald and start; ...!att!sfbat!mls You shall love your crooked neighbor standard disclaimer With your crooked heart."