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Welcome back everybody to Religion on the Mind. I am your host, Dr. Dan Koch, licensed therapist. And returning to the pod after a three year hiatus, Meredith Miller. Thank you for being back.
- [02:48]
B
Thank you for having me. I didn't realize it'd been that long. I'm so excited.
- [02:51]
A
January January 2023 Episode 174 helping kids know God in Healthy Ways we also did a Patron only episode around that time shortly thereafter where we dug into some more of the Christian Smith sociology stuff. We are back. I have been doing some episodes lately. Listeners will recognize this phrasing of blank after religious change. And what got me wanting to do those episodes is recognizing that that's actually the best way to describe my clientele as a therapist. My sort of sweet spot where my expertise is strongest is someone who has experienced religious change. Typically there are three categories under religious change. Deconversion, deconstruction, or some sort of belief shift, significant belief shift or religious switching. So either moving to another religion or I would also say like finding maybe something like a Jesus influenced spirituality that brings in other forms of spirituality. Also a form of kind of religious switching somewhere in between deconstruction and switching. But in this case, because of your work and what you know about and are good at, this is going to be a conversation about Christian parenting, or let's at least say Christianity. Curious Christianity involved in some way. Parenting after deconstruction. Now it could be after religious change, but in most cases it's going to be more like deconstruction. Because if you are deconverting, you're probably not that interested in raising your kids Christian. And I'm glad you're here as a listener of the show, but this episode might not be as much for you in that instance. And of course I do want to just mention that's not the only, you know, raising your kids Christian is not the only viable path for good and healthy parents. And we also can reasonably expect that our kids are going to rebel against us in some way or another anyways. But you do also have some insights into kind of choosing versus failing to choose. We're going to get to some of that stuff. The main focus here, the main structure, is I asked you to come up with five lessons that you have found through your decades of work in this field around the kinds of stuff that a deconstructed parent might be thinking about in terms of wanting some Christianity for their kids. And then at the end, we're going to play a little bit more of a game. I looked at a bunch of local church websites and identified some green, yellow and red flags. And I'm curious if you'll, you know, what you'll think of those or if you'll have slight changes or whatever. That's more about like picking a particular church. We're going to talk about picking a church and other options here, stuff we can do at home. But that's the basic structure. Should we just roll in? What should? Because it's been three years. So give us a little bit of background, Meredith, on why do you know the stuff you know about this?
- [05:49]
B
I know the stuff I know about this because when I was in graduate school as a young 20 something, I took my last year of school and got linked up with a group that was doing research on adolescents into their emerging adulthood, on their faith formation and their faith change as they moved into their adult years. And it overlapped right around the same time that Christian Smith and his team at Notre Dame was doing their research that came out of the Soul Searching project. And it was originally kind of the magic bullet question, like, what can we do to keep kids in church? And because there was no finding that was magic bullet, instead it I think spun off into some really great other kinds of questions about what does it mean to say we're nurturing healthy faith in kids when we're not basically looking for like retention only or adherence to rigid beliefs. So that was like early in my trajectory, which I'm so grateful for, because then basically ever since I've worked in spaces related to kids and families and tried to keep a pulse on the research that keeps coming out related to these questions of faith in young people and especially the things that are healthy and helpful to them sort of wherever they end up landing in their own practices and beliefs. And so, yeah, this is the random thing I have my 10,000 hours in.
- [07:06]
A
Oh, and I should just mention your books really quick. When you were last on, we were talking about your first book, Woven Nurturing a faith your kid doesn't have to heal from. Your new one is called Wonder. And it's about basically helping kids have a good relationship with the Bible. Obviously, as deconstructed folks, we have some questions about that. That's what we're going to be in part getting into today. And so just want to mention that. So if people want to check out those books, they can find you as Meredith Miller on Amazon or wherever they get books okay, the first of your five lessons concerns what exactly would the reason be for me to decide to raise my kids in a church?
- [07:51]
B
I think if you are a parent after deconstruction and you're thinking about church, the reason to go is not going to be driven primarily about religious education or some sort of content. I don't even know that it's as much about the exact spiritual practices that would be engaged in. Although those can be valuable, especially when you see them as practice. Right. When our mental model for church is more gymnasium than lecture hall. But I think most of all, the thing that you would be thinking about is, can this be a space for friendship and for my kid to be known by other adults? Because those themes come up a ton. One is just, we are a perpetually lonely culture that has. That's just kind of true. And so it is good for kids to have human friends that they see in real life. And this could be a space that offers that to them. It's also good for them to have friends that aren't exactly like them. And so to some degree, you might be someone thinking about the differences that you would find in that church community. And that might not be all bad. And we just know that with kids, when it comes to adults, like, more is more. The more adults know their name, know what they're into, want to hear about their week, we'll nerd out with them about whatever their like thing is that they love. It's just. It's good for them. And as we are increasingly struggling to have these human analog spaces, I would be considering whether what I'm coming to church for is not necessarily about religious input so much as it is about relational value that matters for my kid and is not easy to replicate in other kinds of spaces or communities.
- [09:27]
A
Right now, as part of my spiritual abuse research, I had to answer the question, why does it matter that we prevent spiritual abuse? Because, for instance, some people take the view, just fucking get rid of religion altogether. What are we doing here?
- [09:42]
B
Yeah, it's a stupid.
- [09:45]
A
It's an overall evil. It's an overall net negative. The careful research done across psychology, sociology, criminology, all these different fields is like, no, it is a net benefit for the statistically average person. And a lot of what benefits young people is mediated through social support and relationships with other adults. That's just an interesting overlap. In my only area that I have any research acumen in. I want to just note that I noticed this in myself that, you know, other adults that are not like, close friends, there's also a felt sense of danger there. You know, we're much more aware of abuse and things like that. That of course, you can never get that risk to zero. But it's just worth noting that, you know, the population level research on the benefits of religiosity and spirituality for kids and adolescence, that includes people who are abused, like, yeah, obviously that's awful. And some of the flags that I'm going to talk about later relate to ways of looking for greater levels of safety in a church. So there are ways to sort of, you know, lower that risk. You can't get it to zero. But it's also not the case that there's so much of that going on that it like shifts the overall scales for people. It doesn't. That's included. That includes people, you know, like, the average person has some likelihood of clergy sexual abuse, you know, and so it's. It's hard to, like, we can get worried about that. But yes, I just want to name that. And if you have any other insights around that, I'd love to hear them.
- [11:27]
B
I'm not surprised that there's that place of overlap. And I do think it's to your point that consideration of even if something we would just never ever want to happen to any young person happens, how might we think through, like, what good could still come and be worth it, even so? And I do think there's generally a thing within us that has to figure out what we do with our fears for our kids in all sorts of spaces, because it's not zero in all kinds of other places that matter for them as well. And one of the things I think that parents and caregivers aren't always aware of when it comes to this particular question of church involvement is how easy it is to stay involved yourself if you just can't get over that fear. Like, you can get yourself background checked, you can get in the room. You could either be near your own kid or you could be with some other kids. And some people are like, oh, I don't want to do that part though. And then you kind of have to confront the part of you that wants this to be childcare more than actually like a relational investment.
- [12:24]
A
There's a significant part of me that wants it to be childcare also.
- [12:29]
B
I get that part. And if that's the reason you're going, then you're going to have to run different filters, right, for like, what are you hoping for here? But if you're thinking this could be some sort of village, then part of what you can do with some of the risk is lean into your own contribution as a villager.
- [12:45]
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Yeah.
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Being that kind of adult for other kids. What a meaningful investment of your own time. And maybe that could be a place that both helps assuage some of that risk within ourselves. Cause we get more proximate to the situation and we get some eyeballs and we start listening and see what we're dealing with.
- [13:01]
A
Yeah. Get more evidence. Yeah, yeah.
- [13:02]
B
Which again does not take risk to zero, but could be different than just sort of the handoff. And also in that you might just become an adult who plays an incredibly significant role in a young person's life by just seeing them and valuing them. And that's actually a really special contribution you could be making that. I don't know, sometimes post deconstruction folks, I don't know if they realize what a gift they still are to others. Just all of them in the whole sense. Right. There's sort of a sense of like, oh, the non deconstructed ones are high value to a church system. And I'm kind of black sheep on the fringes.
- [13:36]
A
That's like buying into the old logic effectively, is what that is. Right.
- [13:40]
B
And they bring something so valuable. They're good question askers, they're nuanced thinkers. They're inviting kids early on to realize that doubt and questions are important parts of the faith process. That's modeling something so important from the jump. So I think that part matters.
- [13:58]
A
So I love the focus on. Yeah. Friendship with other kids. Friendship with other adults besides mom or dad. Let's also talk a little bit about the content thing because, you know, this comes up for clients. It's come up for me, it's come up for friends of mine. You know, I don't want my kid like, you know, just to make it very concrete. There is a big successful vacation Bible school that is run in town and we don't send the boys to it because we think, you know what, we will take the less big, still fun one that the mainline churches do. And there's actually two of them. We can do both, but. But like we don't go to the big evangelical one. Even though it's like, it would be, I'm sure, really fun because the content of that is something that we are concerned about. And I think it, it makes perfect sense. Like I don't want my kids to be raised with a developmentally inappropriate early focus on their sinfulness and things like this. So obviously we both agree that content matters. You literally have Written two books about content they are content themselves about. So it's not that that's not a concern, but maybe motivate. Why do you, from sort of inside the belly of the beast or seeped within the research, see it as less of a concern than those other things?
- [15:19]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I also spent five years as like the curriculum director for Omega Church. Right where I was, Willow Creek.
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A
Right.
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B
Yeah.
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Right in the middle of it all.
- [15:28]
B
I was the content gatekeeper for how we would tell these things.
- [15:32]
A
Yeah.
- [15:33]
B
So I do think there is a minimum viable baseline that each person gets to discern for themselves. And often it is. What are they going to say about sin? How will they define it? And what will that mean for a child? What is their role in that? How will they talk about Jesus's death and resurrection? If they're vbs, they will tell a child that story almost every vbs. Well, not all all, but it is
- [15:57]
A
because they're trying to get salvations at vbs, which is where I first quote, unquote, accepted Christ as well at six years old.
- [16:05]
B
And so, okay, if I'm gonna have my kid in that space, what will they say about that event? How will that come across? And so having some sense of minimum viable, which I do think is. I want to hear that they are going to tell all children they are intrinsically good because that's who God made them to be. If they're going to talk about sin, I want to hear something like, isn't it wild how the world has all these things that are so destructive? And it seems like it's a pattern and it seems like we're stuck. We actually, in our tradition, we have kind of a describing word for that. We sort of call that sin. You might hear it called other things, like it's evil or it's wrong. And we just really think God cares about that stuff and we get to be helpers. Right. Something in that family, if it's gonna come up for me, that's minimum Bible of like, I don't mind that we might talk about hard stuff in the world. I actually kind of would welcome that we care about it.
- [16:55]
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Yeah.
- [16:56]
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But I wanna know that I'm not gonna, like, a child won't be blamed for that or shamed in that. Right. And really, I think a lot of times there's probably a relatively short list that have high priority and it's not too, too hard to reach out and get some answers on those things. Hey, I'd love to hear how you talk about the. My big three no director worth their salt is going to avoid that conversation with you.
- [17:19]
A
Right. Because this is like a sales lead a little bit.
- [17:24]
B
You are like teeing up that you are a warm lead that if you can just meet me here, giving me some insight on these particular topics. Because so much of the rest of it, if a, If a church is kind of just in the middle, you can take that where you need to take it as a family.
- [17:40]
A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
And I think, I mean, that was actually people wouldn't necessarily thought about it with Willow Creek. That was our overt curriculum philosophy was to teach the middle, where a family across a very wide spectrum of perspectives could go from there into something that felt like it fit for who they were. And a lot of curriculum actually does do that if you can avoid certain spaces.
- [18:01]
A
Yeah, yeah. I've looked at a couple different curricula through the red, yellow, green flag thing, so we'll come to a little bit of that later. But so here's a quick. Like, here's my draft of that email and I'll fill in a few of what I think someone might put for their top three and then you could add in anything that's missing. So. Dear, you know, Marie, Dear Scott, our family is interested in coming to your church, but specific. I have a couple specific questions about how topics, sensitive topics are handled around kids ministry. The big ones for me are and then here's maybe things like sin and. Or salvation. I would say for me, like science slash maybe evolution kind of a thing, gender and sexuality. You know, you could maybe phrase that to be sort of about complementarian questions of like, what are. How are girls and boys? Are girls and boys taught that they have the same possible futures or whatever. It could be about gay inclusion, things like that. Yeah, I mean, I guess under salvation is like hell, end times. Obviously, that's kind of like my story. I don't know how commonly that comes up, but I was injured in that way in junior high. So, you know, what else would you maybe add? What are items that might be on that list?
- [19:18]
B
Do you invite kids to make any sorts of decisions about their faith and how and when do you go about that? Some churches really don't do that all that often. But if we've come from a place where it was offered like all the darn time.
- [19:28]
A
All the time.
- [19:29]
B
Yeah, but there are lots of communities that are like, oh, yeah, no, we don't actually do decision stuff. But like, how, how does that go? What does that look like sound like for you all? When does it happen? Will you Tell us ahead of time so that, you know, maybe we just miss that. Yeah, that would be. I think I also look for like, how could you just tell me like a basic flow of the hour? Because then I can look for how big of a group is my kid in, how many adults are around them? Just kind of like, what will it feel like? Because part of what I'm vetting is actually just like, will my kid feel comfortable and safe in the. In what they're trying to do? So alongside the hot topics, I kind of would love to just like paint me a little bit of a picture. And then I. Knowing my own child can kind of feel out like, is this going to be overstimulating? Is this going to be overwhelming? Are they gonna feel sort of lost in the shuffle? Like those kinds of pieces of just like their, their emotional safety. Every church would want to say they're emotionally safe. But like, when you tell me about your actual program, I can sometimes see where there's maybe some strengths or misses.
- [20:28]
A
Okay, well, this actually leads nicely into your second one, which is about the, the faith culture that you build at home, which I remember was a. A significant topic from our first conversation. So if people want to dig deeper here, they could go back and listen to that. But. But what's the lesson here about home faith culture?
- [20:46]
B
Yeah. So home wins. So I would remind a person who's in the Christian parenting space after deconstruction that your home faith culture is likely to be the biggest influence on your kids sense of what faith is about. Usually in the best ways, it can also go south. But oftentimes a caring parent who is trying and who is also fostering just relational warmth and being a listener to their kid and valuing their opinion that home culture is gonna win more than other sources of input. Minus when you introduce like, which I don't think would amount, you know, but a person who decides, I've deconstructed, but I'm still sending my kid to Christian school. Right. Like you're. That's a lot of reps for a lot of people.
- [21:30]
A
Yeah. Five days a week. Yeah. Yeah.
- [21:33]
B
So. So barring some of those kinds of circumstantial situations that could mitigate that, generally home wins. And so it's not to say that theological ideas we wouldn't really want introduced won't impact our children. It's not to say that we aren't intentional about trying to do our best to introduce them to the good side of this and be mindful that there's a lot of Bad religion out there that we would love to just not have our kids have to wade through. But one of the best things we can do with all of that is tend to what it's like at home. Is every question askable? Do we talk about important stuff? Do we help our kids understand they don't have to agree with even us because we want them to feel independent, have their own mind? And all those pieces, those aren't just about how we engage. Like other important topics in the world, politics, sense of self purpose in the world, those are also true with religious identity. And so I think you can be really encouraged in that, like what you foster at home is really largely gonna be what your kid takes away.
- [22:32]
A
I got a little distracted for a minute when you said the phrase bad religion and my mind just started playing. Generator from their 90s output, the LA punk band. But you know, there's a real like kind of obvious tie in to just general therapeutic work there, which is like, you know, depending on how sort of therapized people are culturally, this is either obvious to them or sometimes it's not. And it becomes really eye opening through therapy that like, you get models for so much of how you see the world, deal with problems, interact with other people, you know, how do you respond to difference? How do you respond to conflict? What happens when there's, you know, some disruption or a family emergency? All these things form through your home culture, your family culture. And all you're, all you're really saying here is that also applies to the faith culture, like in exactly the way it applies to things like, yeah, what did mom and dad do when they fought? Did they go in a room and you never heard anything? Did they give each other the silent treatment? Did they hash it out? Did you ever see them hash it out? Like, you know, and it's just like, yeah, all that stuff is also true of the way that your family approaches faith.
- [23:53]
B
I think sometimes that causes people to think, yeah, but I can really distinctly point to non family influences that significantly harmed and scarred me.
- [24:02]
A
Well, for me, all the harming came from outside of my family.
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B
Outside the family.
- [24:06]
A
Yeah.
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B
And I always find myself then wanting to like, as parents now, be like, yeah, that's part of why we help. We can't prevent that all the time. We can't prevent what they're gonna say. But also like, this is part of why we don't just wholeheartedly turn our kids over to the institution.
- [24:22]
A
Oh, that's interesting.
- [24:23]
B
And like just blindly entrust our children to those institutions because Part of what we can do is, as best we know, those things happen. We can be there as the soft landing place or the debriefing place. Right. I can think of folks in our faith community who it was incredibly important to them that someone in a church space said something really damaging. I'm thinking of one woman in particular. Her youth leader happened to die young in a tragedy. And then somebody said something just incredibly insensitive about their theological whateverness of it all. And then they came home and their own mother said, oh, they're full of it. And this sort of like, sharp, distinctive nuh was so pivotal. And. And that was an adolescent story, which I think also part of the home culture is we are fostering conversation because then we want to hear it. And we can't always know that our kid will bring it home. But to try to. You can. You can untangle some stuff fast when you say that's bullshit.
- [25:21]
A
My story is from high school. My personal story. I've told this before, but it's been a while. I was applying to colleges at my evangelical high school, and I was going to apply in psychology, which I actually did not end up getting into that school, but I applied in philosophy, where I ended up going in psychology elsewhere. And the college counselor who had gone to Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego area said, oh, you know, I don't believe in psychology. I only believe that biblical counseling is a thing. And my dad, who is a licensed therapist, wrote a very strongly worded letter to her and gave it to the dean as well. And she brought me in, she apologized, she said, your dad's right, I'm wrong. I need to educate myself on this thing. And, I mean, I had a fucking rocket pack after that. You know, it's like that. Like, I still think of that regularly. So I, you know, and that's a little older. I was 17, you know, at that point. But, you know, it's on a continuum with the earlier era of our family faith culture. And that was a real protective factor, is what I would call it now. Like to know, oh, my dad. My dad can fight fire with fire, and he can be a bulldog. I think that's. Actually, I sort of really mimic that in a lot of ways that I engage with imaginary enemies on the podcast who are not here. But I kind of take that similar posture, and I kind of got that from him. My mom has some of that, too. She's got a lot of fight in her as well. And I just. So I'm just, yeah, I'm just kind of, I'm double stamping that. Like, yeah, you can give your. You can give your kid permission to question some of these things by your voice. And so it's not. It doesn't start and end with whatever they hear outside of your home.
- [27:18]
B
I largely had a positive church experience in my growing up years and my youth group, I was very youth groupy. I was a really good youth group kid.
- [27:26]
A
Same.
- [27:27]
B
And we were right down the road from Missus Pacific University. And so a lot of our youth volunteers were not actually part of our overall faith community. They were just youth ministry majors who popped down the freeway to come hang out at our giant youth group. Because we did 90s youth group real well. We were real big, which brought with them a whole lot of ideas about what women can or can't do into a church that had always been like, they can do whatever they're gifted to do. Thank you very much. But in our little youth group, which was its own little bubble, that suddenly became a question. And I wanted to work in churches. Like, I knew that already as a teenage person. And I remember sitting down in my living room and looking at my dad, who happened to be a pastor and being like, so can women do this or not? And the following conversations were. This question really matters. Absolutely. We're gonna take it seriously. I'm gonna introduce you and remind you of a bunch of the women in our church who already do stuff. It was such a. Like, it wasn't just like, oh, yes, of course. It was like there was a whole process that enrolled out of that of like, you do not have to accept what these dingbat 20 whatever year olds from the college down the street are spouting off about Paul, whatever. Like, they're full of it. And you don't have to. You don't even have to burn energy trying to pretend that's a serious thing. You can just get on with it. And that was incredibly important too. To be like, oh, you don't even have to get tangled up in debate. Like, the freedom that. That brought my teenage self to be like, oh, you can just move, like, you can move right along. You don't even have to let them have more energy than you want to let them have. They don't get to take that. And it was like, oh, thank you. Thank you for that. Super helpful.
- [29:01]
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- [31:10]
B
Well, and so what I thought about as I've known more and more parents on the other side of their deconstruction journeys is sometimes I hear them thinking that what that mainly did was teach them about things they don't want for their children. And so they are personally really committed to trying to do their level best. But they haven't really thought about how the whole point process that story is a gift to their kids that in time sharing with their kids that they have changed in some really significant ways, like identity level ways. And how did that begin? How long did it take? What was some of the gift and joys and freedoms of that and what were some of the losses and struggles of that? Just this, the real story. It Is it's not just that what you learn from your deconstruction is a lesson that will make you better for your kids sake. It is that your process of deconstruction and inviting your kids to hear that story will also be a gift to them, partially for religious purposes of just how do we think about our faith, religion, spirituality. But also there are other big identity level topics where your kid might have a similar process. They might get very attached to a certain vocation and then not be able to realize that vocational dream. And your deconstruction story and their vocational shift will have these touch points that could be a gift. And so there's all these other ways. It also might, might matter that it's not just as simple as you went through deconstruction. You learned some lessons. You're going to keep your kid from going through some pain because of it, which is good. I think there's actually some, some more offerings through your stories that you can, you can give to your kid.
- [32:52]
A
It's making me think of values as well, which connects back to home faith culture. Right. If you want. That's values is one way to kind of frame and structure that and, and give it. Yeah, sort of, sort of give it language. I use this technique that I, I call the photo negative technique, which for my college age students, they literally don't know what I'm talking about.
- [33:17]
B
Nope. I took photography in high school. This was a whole thing. Yeah, we had a black room and a dark room. The whole thing. It was very fun. Yeah.
- [33:25]
A
I mean if you watch enough true crime, I think you just see like you get that, that visual effect that they'll do. Yeah, yeah.
- [33:32]
B
Or crime television is really devoted to old tech because it's way better visually.
- [33:36]
A
It's so much better.
- [33:38]
B
Like. Yeah, yeah.
- [33:39]
A
So yeah, crime movies where you can just google everything. Not fun.
- [33:42]
B
Not fun.
- [33:44]
A
Or like maybe for younger male clients, I could call it like Call of Duty night vision technique. But anyway, the idea is that you have this thing, this painful, harmful experience, or it can be trauma, it can be just a real feeling, let down something, or just an ongoing source of frustration and hurt, grief, whatever you identify, okay, that's the thing that really hurts. And then the photo negative is you go, all right, what is the flip side of that? Framed positively as a value. So this thing that happened, what is the opposite value that keeps that from happening? And so in this sense, I actually think that staying involved and not letting it be just about content. Well, that was the content we were given. We deconstructed now we will give you this content instead. But actually a more, a more sort of full throated response to whatever harmful shit needs to be deconstructed also includes an identifying oh, and here is the corresponding value that we are committed to and that we are going to instantiate. We are going to make this real in our lives. So for instance, like lowest hanging fruit I can think of is like critical thinking versus just accept answers from authority. So if you were given a steady diet of you accept the answers from whoever we've designated as an authority and we don't ask questions. What's the opposite of that? Open inquiry, seeking out multiple viewpoints and discerning them. So like you go, oh, maybe that's a value that we have. And now all of a sudden me showing up as a deconstructed Christian is not just about the deconstruction of the content. It's about I'm showing up as someone who is actually trying to live out the value of clear and critical thinking and openness to questions, which I know is a big plank of sort of also the content of the stuff that you make. But yeah, maybe riff on values, values a little bit there.
- [35:56]
B
I think another one I can see is if this was primarily performative, that there are religious behaviors that I need to engage in that I can see one of the positives being I deconstructed till I got to the being that I wanna be related to, right? That it's not just I exchange certain religious beliefs for other ones, certain practices for other practices. It's actually that I took away the practices until I got to the fact that I wanted to relate to God as I understand them. And that what I carry with me is that these forms and these practices are tools that I can engage in or not in total freedom. Because what I am really choosing in my deconstructed life is to be related to myself and to God and to this world. And the trappings are constructs. I get to engage with those in total freedom. And it's not that I'm going to replace the performance with better practices that I adhere to with just as much rigidity. And I can find a lot of positive in that.
- [37:00]
A
Another way to frame that opposite as a, as a value would be instead of performativeness, it is actually just reception. Like I, instead of I put on a show, I just receive. And maybe through deconstruction, that is, you know, maybe that's through prayer or certain writers or certain forms of content, but maybe it's just through like Walking outside and listening to the birds. Maybe it's through just slower, embodied ways of being and sort of, you know, quote unquote, worshiping in that way. And then so showing up as that version of yourself and living into that value with your kids that, you know, talk about. That's a gift. That's a gift.
- [37:46]
B
Yeah.
- [37:46]
A
Okay, now we turn to the tough one. Okay. This one is hard for me because I am noticing myself slip into it, and it is that doing nothing is doing something. So, Meredith, take us there. Rip the band aid off for me.
- [38:03]
B
Oh, I'm sorry to say this is a really. I understand why. This is a tricky one to work through for folks on the deconstructed side. And it's that doing nothing, when it comes to a child's faith and spirituality is basically choosing for them that they don't get to have these experiences. So much of what happens for kids happens young. And when there's nothing there, it doesn't tend to be the case that they circle back in adolescence and adulthood and embark on a spiritual journey.
- [38:42]
A
Tell us about the statistics there. I feel like that I. I kind of know that you're right, but even I don't really know the numbers, but I. I like. What does the research consistently show around this stuff?
- [38:53]
B
Well, this one's fascinating because this would be. This would be everyone from, like, Barna group who are.
- [39:02]
A
I mean, Barna is overtly evangelical.
- [39:04]
B
Overtly evangelical. And the Barna research group is not necessarily the same as the person, but,
- [39:09]
A
like, they do careful work, but they have a persp.
- [39:12]
B
Yeah. And they have a bias. Right. So they're on this end, and they're the ones that emerge saying, most of the time, if a kid decides to be Christian, that decision was made before 13, and a whole lot of things happened out of that finding. But then, on the other hand, this would be something that Lisa Miller would speak to with her very broad understanding
- [39:32]
A
of religious traditional spirituality.
- [39:35]
B
Spirituality that she would say the innate spirituality of a child deserves as a right to be nurtured, and that it is intrinsic and therefore part of even their youngest formational opportunities. And that without offering them that experience and giving them some vocabulary to be part of that, you are not. You're not giving them something that they are fundamentally made to have. And she's quite far afield from Abarna and yet has echoes of something really similar in her own conversations about the innate spirituality of a child. And so I find that part fascinating, these dual layers that kind of push on us to say, if I do Nothing out of very, maybe well intentioned protection out of. I have maybe gotten myself to a certain place. But I am not ready to then move forward with my kid. I am actually making a choice for my kid. And am I comfortable with that? Am I comfortable, like, you know, my kids are very different in a lot of their interests. One of them is not athletic. This is not gonna be his lot in life to become an athlete.
- [40:46]
A
Water's warm, buddy.
- [40:48]
B
Yeah. And even the, the ways he does like to move, the last thing he wants is to compete with anyone in that way. Like, he's a great swimmer. Kiddo can butterfly. Does he want to race anyone? No, no, no, no. Don't do that. You will ruin the pool for him forever.
- [41:04]
A
Yeah.
- [41:05]
B
And I could choose for him to keep him in potentially competitive swim environments because he's good at it and movement is good for our bodies and brains. But of course we're, we're not going to do that because there are lots of other pathways. But I don't mind that. Basically, like, I have chosen for him that there is no athletic path. I have not overdone. Like, just. We're just gonna, we're still gonna find your sport, kiddo. Let's just try another one, kiddo. Let's enroll in this one, kiddo. Like, we've largely now chosen that he is not gonna particularly be an athletic person and he will find some other path towards the movement that helps his brain and body be healthy. But competitive sports ain't it. And I don't mind the loss of that choice sort of on his behalf based on our observations of what's going on. Because competitive youth sports is a risky space that does a lot of damage to children. There's some comparable.
- [41:57]
A
Right. Yeah. Think about boy Scouts and things like that, right? There's comparable risk. Yeah.
- [42:02]
B
So there I am. I, I largely made that choice for him. My husband and I largely made that choice for him. Not with. In total disregard for who he is. But, you know, there's no recovering at this point in his life for him to become a phenomenal athlete. That's not a path available to him. I don't know if we would all feel the same level of ease with saying of our 8th, 9th graders, there is probably not a significant spiritual identity available for them anymore because of the choices we made in these texts.
- [42:34]
A
Like there may be, but statistically it's unlikely.
- [42:36]
B
It's just. It's really unlikely. It's really unlikely.
- [42:39]
A
Okay, I got a few angles here. I want to, I want to linger on this one, because I. It connects personally and I just. I can see a lot of reasons for it to connect for a listener. And first, I want to motivate why I think it might be. It might feel like a little bit of a radioactive idea. And that is that I think there is a lot of psychological resonance with like a turn or burn mentality. Do you know where you'd go if you died? The sort of. The stakes of it. There is a clock there. Like you can imagine. A fucking hourglass dripping. Yeah. With creepy music under it.
- [43:17]
B
You know, and if anything, you're like the Aladdin movie where I think they're like inside. I think at one point Jafar traps Aladdin in the hourglass. It's like falling on his own head. It is inescapable. It's not just counting and coming for you. It is inescapable.
- [43:30]
A
Deep Freudian level claustrophobia there. So, yeah, like, I get that. Like, I noticed some of that in myself of like, oh, part of me. One of the things that I want to rebel against is those artificially high stakes. Being given a book when I was 11 years old about the rapture occurring six months later, the only way I can justify what the adult must have thought is that this is justified because the stakes are heaven and hell. And maybe I was the second most rebellious kid in my small Christian 6th grade class of like 14 kids. So maybe they thought I was a good candidate for salvation or something without those stakes. They would have never given that to an 11 year old also if they had a little bit of developmental psychology. But like, you know, so that's a thing that I. This is, this is a, this is a tough situation here where it's like, okay, there is a. There is a way to approach this with values and clarity that says I am going to do the opposite of artificially high infinite stakes that rob my kid of their childhood. But I could be tempted to violate the laws of reality by thinking that I. That I can just sort of leave it open and that that will just. That they will just have all their neuroplasticity from those 13 years still available to them later. But they won't. Like their brain will have become what it is at that point. And so there is a. It's a tough, like rubber meeting the road kind of harsh realities angle here. But I don't, I don't see another way of understanding it other than that's just true developmentally. So there's not. So you, you know, and maybe you determine that the religious of it. Options actually available to you are all worse than that. Okay, but where I'm challenging myself here, as I notice a lot of my own kind of fervor dipping with raising the boys other than bringing them to church sometimes, like, I really feel I've lagged a lot at home. And I think, like, I am. What I'm sort of trying to tell myself, even right now in this conversation is, oh, I'm kind of trying to have it both ways a little bit here. And I'm ignoring the fact that they will be formed. And, like, maybe that's the way of saying it. There's no way that they're not formed, you know, so you have some say in how they're formed.
- [46:15]
B
Yeah. And even to your point of what values do you want to bring? Well, I think it could just be a good value to say, my kid is spiritually curious, and we don't want to bring a family value of certainty which might implicitly be communicated by the fact that this isn't worth talking about or giving our time to or thinking through. And a grand, mysterious universe and potentially a benevolent God that is available to us within it sure seems like, well, that's not the same as this isn't worth giving any time to. Even in the uncertainty, even in the mystery of it all, there's something about the value as a family being. Like, we want to be humble enough to be uncertain about parts of the world that are beyond us, and we want to be the kind of people that are open to possibilities, and that would be part of this space. And. And like you said, there is this reality that they're being formed on big questions. Part of it, too, is like, we want the reps in the conversation. You know, like, maybe they don't land their thoughts until their teenage years, but to the neuroplasticity, conversational. If I'm putting all the sand in the sandbox, if we never talk about this one, it's not gonna be like a stellar conversation when they're 15 and you're like, I'd really love to know what you think about the idea of whether there's a God and what that God might be like and what you hear from your friends about their religious perspectives or lack of. Like, they'd be like, that is the weirdest thing for you to ever ask me. We never talk about this. We don't do that on other important topics. We start in age appropriate, developmentally appropriate ways that honor our kids agency and honor that they're in process. But we want to be in the conversation just because we know it is a topic that matters, we don't do it as well on faith. And I do think some of it is that part where we're like, well, it'll be there. It'll be there.
- [48:01]
A
Yeah. And, I mean, I know for me it's in part just a visceral reaction to soaking in it too much, you know, in my own upbringing and, you know, just like, enjoying the freedom personally of not having to soak in the bath quite as often.
- [48:17]
B
Right.
- [48:18]
A
Yeah. And, you know, this might be splitting the hairs too. Fine. But even in my own mind, I think about, okay, so my oldest just turned six, and when he asks questions like, we're good, like, my wife and I, we're, you know, like, we're on the same page. We are going to encourage the curiosity, we're going to encourage critical thinking. We can explain the basic tenets of, like, our liberal Christianity to him. And he has, you know, he asks questions about the crucifix at church that's on the wall. And, you know, like, it's more about. And as he gets older and those questions become more and more complex, I actually think that will be kind of easier in a sense, for us. It's like dealing with peers. I think the part where I am feeling a bit more guilt and lack is around the sort of pre. The what's in the water before he gets to that point of asking those questions. And, you know, I guess he knows that we're Christian, but it's not like a big part of our family identity, if I'm honest. And it's interesting how what a huge part of my professional identity is and personal identity, and I recognize a little bit of space there. I mean, does that. Could you speak to that, like, the age difference thing there? Because I just don't have any older kids yet. And I'm like, maybe I will kind of get back into that. But, yeah.
- [49:41]
B
Anyway, one of the pieces that is sort of interesting is at the same. Two things are sort of true at the same time that seem to almost be at odds with each other, which is doing nothing isn't doing nothing. And that there is, particularly the early years through the first decade or so that are unique and special in terms of how they. Yeah. How they sort of set the temperature of the water and its ph and so on for all things faith. And then at the same time, the early years are more of a season where what matters is that you as an adult have picked a path on purpose, that your kid is allowed to see and that they can sort of tag along for without necessarily having to participate themselves. Because you've made choices as a grownup and they are still a child. So it's kind of. It seems like that's saying the exact opposite, but it isn't. It's your kid. You are filling the tub. In part because of what they watch happening and what they listen to and what they observe in the adults who have made their choices on purpose and then being able to make meaning out of that. The alternative would be asking kids to participate in all of it, because spirituality matters. But then that's an adult indoctrinating them. And so there's actually this, like, very important distinction where it's adults setting intentional courses and inviting kids along in appropriate ways, but kids being allowed to basically be more observers, question askers. They are. They're sponges taking something in that then because of that, we can help them make meaning out of. Down the line. It's not. I think that's. I think that's part of the fear, too. To your point of, like, this is always the heaven or hell, the life or death. Make the decision. It's not like, oh, it's that, but healthier. It's like, no, no, no. There's still this. You are easing off, and yet you are. You are still on a path that you've picked on purpose that you're inviting your kid to be along the ride for.
- [51:35]
A
Yeah. And I would say in terms of our general values as a family, we have picked a path and we are walking the path and they are seeing it, you know, in appropriate ways. But where I'm. Yeah, I'm just wondering, like, you know, we don't, like. I think about, like, praying before meals, and we don't do it very often. Like, we do it when the in laws are around, and we do it other times, but meal time is kind of chaotic right now. But even before that, like, I don't know. And maybe that just never really mattered to me very much. And that's why we don't do it. It's odd, but if we hang out with, like, Catholic friends and they do this kind of standard meal prayer, I'm always kind of like, oh, I gotta like something about that. And I like that the kids, you know, expect that. And some of the, like, insights around Hasidic Judaism and how there's these. There are prayers for these different things. Sort of the sacramentalizing of life. You know, it's something I needed, something I'm feeling like this is reminding me. I need to look into that a bit more. I have some unresolved curiosity and interest there that I will. I'll get to. I'll fucking get to it, Meredith.
- [52:48]
B
Okay, I'll get it.
- [52:49]
A
I'll do it when I do it.
- [52:50]
B
Hey. I am just naming a reality and I'm sorry to be the voice of it.
- [52:54]
A
I know, I know.
- [52:55]
B
But it's. If it's true, it's true. And, you know, part of what I think can trip a lot of us up to the point of like mealtime prayer. I say. I mean, we did that growing up. I sort of half cared. We don't do it now. Like, again, we do for holidays. And I think we do it meaningfully for holidays because there's like extra family and it sort of feels special. But figuring out what like, ritual means in our family and what rituals we are inviting our kids to be part of, including, like, what does prayer look like for them? So, like, one of our family's probably more consistent rituals of prayer is actually when we pass car crashes and first responders, like, in the car, I will say a one sentence prayer out loud of just like, for these people that are now clearly in a very hard situation, would they find comfort and care and they just hear me say it out loud and then on we go. Because I want my kids to notice goodness in the world because I want us to remember that we belong to each other. And it's like a nod to that. But that's like this ritual that we just sort of invented as far as, like, what, what kinds of meaningful prayers would I want my kid to hear? And so. So there we go. So there is something, I think, that can be very fun about realizing that just because you're gonna do something doesn't mean you have to do those things. You still get to make it up. Like, you still get to pick.
- [54:07]
A
Yeah.
- [54:07]
B
It doesn't mean. You know what I mean? Like, if you want it to be dinner, cool. If you don't pick something else, because ritual is actually the more important piece.
- [54:14]
A
It's just, it's odd. Like, I know the science and I know the research around this stuff, and yet I still.
- [54:20]
B
And you don't want to.
- [54:21]
A
I still find myself doing like. Like one that we will do is we will thank God for things at bedtime sometimes. But I find myself often going, like, should we thank God for some things? And I'm like leaving it in my 2 year old's discretion as to whether or not we're going to. And it's like, what is going on with that? Why don't I just say, let's do that? Or I just start doing it. And, like, there's something odd in, like, I don't know, maybe it is just that kind of, like, I might be going the opposite direction in terms of, like, giving them all this agency because I was robbed of so much agency, not really by my parents again, but by the sort of other institutional actors and stuff.
- [55:00]
B
Structures. Yeah. And I think that honoring of agency is a really important part of this. And that's part of, I think, why it's so great that a lot of the research around what does that actually mean we do is themes that can take a lot of different concrete expressions. It's not practices that you have to decide to participate in. And I think that's a lot of the space where our kids agency comes in so that when they decide they don't like something cool, we can quit and pivot because something else that fits that theme is available to us that might be a better fit for our kid. There's sort of this, like, broccoli mentality around a lot of spirituality. Like, it's just good for them. And so, you know, it doesn't really matter if they like it or not. Like, they need the vitamins and minerals you're gonna find in that broccoli. So tough. And that isn't actually how this shows up at all.
- [55:43]
A
No. Sometimes we talk about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.
- [55:49]
B
Yeah.
- [55:49]
A
But that's a major, major modifier in all the religiosity research, and it's especially true for teenagers and older. But you've got to be actually engaging in religion or spirituality because you want to in order for those statistically average benefits to show up. If you are there because you're forced to, or you think it's what you have to do to get, you know, marketing contacts or something like that, then you don't get those benefits. It is sort of contingent upon that. That's slightly oversimplified. But in general, those benefits are. They go through the fact that you're doing it because you want to do it.
- [56:26]
B
And I think that's part of what you get to do with your kids, is help them find the parts they
- [56:29]
A
want to do most.
- [56:32]
B
You can quit the stuff they hate so fast.
- [56:34]
A
Yeah. You just really think we do that. It's just worth maybe saying, neurologically speaking, it's no different than, like, oh, you didn't like Lego Club, but you like Chess Club. Great. Let's play Chess instead of doing Legos, like, they're both a thing to engage your mind spatially, spatio, temporally, or, you know, think about how things fit together. And, you know, there's like, similar sort of domains or whatever. So. Okay, let's go to the fifth one before we do our flag colors. Flag football.
- [57:07]
B
Last one is that there are a bunch of Bible scholars who do not weaponize it, shame you with it, try to control you because of it. There are a lot of them out there, good folks, and if you haven't had a chance to meet them, they are ready and waiting for you to invite you into a relationship with that text that could be very different than what you came from. And I think sometimes the loud voices that are controlling the ones that do weaponize, they also center themselves. They are what it means to decide you'll engage with the Bible and any other ways of thinking about it. Any disagreement, you're, you know, again, you're back to Turner, but, like, you're at risk of eternal damnation because you don't read it how they read it. And. And actually there's just this, like, wide swath of people who don't do that who would be very kind and also kind of brilliant companions to. Coming back to that text.
- [58:04]
A
Do you have listed anywhere, sort of like broken down by ages or developmental level, like, resources on this, like, children's Bibles, or, like, is this something like, practically speaking, that. Can I put a link in the show, notes that people can follow for this kind of a thing?
- [58:24]
B
I have a short list, but this is, I would say, still an underdeveloped space, partially because. And it's okay, it's all right. But like, the. The progressive deconstructive folks, they don't spend their money on these resources like the conservatives do.
- [58:35]
A
It's true, right?
- [58:36]
B
Like, you want. You want a better kids Bible, y' all gonna have to buy it. And so the machine that is traditional publishing will not necessarily create things for. For folks that are not in that. That camp. So that does limit things. It doesn't mean there's nothing. I'll grab the ones I do have that I think are in that project. And you do see it. So, for example, this children's Bible came out called the Just Love Bible by the Reverend Jackie Lewis, and it is curated to help kids see God's love and movements of justice and restoration. In the story of scripture that, like, this is the story. To be people of justice is to be people of love. To be people who love their neighbor is to Be people who bring justice. Round and round it goes. And so she curated a selection of stories that help bring that major theme of scripture to life. She left out the other stories that aren't getting to that theme. She's not pretending to do any different. The art is beautiful. It is not white Jesus. Like, it is. It is so cool. And if you find that thing on Amazon, like, it's not. There are not very many reviews. And it is one star blasted by the people who. Right. How dare she not do all the things we were talking about earlier, all the stuff that we're like, I don't want to hear that she put out the Bible. That isn't going to do that. And it's getting just buried in the search engine algorithmy. What? Like, it doesn't show up in the same way? Because these things happen. And so when we find the ones that feel like they're promising, even if they're imperfect, that the support of like, oh, I see you. I see you trying to give me stories for my child that are artful and beautiful and don't do that. And you know, there they are. So, yeah, it's a hard one, though. It is underdeveloped.
- [60:21]
A
There is. I remembered that we had a page on sawyourdeconstructing.com around this stuff and some of those links are not working anymore, but some stuff that still is working. Zippy Kids, which is Sarah's stuff, is great. Okay. So you know Sarah Schwartz. Schwartz Schwarzendruber, Yes.
- [60:43]
B
Yeah, Sarah Schwarzendruber. She has this very cool educational background of like actually trained in education and has an M. Div. So you actually get like, really knows kids, really know scripture, fully inclusive, very much about kids in process works with kids from 2 to 18 all the time, like on the ground. And so she's got. Yeah, she's got cool stuff that. And she does a cohort on parenting after deconstruction, like a four week that is all about this, like, where do I want to land and how do I want to move forward from here. And so that's another piece that Sarah's great.
- [61:17]
A
Okay. And I think that she is connected to a church in Portland where some friends of mine go that they love. And then also Archbishop Desmond Tutu did put out a Children of God storybook Bible. And I haven't like read all the way through it or anything. But my sense is that this is a much, much improved on the standard Jesus storybook Bible, which is the kind of Southern Baptist. It's all about penal substitutionary atonement. We're gonna come to that with some of the red flags in a minute here.
- [61:47]
B
Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. And so. And then for older kids, I think, and even like young teens, because just cause it's illustrated doesn't mean it's not for a teenager. I think that's where something like the Book of Belonging, that's where something like God's stories as told by God's children from the Bible for normal people. Yeah, that those kinds of resources could be really interesting. And again, you can bring them into your home with a. A fully. Like we aren't just gonna. Just cause it's published doesn't mean it's authoritative, but it is a way to open up conversation with our kids. And what do you think about that and what stood out to you? And do you agree? And the great thing about a resource that's targeted for a kid is it's much easier to name. This is interpreted, and they are probably in good faith trying to make interpretive choices they believe are right. But also that means we're part of the conversation. Cause interpretation is dialogue.
- [62:37]
A
Yep.
- [62:37]
B
And so that's a fun skill for your kid.
- [62:40]
A
And if you're anything like me, that's leaning into that photo negative value of just accept what the authority says. Actually, let's engage. Let's use our own critical faculties and stuff. Okay, so let's go to this red flag, yellow flag, green flag. So what I did. And then you just jump in however you want. Meredith, I didn't ask you to prep for this, but I looked at like 8 or so just the top Google maps churches that came up. When I searched church, I went to their websites, looked for their kids ministry pages. I followed a few rabbit trails. If they named particular curriculum that they used. I looked that up and I came up with, I have a green flag, a yellowish green, a pale yellow green, two yellows, and a red reddish flag that I found. Okay, I'm gonna start with green. Let's start positive. And then do you have your own or are you gonna just be kind of responding to mine?
- [63:41]
B
No, I'm just gonna respond to yours. I let you do all the homework on this.
- [63:43]
A
Okay, good. Okay. All right, so here's the green flag. So there's a local United Church of Christ that has, as far as I could tell, they wrote this themselves. There may be similar things. A safe church policy for children and youth that includes like 12 items. But some of them are background checks. A rule of three that never leaves one adult alone with one child. A leave the doors open policy of all the classrooms, some other privacy policies around like children's identity and photographs and stuff like that and a handful of other items. And I was like, that's a fucking green flag to me.
- [64:21]
B
Absolutely. And every church actually ought to have a risk reduction policy in writing in order to be insured. Did you know that? Fun fact.
- [64:29]
A
We're going to get to the red flag where I. It sounds like they don't.
- [64:34]
B
So that is a beautiful one. And it should be that any church actually has an overt risk reduction policy that is designed to do exactly that. The two adult rule or the rule of threes is like an every program worth its salt thinks about how it has to be two adults and they are not supposed to be related to each other. Like not a spouse team, but an extra outside the system and all kinds of other stuff. Yeah, it is. And it's just so nice when they just put it out forward because it just points to the most basic level of like, kids deserve to be safe. This is a faith value we just have in every space and place. They deserve to be safe.
- [65:10]
A
Okay, this next one, I put it as yellowish green. But actually after our conversation, this is why I want to do this at the end, after our conversation about, you know, the main reasons for kid church involvement are not content. They are friendship with other kids and more adult relationships and especially weaving in the kind of, you know, this questioning and open dialogue home faith culture stuff that we've also been talking about. I'm gonna, I'm gonna bump this up to full green. So this is. And this is from an Evangelical Covenant Church. Now Covenant Church is going through some throes currently as a denomination. They were founded specifically to sort of value a diversity at a congregational level. They have a kind of a old school Baptist, not a Southern Baptist, but like an old school Baptist type belief in hey, there's variation among the saints of God and we will let. We don't need to have this big top down authority. They are currently undergoing, as far as I can tell, a sort of right wing culture war takeover so that they can fucking impose top down authority. So some churches are being squeezed out. I know people whose churches have left the Evangelical Covenant Church, but for now anyway, this church is still in it. And they don't have a particular info on their kids ministry page, but I found this on their core values page.
- [66:38]
B
Okay.
- [66:39]
A
And one of their three core values is questioning and I quote, it is our conviction that the life of faith is not a journey toward memorizing. Theological propositions. It is about a journey toward the truth. We acknowledge that the journey toward truth is often messy and we are okay with that. End quote. I think this is a green flag.
- [67:00]
B
I'm going. I'm going full green on that. I love that as like a family value. Like, that is a statement worth just like being able to ponder yourself. Right. Like, what would that look like for our family to be modeling that for. For our kids together? I also think it'd be very fun if you were thinking about a church to like, have a statement like that. Be like, I'd love to hear what this means when it comes to the spaces and environments you create for young people. Like, how does this look for young people? Because there's some amount of needing to give them some content to play with and then you also want them to question and engage that content. So, like, tell me more about how you do that or is that actually just for the adults? Yeah, because sometimes they don't know how to practice it with kids. And so then I'm like, oh, tell me more.
- [67:39]
A
Yeah, okay. Yeah, Actually that's an example of something that you could do if you are going to send an email to the children's pastor or director, like, hey, I saw this is on your main faith statement page. How does this show up practically with kids?
- [67:56]
B
Yeah, we'd love to hear more about
- [67:57]
A
that, see what they say. And if they don't have an answer, that's a problem, I guess.
- [68:01]
B
Yeah, a little bit. Okay, so you've got three more. I'm kind of curious if I can guess which one's the red.
- [68:07]
A
Okay, well, so these next two, I have them under yellow.
- [68:13]
B
Okay.
- [68:15]
A
But I wonder you might actually know. So these are both particular curriculum that these churches have endorsed. So one of them is Lifeways Explore the Bible for Kids. And the other is Great Commission Publications, which is a Presbyterian one. Okay.
- [68:36]
B
Which kind of Presbyterian?
- [68:38]
A
Conservative, OPC and pca. Okay.
- [68:41]
B
Okay.
- [68:42]
A
So now they might both be red. I don't know. I just, I parked them in yellow because I was kind of curious how this would go. So let's start with the one that I think is more likely to be red, which is Lifeway. So this is basically coming from a place of Southern Baptist theology. It is kind of like the story book, the Jesus Storybook Bible. Like I mentioned earlier. Like, so many stories seem to like, point back to penal substitutionary atonement and Reformed theology. The applications tend to be framed in sort of moral and behavioral terms, which I know is a hobby horse of Yours.
- [69:16]
B
Yes.
- [69:16]
A
And that there can be this focus on moving kids towards conversion. So should I just have not? Was it just too generous of me to ever park this in yellow?
- [69:26]
B
Yes, totally.
- [69:28]
A
All right.
- [69:28]
B
Yeah. No. Way too generous. Because one of the challenges in a curriculum like this, when you say, hey, home wins. Well, not if you're gonna hammer that every single time the kid comes.
- [69:39]
A
That's sort of like five days a week at Christian school. Not quite.
- [69:42]
B
Right. There is a threshold where the repetition of certain messages are gonna creep in in a different sort of way. And when you get something designed around the idea that the main project of every Sunday is to get a kid to identify themselves as a center and make a, like, personal improvement plan. Because Jesus, like, Right. That's gonna be much harder to overcome. Like, this is not. Hey, let's teach the middle, where families can, you know, engage in their own conversations. This is not an equipping kind of curriculum. This is a adherence kind of curriculum. We are going to teach children things we believe they should adhere to, and we will mark our success by the degree to which a kid, like, accepts and regurgitates what we have said. So, yeah, no, I'm downgrading.
- [70:24]
A
I accept your downgrade lifeway is down at red. Let's see about great commissions. So now, comparatively to lifeway. So these are more conservative Presbyterian denominations, OPC and pca.
- [70:39]
B
I love the Alphabet soup of it all.
- [70:40]
A
Yeah, I know.
- [70:41]
B
I don't even know opc.
- [70:43]
A
Orthodox Presbyterian Church. It's pretty conservative. PCA has become more conservative. It's sort of shed. But neither of those are affirming. And they are both complementarian.
- [70:57]
B
Yes, yes. Okay.
- [70:58]
A
However, since maybe depending on what you have around, we're making friends. We have adults. Okay.
- [71:05]
B
Yeah. Yep.
- [71:06]
A
This is less moralistic. It's because it's. This is like principled reformed type of a thing. So it is about God's prevenient grace, God's free gift of grace. No matter what we do, God keeps his covenant with his people type stuff like Presbyterianism. It's quite cognitive. It's not super narrative focused. It's not going to engage as much of the sort of imagination stuff. But it is also less focused on conversion and moralism because it's reformed and they are all about. It's actually God's grace. And I just think this one, I would at least go yellow, red. I think it has something over the pure red of the Southern Baptist bullshit. What do you think?
- [71:55]
B
I'm inclined to agree. And the bigger concern that shades it may Be a touch red for me is not even so much the theology as it is the sort of lesson, principle, lack of story thing. Like, kids, we are a storied people, but kids, especially if you are serious about inviting them in, you tell them stories.
- [72:17]
A
Well, it is still. Of course it's still stories. I'm just saying.
- [72:20]
B
But do you tell them? Well, are they interesting? Or are you boring? Like, boring kids with this stuff feels like a little bit of spiritual malpractice because it should be interesting, and doing it well should feel like, oh, I'm invited in. So I'm gonna have some questions about, like, what does this feel like in the room?
- [72:36]
A
Okay. But if you. If somebody emailed, you said, hey, said, there's a church, a local church. We really like a lot of the people that we've met. There are definitely some great families here and some mature adults. This is their curriculum. Is this a. Is this a no or is this a something to watch for? I think I would go. It's something to look at and watch for.
- [72:55]
B
Yeah. I would say, like, as one of the great things about this, too, is I'd be like, hey, this is super easy to get your own hands on. So, like, get yourself. Get yourself your copy.
- [73:03]
A
Yeah.
- [73:03]
B
Know what you're dealing with. So easy. And that's great. Transparency. Bumps it up yellow just for that value. If I can clearly see what you're actually going to say to my kid. This is the curriculum. It lives behind paywalls and licensing agreements where a family can't actually see what's going to be said.
- [73:19]
A
Yeah.
- [73:19]
B
And I just feel like that's a huge disservice of, like, wait a minute. If we're supposed to be communities, and, like, that's not. That's not cool. Yeah. So, yeah. No. Okay, you've. You've convinced me I've gone yellow.
- [73:28]
A
I do need to add the caveat there. I would never go green with stuff like this because, you know, if you have a kid who ends up queer, if you have a daughter who ends up wanting to pursue ministry or even just a career, a successful career, you're gonna run into it. You're gonna run into problems in conservative churches. Our family has made a personal decision that we are only gonna raise our boys in, like, affirming, egalitarian churches for that reason. But I have friends who I deeply respect who raise their kids Catholic, who raise their kids in churches that they're like, you know, we don't agree with all this stuff, but for purposes of friendships and mentorship, and intergenerational connection. This is a church full of a bunch of wonderful people and there are a handful of like right wing assholes and we kind of steer clear of them. And you know, I think there's a way to do it. I don't sort of. I don't pass judgment on the whole thing, but it would never go to a non affirming church for me. If we're talking about kids will never be in the green zone. It's only it. It tops out at yellow. Discernment required. Something like that.
- [74:37]
B
Yeah. Yeah. We've made a similar choice for our own family. Yeah.
- [74:40]
A
Okay. All right. And here's my last one. So this I have as red. I put reddish just because it's kind of. Again, it was a little bit hard to tell. So I didn't like that. This church, this is a Bible or community church. Something. I can't remember exactly. I didn't write them all down. Oh yeah. Community church was the sort of term. Something community church. I had two items here that kind of put this in the red category. The first is smaller children are presented. Like there's a photo of some of the stuff they have in the room, like some of the illustration on the wall. And the children are all different ethnicities, but Jesus is white. And I just think that's fucking weird. Like if you're gonna go. If you're gonna go to the lengths to recognize all the different ethnicities of the world. Jesus was Middle Eastern. Like, you know, so that was. I didn't love that. That's not aesthetic. Maybe you could, you know, I don't know that one. I don't love it. Here's the one was a bigger one to me. So they have a little. They have a description. They don't have a safe practices policy or anything, but they have a description. All the kids, church leaders, quote, love the Lord and have accepted Jesus Christ as lord and savior of their lives and are serious about their responsibility in teaching. End quote. I am turning the car around, put on the gas, heading for the hills.
- [76:09]
B
Yeah. No, no way that I want. No.
- [76:13]
A
Now we're in spiritual abuse territory as well as perhaps other forms of abuse. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's like you
- [76:18]
B
are teeing up these people to have a level of authority that then just. It's. It's an environment wherein spiritual abuse would be down, downplayed, overlooked, not on the radar. Like, no way. That's not, that is not.
- [76:32]
A
Obviously that doesn't guarantee abuse, but it's a red flag.
- [76:36]
B
Deep red it absolutely does. Because even to the point of, okay, so if the upside is that there are other adults who would care about my kid, an adult coming in with an agenda for my child fundamentally negates the, the potential good of what we're talking about. Like these, the caring adults do not have agendas for our children. They are people who want to walk alongside them.
- [76:56]
A
Okay, I, I do, actually. It's funny, we don't disagree about much, but I actually want to push back on that.
- [77:01]
B
Okay, go for it.
- [77:03]
A
I, I think there is a individualist society. Weird, like Western industrialized individualist bias there. I actually think that that might be true in California and Washington and Oregon, maybe, maybe on the coasts. I don't think that's true in Colombia. I don't think that's true in Japan. Like, I think in collectivist cultures, what we, what, There are plenty of things that loving, supportive additional adults would have that we would label as agendas, but a collectivist culture would not, maybe they wouldn't call it that. They would maybe have their own word for the type of adult that had that kind of an agenda. But I think if we're, I, I don't know. I, I'm wanting to kind of soften around that. Like, that just, it sounds like exactly the kind of thing that I should believe, but I'm like, I don't know. I, I, you know.
- [77:58]
B
Okay, so let me, yeah, so let me, me, let me nuance it and get more precise in probably what I should have said the first time then, because I, I am inclined to agree with you about that. What would an appropriate collectivist view, and in some ways, a faith community is trying to be more collectivist than the rest of our society.
- [78:17]
A
I think that's the, I think that's
- [78:18]
B
what is an appropriate aim or intention for adults, for the children that are not their own. And yet we are a community. How would you say this is my lane of walking intentionally with children, and this is no longer my lane because it moves into control, which is probably what I was getting at with. They don't have an agenda, they don't try to control.
- [78:40]
A
That's a good word. Yeah, that's a good word for it.
- [78:44]
B
So where would you want to parse that? Like, what are some things that you'd say this is, this is collectivist stuff that actually is maybe helpfully corrective to hyper individualism? And then, I mean, I think we do understand the like, and then this is when it tips into control, like, because that's probably the part I found My that's what I actually should have been clearer on.
- [79:02]
A
I think that. I think what I am reacting to internally here is that I kind of. My sense is that there are things that I would likely label as too controlling that if I could be objective, usually probably are not a problem. So I'm trying to think about the adults. Cause I am the product of a parent dyad that was very interested, especially when I was younger, in having other adults in our life. We had really close friendships with five other families. My parents were in a very many, many, many years long Bible study with five, six, seven other couples. A little bit of coming and going there over like 15 years. They hosted a college group at our house. So I was around all these Christian college kids when I was in elementary school. And I've maintained a lot of those relationships in actually not like daily texting or anything but significant ways for the fact that I'm a busy dad, working dad in his 40s. And I would say there are a good 30 to 40% of those adults have either theological or political views that I think are batshit crazy. Now that's too strong. That I really don't agree with. But each of the ones I'm thinking of were definitely a net positive in my life. And they are people that I would say, oh they would now. But I think controlling is a good word. I don't think first of all, my mom wouldn't really have let them be controlling of me. She has an allergy. She's got too much of a punk rock rebellious streak in herself that I got from her. My dad too for that matter. So maybe our family had a kind of other parents controlling our kids sort of built in anti venom. So I like controlling more, but I think not compatible expectations around what's a good Christian kid look like. You know, we had, we had friends that like would criticize my mom sometimes for the way she raised me and then later they apologize and made up and so like I do want to leave room for conflict and negotiation and navigation. I think that's really kind of what I'm getting at in this long winded way at the very end of our episode.
- [81:30]
B
Yeah, I can resonate with that because there is something to. Part of knowing an adult cares about you is that if you're being like an absolute doof sometimes it's because they're the ones that can say so. Right? And that actually is because they're an adult who genuinely cares about you. It's not just that they rah rah every single Thing. It's like, sometimes it's that other adult who can offer like, a, hey, maybe not that. And that comes out of trust, and that comes out of showing enough reps that you don't plan to control. And then when something harder comes, it's like, oh, no, there's. There's a genuine good intent.
- [82:07]
A
Yeah. It can be exposed to, like, limits that come from people other than your parents or your teacher. You know, sort of like, oh, if I press too hard, my friend's dad or mom is going to kind of push back in this way. Like, that's a little bit of getting out and knowing what the world is like, because there's going to be other people with different temperaments. And so, yeah, like, I'm wanting to. I guess I'm wanting to preserve the natural tension that is a part of life. That's maybe my existential psychology bent.
- [82:36]
B
Yeah. Well, and I do think it's important to note because I think that sometimes when we say, okay, Christian parenting after deconstruction, one of the, I think, common tendencies that I have watched is a sense of retreat that nobody's really safe and we don't get to do this with anybody anymore. One of the losses is, well, now we can't be part of faith communities. We don't get to do this with anyone. And at a minimum, it often just leaves us really lonely. And so there is something about working through this exact kind of thing for the sake of relationship, whether that looks formal in its structure or far more informal. And it's just through. We're gonna start having some dinner groups or learning who some of our neighbors are, just so we're not. But, like, loneliness isn't good for us. And I do think that it is. It makes so much sense post deconstruction to be like, I'm just not so sure I am relationally safe with some of these folks or willing to. To engage in relationship on these terms. And that's not all bad. Right? Like, to your point, like, I'm kind of tired as a woman pastor of having to spend too much time with folks who just, like, think I'm not legitimate.
- [83:42]
A
It's a waste of your. It's a waste of your one wild and precious life.
- [83:46]
B
Exactly. Like, that is not where I want to put my relational energy only.
- [83:48]
A
That's so many hours.
- [83:49]
B
Right. But I also actually really would like to have as much kind relationship with as many folks in faith and post faith spaces as we can, assuming we can do that with, like, respect and regard. And so that project still feels worthwhile, right? Reaching across difference. And it feels worthwhile for my kids that we, we do a lot of like religious respect and engagement across faith traditions. And there is some sort of new muscle that I think a lot of the deconstructed of us are going to have to start to build for how we do it within Christian traditions as best we can, while respecting that we're not going to be controlled and we're not going to let you harm us anymore.
- [84:29]
A
That's maybe the kind of final stage of maturity around this stuff. And not to prescribe, I'm not prescribing returning as normative, like that's what you have to do because that's God's truth or something. But if you do continue to be a person of some sort of faith or spirituality, maybe that is the sort of final mature phase of like being able to come back confident within yourself if you're married, confident with your spouse, you know, or co parent or whatever around this stuff, that, that's really, that's the end goal. And for some of us, that feels doable. For some of us that feels years away. And maybe it is, but. But as a sort of north point on a compass, I like it. That feels applicable to me anyway. Well, another great conversation with you. Only had to wait three years. Meredith.
- [85:23]
B
Hey, you're the one with the podcast. You extend the invitation.
- [85:26]
A
It's on me. It's totally on me.
- [85:28]
B
Yeah, I am so glad to have had the chance to talk more though. I enjoy it tremendously.
- [85:32]
A
And we'll have all your links that we've mentioned in the show notes as well as your Instagram. I would recommend people, people follow you on Instagram to, you know, you're alerting and you have these object lessons and reels and stuff like that. So we'll put all that up there so people can be in touch if they'd like.
- [85:50]
B
I appreciate that very much.
- [85:52]
A
All right, thanks.
- [85:53]
B
Awesome.
- [86:04]
A
Ra.