A great conversation that I promised to get back to last year was the original Story = Danger? post.
Basic premise: Are our kids developmentally ready for the violent narratives found all through the old testament?
So it gathered a lot of comments and lead to a post called Sanitising the Bible for Children? from an English Bishop.
And here now is part the second, in which I put forth a solid hypothesis founded on much introspection, prayer and solid Biblical analysis… and keep it below a few hundred words. After all this is a blog not a thesis.
I think we are quite naive about the developmental stages of humans.
Doesn’t the death of someone close to us give us a greater sense of the fleeting nature of life and a greater empathy/understanding for others going through this. I would dare to say that a child who has experienced tragedy is far more ‘developed’ in certain areas of understanding than myself. The most traumatic experience was the suicide of a friend while he was in Bible College.
Contrast this to the orphans and children affected by the conflict in Uganda. Child soliders that I witnessed at our Church a few weeks ago present their story of unimaginable horror at the hands of the LRA.
I am not even suggesting that children are more ‘advanced’, I am suggesting that you are probably not as far along the ‘development’ curve as you think.
Before you can be old and wise, you must first be young and stupid – Anon
The wiser you get (age never guarantees wisdom), the more you realise how little you knew as young person. Surely this is as true in your spiritual life.
Have you ever taken parenting advice from a teenager who hasn’t even finished negotiating puberty?
So, unfortunately I did what I usually do when I don’t have a solid answer… create more questions in your mind, dear reader. My hope is that I simply made you a little less sure of what you thought you knew.
He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise – Lao-Tzu
