I have been trying to add some exercise to my daily regime and one easy way to do that is to walk the path around green Lake once the kids are safely ensconced in their classrooms. So today was the fourth time in two weeks I have managed it — go, me! — and we — the other mom-to-a-school-age-kid I went with and I — had a wide-ranging discussion, mostly on family and child-raising issues. Takes about 45 minutes to do the 3+ miles so you can cover some conversational ground as well.
One of the topics was faith/religion and how to handle that with kids. We, the adults in my house, are not particularly religious, and the kids have not shown a lot of curiosity about it, but that seems to be coming up as they are exposed to different kids and their traditions. My take on it was that if I decided to go to church this Sunday, where would I go? MapQuest lists 20 places of worship within 1 mile of my house, 150 within a larger radius.
My argument was and is that few churchgoers pick their faith or house of worship for doctrinal reasons: there’s nothing in the liturgy or sacraments that draws them. It may be the faith they were raised in, the nearest church, the most compelling preacher, the fact that it’s next to a donut shop. So given that, can you let a kid choose a faith and should they be made to feel any loyalty to the faith they were raised in?
I feel some kinship to the Anabaptists, the sect who felt infant baptism was wrong, that only adults who could willingly profess their faith were fit for baptizing. My walking companion was raised as a Catholic but has lapsed, though not without the trademark guilt. If your memories of churchgoing are not ones you’d like to repeat or visit on your own kids, how to choose a faith that fits?
Now playing: Prove It by Television from the album “Marquee Moon” | Get it