CM and Bible

Hi Christy,

This is a tough issue and I look forward to hearing what others have to say about it.

I honostly don’t feel that teaching our children Gods Word and training them up in the ways of the Lord is brainwashing them. God’s commands are clear….to teach them His word…

Deuteronomy 6:6-9

6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 11:18-20

18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Again, I look forward to hearing others thoughts on this as well. Thanks for posting.

Heather

OK. First thing to remember is that we need to remember is that commentators on CM, no matter how knowledgeable, are not CM themselves. I just don’t worry if a modern person says one thing or another. I look at what Charlotte said herself.

There are statements in Charlotte’s writings that certain people take to mean that we shouldn’t overdo the religion thing. Charlotte did in fact make some comments about limiting the discussion over Bible reading, for example. (This forum format isn’t really a good one for long, extensive quotes. If you need these, I can try to give page numbers in CM’s works later)

However, what we need to do is look at EXACTLY what Charlotte meant, and view her comments in light of the world she lived in. And I don’t think that what Charlotte’s comments mean is that we should not teach our children God’s word completely and thoroughly. IN fact I think she’d be horrified if that’s what we thought she meant! You have to remember that in Victorian England, moral teaching could sometimes tend to be about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Over and over again, pounding and re-pounding the message into dry bits, was the moral teaching–threaded through everything. Picture books. Story books. Long lectures and sermons. And . . . as we fallen folks are apt to do–people began tuning out. CHILDREN began tuning out. Children know when you are giving them God straight up, and when you are making up twaddly stories where all the bad kids die to “scare them straight” And they don’t like the twaddle!

What Charlotte was trying to remind us to do, is to quit underestimating the children. We need to focus on giving our children the real, living Word itself. We can give them the Bible. We give them the ideas of God, the testimonies of our hearts, we pass on to them the witness we have received. We can give them the example of others–but at a certain point, we need to let them extract the meaning themselves. God’s Word is so powerful itself that if we serve it straight up, with our honest and heartfelt but simple testimony, we really don’t need to be harping or pounding the message. Not that we leave it at that–I think spiritually sensitive parents will need to be constantly in prayer over what each child needs. More teaching on this? Or let him wrestle it out himself a little? Charge in with more intruction? Or back off for a bit and let the Holy Spirit take over?

I don’t think Charlotte would really argue that a child reads the Bible once and never again, as I’ve heard modern commentators say. (Charlotte obviously was intimately familiar with Scripture herself–her lovely Biblical poetry did not come from a lady who only read the Bible once!) And I’m sure she would say that overt teaching and instruction and sermons have their place! I think she was reminding us that 1) the Word can do its own convincing, and not to underestimate the children! and 2) we can often do more in two sentences in a teachable moment than we can in a 2-hour lecture! At the very end, each child does have to reach out and take faith for himself. We can’t MAKE them do it. We can’t TEACH it into them. Our teaching is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. If we don’t do the necessary teaching, WE are responsible for what our children do not know. But once we teach them–it’s theirs to do with as they will. We can’t force Christ into their hearts. CHRIST won’t force Himself in. We do all we can to make this choice more likely for our children–we cannot do less! This would include direct teaching, Scripture, appropriate discipline, example. This is not brainwashing, and Charlotte would not have thought it so. She would have quibbled with us if we used undue influence to try to “bribe” them into the Kingdom.

One thing about talking about the Bible. I think it critical that children learn to apply Biblical concepts to real life around them, and I don’t think that Charlotte would argue with that. I think she might point out that it can be done too much–that we can overdo, can overwhelm a child with all OUR thoughts on the matter that they never get to develop their own. (OK, I’ve lost using proper parallelism, you master grammarians, but I don’t have time to go rewrite everything now! LOL) So I think that this can be a place where we remember some of what Charlotte has taught us about children–they need our teaching! but they also need time and space to process things for themselves–and they are much more capable of doing so than we often give them credit for.

Think of an “old-school” teacher that lectures, tells the class everything she wants them to know, thinks up everything they might ask and tells them the answer before they even ask. Then think of we good CM-style teachers. We of course do not do that. 😉 We bring the text to our children, and we know just exactly the few comments that they most need to hear–which we say simply, with little fanfare. Instead of answering all their questions, we ask THEM a few simple ones, perhaps, or draw their attention to something–and then we give them the Word, and we watch to see what happens. We step in with a gentle comment, or take a question and answer it simply, with a simple testimony or perhaps another passage. Then we leave them to process it–and go about our business while praying furiously! Then that night, we ask our Father if there is anything else we need to say or do for each precious child, and we listen to Him–He’s been parenting a long time and He has a few ideas. 🙂 The next day, when something happens with a sibling that perfectly illustrates what we talked about yesterday—instead of charging in with a lecture, we maybe ask a question or even just look gently at the child, to see if he “gets it” If we wait a minute, he might volunteer that this is just what we talked about yesterday, and we’ll know we are making progress.

This has turned into a book and I didn’t mean it to! We’ve had a succession of health difficulties here and I haven’t been on the forums much, so now I’ve gone and talked too much. LOL I hope this kind of made sense, maybe a context these comments might have come from, and how we might take them into account in our own parenting.

Michelle D

Hi Christy,

I have been reading these wonderful posts and answering and I agree with all of them I wanted to add something. In the quote of “Brainwashing” , you stated that you felt that is what you are doing this to your children. I think we need to take a closer look at the definition of Brainwashing. Brainwashing consist of forcibly coercing with an effort of instilling beliefs that contradict prior beliefs. I really don’t think you are brainwashing them, (well unless your dunking their heads in water j/k) Your are not forcibly (meaning taking physical action) and beating the bible down there throats. It seems to me that your beautiful family loves the lord and has choosen to be part of his word. I think the termonalogy brainwashing was used as a reminder that we don’t have to beat the bible down our children throat in negative way, For example, my friend , while growing up had to write versus in the bible over and over everytime she acted out. I remember one time I cam e o visit her and she was under her bed repeating a prayer over and over. Sad to say everytime she was forced to do these things, she ended up turning away from god. Her mother really believed that she was going to turn her to the lord this way because she felt everytime she did something wrong she was turning away. The sad part was she loved the lord and she was just being a kid. That is possibly what this author meant when she used the word brainwashing. I agree with these ladies in the forum , the bible is the most living book you will ever read . I hope I explained myself so that you understand.

I am also praying that you find your answers.

Blessings,

Hazel

I agree Michelle your post was wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!