Belief is such a weak word

This post could also be titled “I value my guitar but I don’t bow down and worship it” or “Tolerance is a four letter word”.

I was reading a post by Genuine titled More On Tolerance And The Ability To Disagree, which led me to a post by Jay aka The Zero Boss titled Is Religious Indoctrination a Form of Child Abuse?

I may respond a little to what is said in those posts, I’m not very good at comprehensively outlining my thoughts and given that I’ll be talking about Christianity this could get ranty; I’ll do my best to make sense. Mainly these posts reminded me of some things that I’d like to discuss; the ever growing bitterness towards anything labelled “Christian”, the fact that everyone talks about tolerance and diversity but those things don’t always exist nor are they always a good thing, and a Christian perspective on parents and parenting, which I need to write a bible study on for youth group.

For starters, I always get a little uneasy about the term “Christian” and people calling themselves such because it is clear that many people under that label disagree on a great many things, including things that one might consider to be the core of the “religion”. What I believe is that God created the world¹ and he created people to be in a relationship with him. In this relationship there is love and fellowship (togetherness) but also clear authority of God as the creator. People decided that they want their own authority so they rejected God’s authority, in this nothing has changed since creation. Since God is the life giver, living without him leads to death, it is a consequence of our actions and a punishment for them as well. God still loved us despite our rejection of him so he sent Jesus, his son but also God himself² to take the death that we were to receive upon himself so that we could again have life and be in relationship with him. Jesus rose from the dead, he defeated it and he will return and give the life that he has achieved to those that trust in him. All this I believe to be the truth. It’s not just my values³ or something that I feel should be imparted to others, including my future children, it’s truth and it’s life. That is why I feel like “belief” is a weak word; faith would be a better word but it has been corrupted to be equally as airy-fairy.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Tolerance and diversity seem to be the catch-cries of the 21st century. To claim that one’s beliefs are the truth and the only way, as I just have, is considered intolerant and unloving. If I truly believe that the only way to have life, life with God, who is the creator of life and everything good, but I don’t tell anyone then where is the love in that? It doesn’t mean that I will force people to listen when they don’t want to, or that I think less of people that don’t think the same way I do, or that I will kill them in the name of God for being sinful⁴ or whatever the reasons behind religious killings are. How can I possibly just accept what other people believe and say “that’s fine for you, it’s not for me” believing the things above?

When I have kids I will strive to love them as best as I can. I won’t disown them if they do something outside of my thinking structures but I will bring them up teaching them the things that I know to be important and true. As I would expect of any parent. I might even get a little bit upset if, in this world that rejects Jesus and this country that seems to be trying to suppress him more and more, my children aren’t allowed to talk about him or pray at school. I might get very annoyed if that school has multicultural days, and celebrates various holidays and festivals but refuses to let children exchange Christmas presents. I’ve seen the start of this kind of practice, which is ridiculous; if nothing else to Australia, Christmas is still a public holiday and shopping nightmare.

Jay’s post is quite well written but there was one thing I thought didn’t really track:

I would go so far as to say that this type of indoctrination, in the 21st century, is tantamount to child abuse. There are hundreds of thousands of parents in this country teaching their children to not think, not reason, and not question – simply to submit and obey. How is being homeschooled by such parents any better than being raised in Communist China?

If that was what these Christian parents who are threatening to homeschool their children will do, then I don’t see it being much better than Communist China (although they probably won’t be murdering their female children). However many Christians are extremely intelligent, learned and analytical people, who won’t be teaching their children to be drones. The Christians that I associate with don’t say “It’s from the bible, it must be true.” because the bible is easily misused and we like to think about what it says. Faith doesn’t have to be blind, it’s often well-read and informed.

1 I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with the model of evolution and it’s nearly irrelevant to the discussion.
2 It’s called the trinity; Father, Son and Spirit, they are God and they are one but they are three. It’s complicated and I don’t really understand it, just as I don’t understand quantum mechanics, but I believe it’s there.
3 I value my new camera, my engagement ring, my guitar, but they are just possessions and have nothing to do with eternal life.
4 I do just as many things wrong as the next person.