Last week I was playing with Peter in the family room and we had put on a CD of Sunday School songs. It's been a while since I spent time with SS songs, but listening to these at times silly, at times profound songs brought me back in my mind to my childhood.
I have known many Christians, men and women, who have faith crises and struggle to comprehend God's love in a fallen world. Is it any wonder? As I listened to these songs I heard the repeated theme: I have Jesus. I am happy. End of story. If this is the way Christians are programmed, it's little wonder that when bad things happen, when life doesn't turn out as we had hoped, when our children get rushed to the hospital at a week old, when our parents die before they get to meet all their grandchildren, when our friends disappoint us, that we feel guilty for feeling sad and anxious. Because deep down in our souls, where we can't even make out the sounds any more, we feel the beat of the Sunday School songs, "and I'm so happy, so very happy, I have the love of Jesus in my heart!" The subtext is that if I'm not happy, I must not have Jesus in my heart.
Now, I understand that the primary goal of young Christian education is to provide a place where children can experience the unconditional love of God, find that church is fun and hopefully a place where they can experience God's love through the Scriptures and the teachers and their friends at a young age. The songs may facilitate this fun aspect. But they sell our children a cheap gospel. A gospel that doesn't allow us to mourn death, disease and suffering. That simplifies the message of Christ as a religion of happiness, rather than a religion of Kingdom living and changing and redeeming the world.
This is a place where the Psalms would help us. Our children might be warped for life if we focus exclusively on Psalm 137, to be sure. But are we warping them for life by focusing only on the good things about the Christian life? We need to teach our children from a young age that the Christian life is the way of the cross, the way of suffering, the way of service. A grounded exposure to the Psalter doesn't leave us hanging in misery, though. It reminds us that though we suffer, our salvation is made sure. We don't enjoy the full benefits of it yet, but in this miserable life that sin has brought about, we can hope.
Here's the beginning of my campaign to change the words of the Sunday School songs: And I'm so hopeful, so very hopeful, for I have been baptized and belong to Christ. What does it mean to have the love of Jesus in my heart anyway??? Can a child really understand this?
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