Faith-Based Parenting: Restrictive or Compassionate?

In 22 years of teaching in public schools, I’ve seen a lot of change.  Technological advances, educational trends, parenting styles, behavioral patterns; a lot has changed.  One particular change, a growing movement over the years, is that of atheism or agnosticism.  In short, many more parents of this generation have decided to raise their children without religion. 

My first clue to this societal shift came over ten years ago, when only one student in class of fifteen knew that Christmas was about a birth.  In recent years, I have seen it more and more. The reason?  From what I have been told by friends of mine who’ve made this decision, this has happened because one parent (or both) felt restricted by their religious upbringing-the term “recovering Lutheran” has come up more than once-or their spouse isn’t religious, and they’ve made a collective decision to leave religion out of their home. 

One Google search produced 3 articles titled “I am Unapologetically Raising My Daughter Without Religion”, “I am Raising My Kids Without Religion, and This is Why”, and “I am Raising My Children Without Religion and They Are Just Fine”.  Studies show that my assumptions aren’t wrong.  A study by the American Enterprise Institute find that 44 percent of young parents take their children to religious services down from more than 60 percent of parents 65 and older (“The decline of religion in American family life”).

 I have concluded that many people today, even those who say they are believers, see this approach as progressive and compassionate.  They want to spare their children the restriction of their own religious upbringing, some saying they will let their child choose for themselves.

As an English teacher, I read a lot of journal entries and essays written by a wide variety of students.  After this exposure to the inner thoughts of teens, I believe more than ever that, while not considered “progressive”, teaching a child the truth of the Bible IS the compassionate parenting approach. 

Life in a fallen world (without any hope beyond it) is a lonely, terrifying existence.  Not only do kids today have to deal with the common problems kids deal with like succeeding in school, hormones, making choices, and managing busy schedules, they are much more likely to live with a single parent or navigating two households than they were 30 years ago. 

Consider the weight this is to bear considering the rhetoric of today.  Give me a teen who has been told they are descendant of a monkey, living in a world made by an accidental “bang”, who has been told there is no God or purpose to anything, and I will show you someone who is blown this way and that by the wind. In fact, as far as the general message is concerned, the only reason they exist is that their mother “decided” not to abort them, a choice she had every right not to make.  Just functioning under such bleak circumstances has to be terrifying. 

On top of this jagged pill to swallow, they are told that the earth (which is all they have) will be destroyed by climate change in any number of years, not to mention their responsibility to solve world hunger, water and air pollution, homelessness, poverty, and social injustice, all while being as “advanced as possible” academically.  Shnikies!  What a weight to bear!  Just writing this is overwhelming me as we “speak”.

How is requiring them to deal with this weight in a context of pure circumstance compassionate? Even secular studies show the benefits of faith in adolescence.  A study in The Journal of Political Economy reports, “We find that religiosity has sizeable effects on depression in adolescence, which is understated by OLS estimates that do not deal with selection into religiosity. For example, a one standard deviation increase in religiosity decreases the probability of being depressed by 11 percent” (Fruehworth, Iyer and Zhang).  The study goes onto report that faith (or religiosity)  act as an emotional buffer for stressors like health concerns, suicide, and divorce and recommends that mental health professionals consider the positive effects of faith for teens prone to depression.

Sure, the message that “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one- to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6), “ . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and “None is righteous, no, not one . . . All have turned aside . . . no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:11-12) may seem harsh to some, but is it harsher than this message of complete hopelessness?  Plus, if you could see what I see, kids feel guilt, all of the time.  Guilt is a natural state.  And what a challenge to deal with their sin, whether they call it that or not, and other insecurities without the knowledge that God “formed you in the womb” and “consecrated” you “before you were born” (Jeremiah 1:5), “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14),  the relief that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us  our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9,) and “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. . . as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:10-12). 

Even in the past month, I have had students write about the lack of supervision in their upbringing, their insecurity of having to choose a career among other life choices, even questioning the existence of God.  In light of this and many other life questions, teaching a child that there is a God who loves them, the reality of sin, the hope of a savior, forgiveness for them and others, and the freedom of knowing that there is a plan they can’t mess up, what is more compassionate than that?

Resources:

Fruehwirth, Jane Cooley et al. “Religion and Depression in Adolescence.” The journal of political economy vol. 127,3 (2019): 1178-1209. doi:10.1086/701425.

The decline of religion in American family life