‘... it is to such as these that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs.’ (Matthew 19:14)
The documentary, ‘Jesus Camp’, was shown again a few weeks ago on British television. In it, Becky Fischer, a Pentecostal children’s minister who runs an annual summer camp for Evangelical children - or rather, for the children of Evangelical parents - says that “boys and girls can change the world”, and that “they are so open: they are so usable in Christianity”.
This is undoubtedly true, but the word ‘usable’ immediately suggests a dangerous road. Childhood is inherently vulnerable, but if children are seen as ‘usable’ their vulnerability is instantly increased. The thought itself is the beginning of abuse.
Children are not for ‘using’ in anything or for anything, except by God. It is He alone who may use their innocence and simplicity in the furtherance of His cause. Any person, parent included, who uses a child for their own ends, or even for ends they believe to be in accordance with God’s will for the child, for the community or for the wider Church, abuses the child. No form of physical or sexual abuse excludes emotional and psychological abuse, but even where there is no physical aspect to the ‘use’ of a child, the very fact that a child is being ‘used’ by someone is a complete abuse of childhood and of the underlying trust, wonder and beauty upon which it should be based. If God chooses to use a child for some purpose it is the unadulterated innocence, simplicity and truth of childhood that He uses. If we use a child, we tamper with and damage both the childhood and the child.
Becky Fischer goes on to say, ‘Our enemies are putting their efforts and their focus on the kids; they’re going into the schools. You go into Palestine, and I can take you to some websites that will absolutely shake you to your foundations, and show you photographs of where they’re taking their kids to camps like we take our kids to Bible Camps, and they’re putting hand-grenades in their hands, they’re teaching them how to put on bomb-belts, they’re teaching them how to use rifles, they’re teaching them how to use machine-guns. It’s no wonder, that with that kind of intense training and discipling, that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam. I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan, in Israel and Palestine: all those different places, - because ... we have the truth.’
This is nothing if not deeply worrying, and it all appears to stem from a misinterpretation of some of the world’s ongoing conflicts: a failure to separate extreme indoctrination (the perceived reality) from the reality of Islam, and a failure to recognize the only real enemy we all have.
An equally extreme way of pressurizing children, but without the physical weaponry, is not what Christ’s Church is about. It is not what Jesus would do: It is not what any of His followers are called to do: It is not Christian. His words were, ‘Suffer little children’ not ‘make little children suffer’; and suffer they do. Jesus, whose incarnation was for one definitive purpose, had His childhood and His youth without undue or abusive pressures. Those who were closely involved with His journey to maturity allowed God’s grace to work in Him, waiting and trusting, never making their own decisions about His calling and usefulness. Jesus had thirty years before starting His ministry: thirty years of meditation, contemplation, revelation: thirty years of learning and of self-realization. It was the learning, not the teaching of others, which brought Him to the point where God, His Father, could direct Him through His Mission.
The normalization of the abnormal continues its insidious spread through society, and as we gradually and unconsciously become more accustomed to its apparent acceptability, we place our judgement, our conscience, our capacity for indignation and righteous anger, at the very edge of our day-to-day awareness of the world around us. Aspects of God’s Kingdom are being undermined and fragmented all around us, and we utter not one word.
An equally extreme way of pressurizing children, but without the physical weaponry, is not what Christ’s Church is about. It is not what Jesus would do: It is not what any of His followers are called to do: It is not Christian. His words were, ‘Suffer little children’ not ‘make little children suffer’; and suffer they do. Jesus, whose incarnation was for one definitive purpose, had His childhood and His youth without undue or abusive pressures. Those who were closely involved with His journey to maturity allowed God’s grace to work in Him, waiting and trusting, never making their own decisions about His calling and usefulness. Jesus had thirty years before starting His ministry: thirty years of meditation, contemplation, revelation: thirty years of learning and of self-realization. It was the learning, not the teaching of others, which brought Him to the point where God, His Father, could direct Him through His Mission.
The normalization of the abnormal continues its insidious spread through society, and as we gradually and unconsciously become more accustomed to its apparent acceptability, we place our judgement, our conscience, our capacity for indignation and righteous anger, at the very edge of our day-to-day awareness of the world around us. Aspects of God’s Kingdom are being undermined and fragmented all around us, and we utter not one word.
‘... rather than the living who still have lives to live,
I congratulate the dead who have already met death;
happier than both of these are those who are yet unborn
and have not seen the evil things that are done under the sun.’
(Ecclesiastes 4:2,3)
