Thank God for Sunday School Teachers

Amen

Are Family and Faith Staging a Comeback? – James Freeman, Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2024

The captioned article made me giggle. Researchers and writers from the most exclusive institutions recognizing meta-analysis and large, longitudinal studies of confounding variables to be robust in sensitivity analysis to provide strong evidence that…

(Wait for it!)

…that family and faith matter to a happy and satisfying life.

Really?

Forgive me for being smug. I already knew that.

The word “Comeback” in the title is amusing. Did family and faith go somewhere? Over-educated idiots spent two generations trying to disprove, with quantifiable scientific certainty, something that everyone knew was true. In doing so, they screwed up as many lives as they could possibly influence. The results force them to second guess themselves. So now, they suggest the truth is coming back, as if the truth changed between then and now.

Innumerable doctoral and literary awards would have been earned in this effort. Surely some new five- or six-syllable words made it into the Journal of Psychology. Overly polite and serious NPR interviews examined whether the institution of marriage was doomed as the patriarchy crumbled. Faith and worship were finally relegated to their proper place relative to the public square. Removed, to the relief of the intellectuals who couldn’t tolerate the ignorance of the practitioners.

I find this morbidly hilarious. How much common sense can be thrown away in fifty years to such horrible outcomes, now so casually reconsidered? My interpretation is that life skills that steer toward happiness and satisfaction are best learned from people other than those who dismiss the obvious. Like parents, for instance. And Sunday school teachers.

Sunday school teachers? Of all the influencers to trust with the most important aspects of life and living, who could possibly have fewer credentials and less accountability than a Sunday school teacher?

Exactly.

Sunday school teachers want to be there. They participate out of love. They tell the story of faith to children they know and care for. They acknowledge their duty. They live within the community of faith that they are teaching about.

So many life skills are taught that otherwise seem neglected. Seeking guidance through prayer. Seeking peace through forgiveness. Seeking solace through community. Knowing love, in its many different forms.

A lot of coloring books are involved, but no computers. Easels with colored markers, maybe. Paper props, crowns, puppets… glue sticks are a big thing. When supplies are low, they supplement, or maybe even have the students share! They plant seeds, literally in paper cups and metaphorically in young minds, to show how living things grow when nurtured. They share treats.

Some Sunday school teachers are professional educators. But many, probably most, are pretty much anything else. Some are parents, some are not. They may just be volunteers who filled out a form and didn’t expect to be called! Who knows how good they are? I taught a high school class and nearly had to evacuate the Church from smoke when we burned our sins in a coffee can in the basement. My wife taught Sunday school and was tormented by identical seven-year-old twin boys who kept switching their names.

Children learn from them in other ways. They witness imperfections. They notice the resolve to keep faith against the challenge of belief and social pressure. They wonder about confusing answers to basic faith questions, like, “If God loves me, then why did my Grammy die?” These are on full display as children watch adults wrestle with ambiguity. How to recognize evil, when you are also called to not judge, lest ye be judged? The congregation has arguments. “Why,” they might ask, “do people fight so much? Aren’t they all God’s children?”

Yes. But they’re also human.

Do your best. Honor your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself. Be humble before God. Where else will this be learned? The stories that teach these things across generations - from Adam and Eve, Moses, King Solomon, and David to Jesus, Mary, the Disciples, and Paul - deserve their retelling. Even when imperfectly retold.

I acknowledge space for the skeptics. The damage done by religion when conscripted by zealots; the cults, the wars of conquest, and exploitation are sins of the highest order. Likewise, cycles of family abuse need disruption for family values to be constructive. But in making rules from the exceptions, we have almost thrown away the cures. There’s more reality to come. Our obsession with self-actualization is due for a similar imposition of timeless wisdom. (Mazlow? Mazlow? Anybody heard anything from him, recently?)

Mind, body, and soul are connected. Family and faith nurture the soul. Three-in-one, with one left untended has a predictable result. Relying solely on municipal resources risks forfeiting the souls of our children. That’s what has happened. Correction is easy and free. If you have a child that you influence, try taking them to a Sunday school. Trust me. You will be met by an enthusiastic Sunday school teacher excited to have your child there. And if you’re really interested, stay and help.