I believe that people should decide for themselves and allow others to do the same.  That’s pretty much respect and freedom.

But how to apply this ideal to children is tough; children can’t logically decide for themselves and, further, their upbringing greatly influences their eventual choice.  How do you balance a child’s ability to freely choose while still letting parents bring up their children as they see fit?

I stumbled across three pieces of media that orbit this issue and provide some interesting viewpoints:

1. Jesus Camp, a documentary about an evangelical summer camp.
   A quote from Pastor Becky:
   “Where should we be putting our focus?  I’ll tell you where are enemies are putting their focus. They’re putting it on the kids. You go into Palestine, and they’re taking kids to camps like we take our kids to bible camps, and they’re putting hand grenades in their hands.”

2. Atheist Sunday School, a brief Time article about Sunday school for children of atheist parents.
   From the article:
   “The Palo Alto Sunday family program uses music, art and discussion to encourage personal expression, intellectual curiosity and collaboration. One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I’m Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home.”

3. How Hollywood Saved God, a long article about the upcoming movie The Golden Compass, its deeply anti-religous origins in three Phillip Pullman novels, and the process that transformed the books.
   Two quotes from Pullman:
   “If they allowed the religious meaning of the book to be fully explicit, it would be a huge hit.  Suddenly they’d have letters of appreciation from people who felt this but never dared say it.  They would be heroes of liberal thought, of freedom of thought … And it would be the greatest pity if that didn’t happen.”
   “‘Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart.”
   

My brief commentary:

1. I predict big things for Levi from Jesus Camp.  He was articulate, good with metaphors, and had a great presence as a speaker.  Levi said he plans to be a preacher, and I can easily see this documentary propelling him forward.  He’s the next Joel Osteen.
2. Regarding the Atheist Sunday School article, I was reminded of the story of atheist parents that try to ‘inoculate’ their children against religion by exposing their children to many different religions early in life.  Just like inoculating against a real virus, exposing a child to moderate amounts of religion early in life builds a defense system to protect them from becoming susceptible later.
3. I don’t really fault New Line Cinema for making the movie-version less religious than the books; it is a for-profit company and it needs to make decisions that will get the film to the largest audience possible to recoup their $150M investment.  On the bright side: although movies may be expensive and require profit-driven-lending to finance projects, large-scale distribution of amateur writing and music are possible on a personal budget.  That’s a good thing.

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