Learning from the Tradition: The Religious Lives of Children

Abstract

My six-year-old son and his friend—whom I will call Samuel—have grown up together since infancy. Between my husband’s vocation as a pastor in the Lutheran tradition and my own determination to forge a connection with my Catholic roots, our son receives perhaps a steadier diet than he would like of Christian liturgy and Christian education. It seems natural that he ventures opinions on who and where God is and how God feels and that Bible stories rate almost equally with Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator as bedtime reading. More surprising, given his almost complete lack of exposure to liturgy and religious stories, is Samuel’s theological interest quotient. Over the past year or so, carpool and backyard conversations with my son (usually at Samuel’s initiation) have occasionally but persistently turned to theology and spirituality: the connection between God and Jesus (separate beings, they concluded, God residing in heaven somewhere in the sky and Jesus inhabiting the earth), God’s feelings about homelessness, theories about how God manages to listen to everyone’s prayers. With varying degrees of independence from their families’ religious patterning, these two young children have been articulating their spiritual lives and