This is the first in a series of “Catechetical Conversations”

I just had a fascinating discussion with my four-year old daughter. We were sitting at dinner, and I was asking her a new question from the Children’s Catechism, which we have been working through, off and on, for quite awhile. We had talked about God creating Adam and Eve; we had talked about how God established a “covenant of life” with them (a.k.a. “Covenant of Works” in the Westminster Standards); we had covered the “what is a covenant?” question. Now for the new one: “What did God promise in the covenant of life?” She had not heard the question before. The catechism’s answer was: “To reward Adam with life if he obeyed God perfectly.” But my daughter’s answer was: “He promised Adam that he could live in the Garden forever if he didn’t disobey.” Hmm. She was right. So we went with it, and I explained how what she said and what the catechism says are complementary. She got it. Great.

But then I asked another new question:

“What did God say would happen if Adam disobeyed?” The catechism’s answer: “God said he would punish Adam with death if he disobeyed.” My daughter’s answer, before I could utter the catechism’s: “Satan told the snake to tell Eve that she wouldn’t die if she ate the fruit. And he was serious. They ate the fruit, and they didn’t die.” Uh oh. What to say?

Well, we talked about how the snake, although he was serious, wasn’t telling the truth. My daughter responded: “Well, but the snake was serious. God just sent them out of the Garden when they disobeyed. They didn’t die.” Alright. Further discussion: we sorted out the difference between being serious and telling the truth, noting that one can be “serious” and be deceitful at the same time. She was tracking with it. Then we talked about the “spiritual death” or separation from God that Adam and Eve experienced, as well as the fact that, before the fall, they could have lived forever in their bodies, but after the fall, all people’s bodies die. Her response: “But we aren’t dying!” Great.

So we talked about how her great grandparents had died, and she noted that it was great that they are with Jesus. (A previous catechism question: “What else did God give Adam and Eve besides bodies? Answer: He gave them souls that will last forever.” She knew it.) So we talked about how our bodies, too, will die one day, if the Lord does not return first, and how the bodies of those who have died will be resurrected when Jesus does return. Jesus has overcome both the spiritual death and the bodily death of humanity. We know that we will live forever just as sure as Christ rose from the dead. Her response: big smiles, with notes that we’ll be with her great grandparents, and a great point that it was time for her bath.

Kids are wonderfully free thinkers. And some are even excellent critical thinkers. They are imaginative, often assertive, and starving for information, whatever information is put in front of them. By catechizing our children, we are informing their imaginative world, not stifling it. By letting them ask questions, doing our best to answer them faithfully and in an understandable way, and by guiding them into an understanding of the basic teachings of the Christian faith, we are honoring a key part of God’s intention for childrearing. As God instructed the Israelites regarding the commandments:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates….be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (Deut. 6:4-12).

“Impress them on your children,” the Lord told Moses. We mustn’t forget the Lord who has rescued us, and we are called to order our family lives so as to keep Him at the center, with constant reminders, letting Him shape our hearts and minds. Catechizing our children is a part of this process. Make no mistake: their little worlds will be informed, and there are things they will not forget. Let us do our best, with the Lord’s help, to see to it that what informs them is God’s truth taught in Holy Scripture, and what they remember is the Savior and his grace. The church has been at this for a long time, and our tradition’s catechisms are the fruits of that effort. We should use them!

(For older children, and for adults, you might want to check out PFR’s edition of the the PCUSA’s Study Catechism. For younger children, I’m working on revising the traditional Children’s Catechism, which is an introduction to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, so that it reflects modern language better and has inclusive language for references to humanity. I’ll post it here when I’ve completed it. I’m fairly certain it’s “public domain” by now! If anyone has seen this done before, let me know. Remember that the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Westminster Larger Catechism are both part of the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a part of our Constitution).

I’ll post some more “catechetical conversations” soon.

If you have stories of your own, you can offer them by posting a comment.