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What if
we taught young people the names of their
feelings....?
What if we had understanders instead of
judges?
What if we taught people how to love
instead of how to obey?
What if we had more
understanders and fewer judges? See understanding page
What if you were being
controlled by people who didn't know you and didn't
care about you?
What if we tried to help people
instead of punish them?
Do we want more people in jail
or more people in love?
Does God want us to be
comfortable?
Two questions I have asked children in
South America
Another question I have asked children
More
questions
Two questions I have asked children
in South America
I have been in South America since
January of 2004. First I was in Ecuador for about nine
months. Then I was in Peru for over a year. In Ecuador I
felt very disturbed by the amount of people claiming to
be Catholics and professing to be followers of Christ,
but at the same time, hitting their children.
When I got to Peru I saw this sign
at the entrance of the main Catholic in a city called
Chiclayo.
After seeing that sign
I started to ask children these two questions;
- Do you think
Jesus would ever hit a child?
- Do you think
Jesus would wear a tie?
I found that the
children would quickly say no to both questions.
Then I started asking
teenagers and adults. Generally speaking, the older the
person, the more they more they hesitated to answer, and
the more likely they were to say something like,
"Well, it depends..."
By the way, the last
line of the sign says "Respect the house of
God!" And I wondered, "How do we know which is
the real house of the Christian god, or of any
"god"?
Is it more likely to
be a building such as the one with the sign keeping
people out because of their clothes? Or would it be one
where anyone could enter? Or would a god be more likely
to live in nature and be found among the trees or the
mountains and not in any building at all?
Here is an email I got
about this...
Hello Steve,
I asked my young daughter, 9 years old, the questions
about #1) Would Jesus ever hit a child? and #2) Would
Jesus ever wear a tie?
Both of her answers to me, without hesitation, were
"no". I loved that. Thank you.
Juliana C
--
Here is something else...
Would Jesus ever hit a child? NEVER
"The much-touted 'biblical argument' in
support of corporal punishment is founded upon
proof-texting a few isolated passages from Proverbs.
Using the same method of selective scripture reading,
one could also cite the Bible as an authority for the
practice of slavery, adultery, polygamy, incest,
suppression of women, executing people who eat pork,
and infanticide. The brutal and vindictive practice
of corporal punishment cannot be reconciled with the
major New Testament themes that teach love and
forgiveness and a respect for the sacredness and
dignity of children, and which overwhelmingly reject
violence and retribution as a means of solving human
problems. Would Jesus ever hit a child? NEVER!"
The Rev. Thomas E. Sagendorf, United Methodist
Clergy (Retired), Hamilton, Indiana. Personal
communication, 2006.
.
Another question I have asked
children
While in Peru, I also started
asking children: What is more important love or
education?
I have also asked this question to
teenagers and adults. As with my other two questions
above, I found that the answers change with age. The
children are more likely to say that love is more
important. The teens and adults are more likely to say
education is. So now I wonder....
If we are teaching children
that education is more important than love, could we
say they are getting a good education?
S. Hein
April 15, 2006
Salta, Argentina
More Questions
What if it were
against the law to threaten a child?
What if family
values were based on children's values?
Would Jesus
really care if a 13 year old's room was
"tidy"?
Would Jesus
care if they got high marks in maths?
Would Jesus
care if they used "bad" grammar?
Would he care
if they misspelled words when writing a letter to
comfort a friend?
If an 11 year
old was being hit by her father and had lost her
mother, would you criticize her spelling if she wrote
a plea for help?
If a 12 year
old's father never hugged her or told her he loved
her, would you judge her by her clothing?
If a 13 year
old started using drugs because she had lost her
mother, her father hit her and never hugged her or
said "I love you", and people were
criticizing her spelling and judging her because of
her clothing, would you want her to go to jail for
breaking the law against using drugs? And does
putting a person in jail help fill their unmet
emotional needs for love, understanding, and
acceptance?
If a fourteen
year old were cutting herself almost daily with razor
blades because she was in so much emotional pain from
never feeling safe, never feeling loved and not being
allowed to be with the one person she does love and
who loves her, would you want her to be locked up in
a mental hospital and then put in solitary
confinement if she struggled for her freedom?
Does locking a
teenager up in a mental hospital help fill their
unmet needs for love and belonging? What about
sending them to an obedience camp in Jamaica?
Would society
be better off if we tried to help fill each other's
unmet emotional needs instead of trying to control
each other with threats and punishment?
Would the human
race have more chance of survival if we started
spending more time learning from children and
teenagers instead of spending so much time trying to
teach them in what are called schools?
Does an 11 year
old, a 12 year old, a 13 year old or a 14 year old
have anything to say worth listening to and taking
seriously?
What about a 10
year old, or a 9 year old or an 8 year old?
What about a 7
year old or a 6 year old or a 5 year old?
Do we want more people in jail or more
people in love?
Here are my notes from the journal entry where I
thought of this question, slightly edited.
I was wondering if it is illegal for a 18 year old
to fall in love with a 17 year old?.What about 16 or
15? Will it be someday? Will we put someone in jail
for saying "I love you"? I guess it would
be hard to legally prove whether someone was in love
or not. You could prove they said "I love
you" but could you prove whether or not they
actually loved the other person? If people were in
love would it be okay for them to have children
together, even if there was an age difference of
three years? But again, how would you know if they
are in love?
I am not sure how the laws here in South America
work. I know there are a lot of single teen mothers
and pregnancies. I don't know who is getting them
pregnant or if it is illegal to be pregnant. I don't
think it is illegal to be pregnant. Not yet anyhow.
It seems countries have put the father in jail though
even when the mother and father were in love. Go
figure. (I remember hearing about this in the USA)
But most of the time fathers don't get put in jail
here, no matter what age they are. So I really don't
know what is going on. Do we want more people in jail
or more people in love? Interesting question. Kind of
like do you want someone to feel cared about or
controlled?
Answers
to Would Jesus Ever Hit a Child
can u force someone to think
who decides who decides
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