Fanaticisms XIII--God And Milk And Cookies
Leave it to the Beulah Land Church in Boston to get ahead of the curve. Just when upward-aspiring parents are playing Mozart to their fetuses or hiring nannies to speak only Cantonese to their infants or prepping their toddlers for nursery school interviews, the good folks at Beulah Land are now offering Bible classes for little ones under the age of three (see NY Times link below for full story).
At least the classes run for only 15 to 20 minutes—the diaper set have rather short attention spans, you know, and so this schedule is developmentally correct. But they do manage to cram a lot into those few brief minutes—Bible lessons and Christian tenets are offered, all via songs and stories illustrated with colorful characters affixed to felt boards. How Montessori.
Father Gray began the whole thing by at first offering non-religious playgroups at the church but then quickly thought Why not have kids begin to think about God early in life, in his words, to provide “a more spiritual way to enter into the parish community”?
He starts off each group with an upbeat rendition of He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands; and while he has the tikes’ attention, quickly moves on to the Ten Commandments. Actually reading them to the little ones. I wonder which is their favorite—surely not Honor Thy Mother and Father who after all dragged them to this torture. They do skip all the sacrificing and flagellations and such, leaving that until later when the kids can get their hands on the DVD of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. But the kids do seem to love the one about Noah’s Ark.
There are of course some child development people who are wondering about this. For example, Professor Joan Lucariello of Boston College (a Jesuit institution) claims that infants are not capable of processing these kinds of abstract concepts. At best they are at the Mama and Dada stage and so it’s pretty certain that they are having some difficulty figuring out who this God is.
But Father Gray says, who cares, “True, it’s sort of evangelistic, but it’s fun.”
And good business too—about 250 churches in the US and Canada are using the curriculum developed at Beulah Land, buying the felt boards, Bible characters, Arks, and other stuff from Beulah Enterprises! Get it?
At the end of each class it is not surprising that the children get a little restless so Father Gray sings a song that requires parents to raise their babies off the floor and raise them high in the air at each Alleluia. At last some fun--sort of like in Gymboree.
Then it’s time for the milk and cookies.
At least the classes run for only 15 to 20 minutes—the diaper set have rather short attention spans, you know, and so this schedule is developmentally correct. But they do manage to cram a lot into those few brief minutes—Bible lessons and Christian tenets are offered, all via songs and stories illustrated with colorful characters affixed to felt boards. How Montessori.
Father Gray began the whole thing by at first offering non-religious playgroups at the church but then quickly thought Why not have kids begin to think about God early in life, in his words, to provide “a more spiritual way to enter into the parish community”?
He starts off each group with an upbeat rendition of He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands; and while he has the tikes’ attention, quickly moves on to the Ten Commandments. Actually reading them to the little ones. I wonder which is their favorite—surely not Honor Thy Mother and Father who after all dragged them to this torture. They do skip all the sacrificing and flagellations and such, leaving that until later when the kids can get their hands on the DVD of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. But the kids do seem to love the one about Noah’s Ark.
There are of course some child development people who are wondering about this. For example, Professor Joan Lucariello of Boston College (a Jesuit institution) claims that infants are not capable of processing these kinds of abstract concepts. At best they are at the Mama and Dada stage and so it’s pretty certain that they are having some difficulty figuring out who this God is.
But Father Gray says, who cares, “True, it’s sort of evangelistic, but it’s fun.”
And good business too—about 250 churches in the US and Canada are using the curriculum developed at Beulah Land, buying the felt boards, Bible characters, Arks, and other stuff from Beulah Enterprises! Get it?
At the end of each class it is not surprising that the children get a little restless so Father Gray sings a song that requires parents to raise their babies off the floor and raise them high in the air at each Alleluia. At last some fun--sort of like in Gymboree.
Then it’s time for the milk and cookies.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
12:03 PM
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