“I looked back at the
previous 10 years and realized I had spent 10 years trying to convince kids to
behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a
pretty serious conviction. You can say, ‘Hey kids, be more forgiving because
the Bible says so,’ or ‘Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!’ But
that isn’t Christianity, it’s morality… We’re drinking a cocktail that’s a mix
of the Protestant work ethic, the American dream, and the gospel. And we’ve
intertwined them so completely that we can’t tell them apart anymore. Our
gospel has become a gospel of following your dreams and being good so God will
make all your dreams come true. It’s the Oprah god.” –Veggie Tales creator
Phil Vischer
I’ve noticed that lately, when we discipline Ellie for
something, she bursts into tears and says over and over, “wao3 yio4 guai1!” (“I
want to be good! I want to be good!”) And of course I think, well, if you want
to be good, stop crying!
Then Dave and I realized how often we use the word “guai1”
when we praise the kids or reinforce good behavior. I think it literally means
“obedient,” though I use it more like “good.” It highlights the emphasis upon
obedience in Chinese culture: good children are obedient. They have filial
piety; they honor their parents by doing their duty. I don’t mean to be
throwing all that onto Ellie—I’m just using a phrase that comes naturally in
Mandarin—but it does impute that philosophy, and she’s internalized it somehow,
because what she’s really saying is, “I want you to say I’m obedient, because
it’s the same as saying I have your love and favor.”
Then my friend forwarded this blog post, and I thought about
how easy it is for anyone to unintentionally parent towards moralism and the
American Dream, instead of the gospel. Success is reaching your own goals and
dreams. You should be able to control your own behavior. The point of life is
to be happy and achieve a lot.
I listened to a great sermon by Tim Keller on the way home
today in which he talks about the great tension between law and love: God
saying, on one hand, you’ll be cursed for generations if you don’t fulfill the
law, and on the other, I will never leave or abandon you. This is such an
apparently unresolvable contradiction that nearly all Christians fall more on
one side or the other—we believe we can live life our own way and God will
always love us (self-fulfillment), or all we care about are following the rules
(moralism).
This contradiction is resolved on the cross, and the more
deeply we understand and apply that, the more deeply we grasp the gospel.
Christ fulfilled all the conditions of the law, yet offers unconditional love.
God made the terms of the covenant, yet he walked down the bloody aisle between
the animal parts himself. In response, we care more deeply about following the
law than before, because we know what it cost God, and we understand his hatred
of sin; yet we never cripple ourselves with condemnation when we break the law,
because we understand his mercy and grace.
What does it mean to parent the gospel? With a two and four
year-old, you pretty much have to constantly reinforce boundaries and
guidelines for behavior. But if I stop there, I’m teaching moralism. Teaching them
the gospel means I also explain that our love and God’s love does not depend on
their behavior. It means I remind them that we can’t do everything on our own
but we can turn to God, who takes the badness of our mistakes from us and helps
change our hearts. It means I try to take just as many moments to do that, as I do to reprimand their behavior.
In the end, my kids will understand the gospel as much as I
understand and live the gospel. They will understand success as I understand and
communicate success. And that’s the tough part. I can’t mime the
gospel: I have to believe and live it. I can only offer grace as I’ve been
given it; I can only love as I’ve experienced it. So I’m going to try to be
more intentional about the words I use, about what I’m saying, but I’ve also
got to ask God to transform my heart, to obey in love and be free in grace.
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