|
|
Should My Child Go to UUFCC Religious Education (AKA “Sunday School”)? Some parents say "I want to let my children grow up free of the religious indoctrination or bias I experienced." But if we do not ‘educate, guide, or ’bias’ our children, someone else will begin the work of influencing them. This continuous ‘socializing’ process, whether we like it or not, exposes our children to the cultural attitudes of our society. Religious learning is something that will be done either planfully, wisely and well, or haphazardly, unwisely and ill.Religion is like sexuality. If you don't teach your children about it, they'll learn about it in the street. And what they learn there will not necessarily be healthy. Given that your children need a religious education of some kind, the question becomes: Can you provide it all on your own, or do you want / need help from a church like UUFCC? You probably already teach your children many healthy religious attitudes on your own. But why not rely on the resources of UFFCC to help affirm the values that you hold dear, as well as to help fill in gaps in your knowledge? At UUFCC RE, your child will explore religious ideas in a safe, loving, liberal atmosphere among like-minded peers In Unitarian Universalist Sunday schools children learn about the beliefs and practices of all the world's major religions. This not only encourages understanding of other cultures, and a feeling of being a world citizen, but also helps children see our Jewish and Christian cultures in perspective. They will learn that several major world religions teach their founders were ‘born of virgin mothers’ and anticipate the coming of a ‘savior’. Our children also learn about the Bible in Sunday school, in age-appropriate ways. We do not teach it as the literal word of God, of course, but we do think the Bible is important to know, for at least three reasons: 1) There are good lessons and inspiring words in it. 2) Ours is a predominantly Jewish and Christian culture, and anyone who doesn't know about the Bible is culturally illiterate; and 3) Knowing more about the Bible from a historical perspective enables our children to explain their own beliefs better to others who are biblically oriented. Our Religious Education programs also teach our own Unitarian Universalist heritage. Children learn about Unitarian and Universalist forebears-like John Adams, second president of the United States; Susan B. Anthony, who worked for women's rights; Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone; and Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. We teach our children what Unitarian Universalism stands for today so that they can confidently articulate their own beliefs, while knowing that those beliefs will continue to develop over their lifetime. We help them experience and understand that the inspiration of the divine is to be found not in only one book but in many; that we are all born with the potential for goodness; and that we have a duty to cherish the earth and revere life instead of sitting back and waiting for some ‘divinely sanctioned’ cataclysm to come and end it all. Finally, in our RE programs, we teach children about ethical living. Unitarian Universalism promotes a sound moral perspective: to love your neighbor, to work for a better world, and to search for truth with an open mind. These, then, are four of the subject areas that UU Sunday schools focus on: 1) the religions of the world, 2) the Jewish and Christian traditions, 3) our Unitarian Universalist heritage and principles, and 4) the goal of ethical living. We live our values of respecting each and every person by not imposing doctrines on our children. We present UUism as a framework that they can build upon and a community that will nurture them. Ultimately, we want our children to become responsible adults who make their own decisions about what to believe and how to live. If this sounds like the kind of religious education you want for your family, we hope you'll bring your children to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County Sunday RE program. And we hope you'll attend UUFCC yourself-and participate in our programs for adults, since religious education is a lifelong process. We find that it's a lot easier when you have a little help from your friends. adapted from an essay by Tony Larsen
|