Stand Strong For God?

My 3 year old daughter goes to a preschool/daycare that is associated with a moderate-liberal church.  Its not insular, they accept anyone and the children reflect the diversity of the area.  It's one of the few good examples I can see of secular community outreach.  They do include Christian lessons in the curriculum, but it is positive (no original sin or hell).  My daughter loves to learn and sing the songs, something I enjoyed about church.  They had vacation bible school (VBS) for the older kids this summer and my daughter picked up on some of the songs that they brought in for the little ones.  One of the lyrics she sang had something about "standing strong for god".  This was interesting to me and we talked about why it is that god would needs kids to stand for him.  Anyhow, I wondered what the biblical basis was for standing strong for god and sure enough the whole VBS is a program that churches can buy/use, surely the material would make it clear.

Here's the link:

http://www.group.com/vbs/kingdom-rock

The banner says "Kingdom Rock: Where Kids Stand Strong for God".

They have a nice daily breakdown, so lets have a look.

Day 1:

Bible Point: God’s love 

helps us stand strong.

Bible Verse: "I love you, Lord; 

you are my strength." 

(Psalm 18:1)

Bible Story: David writes about 

God's love. (Psalm 23)

Ok, so god's love gives us strength to stand strong.  This seems a bit circular: God's love helps us stand strong for god.  I suppose god could be using believers as "love to standing strength" transmogrifiers.

Day 2:

Bible Point: Family and friends 

help us stand strong.

Bible Verse: "So encourage 

each other and build each 

other up." (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Bible Story: Mordecai 

encourages Esther to do 

the right thing. (Esther 1–9)

Actually, this one sounds fine, if you just drop the "for god" implication.  Helping one another is good and, to me at least, as powerful of a drive as food, sex, sleep, etc.

Day 3:

Bible Point: Prayer helps us 

stand strong.

Bible Verse: "Don’t worry about 

anything; instead, pray about 

everything." (Philippians 4:6)

Bible Story: Nehemiah 

perseveres to rebuild the 

wall around Jerusalem. 

(Nehemiah 1–6)

And who are these prayers directed to?  Who answers prayers?  I think that's god again and it just seems silly to pray to god, to ask for strength to stand, when you're supposed to be helping god by providing your own standing strength.

Day 4:

Bible Point: Trusting God 

helps us stand strong.

Bible Verse: "Trust in the Lord 

always, for the Lord God is the 

eternal Rock." (Isaiah 26:4)

Bible Story: Jesus dies 

and comes back to life. 

(Luke 22:39–24:12)

Ok, now I'm just confused.  If god is an eternal rock of strength, why the hell are kids being asked to stand strong for god?  Does god want us to be strong rocks?

Day 5:

Bible Point: The Bible 

helps us stand strong.

Bible Verse: "Your word is a 

lamp to guide my feet and a 

light for my path." (Psalm 119:105)

Bible Story: King Josiah follows 

God’s way. (2 Kings 22:1–23:23)

It just wouldn't be VBS without an affirmation of biblical authority.  Because what would the bible be if it didn't say in there that it's the word of god.

Of course it's ridiculous to take what Christians say at face value without understanding the subtext.  One subtext of this is that they know these kids are growing up in the Information Age, where they are going to be exposed to criticism of their beliefs.  They aren't standing strong for god, they're being asked to stand strong for their parent's and pastor's beliefs.  How about we teach these kids to stand strong for themselves, stand strong for their fellow humans, stand strong for their own morals?  God doesn't need their strength, they do.

Using Social Pressure To Stop Sexist Behavior

From an article by Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon (via Pharyngula)

Overall, this article brought me great joy.  A dude sends an unsolicited nude shot to a woman he met via a dating service (not that sexting with pics is something that is wrong, if consensual).  She let's him know that wasn't cool and sends the pic to his mom.  I want to give her a high five.  After all, making him pay socially for his actions and the publicity this got might actually spare some women from this unwanted exhibition.  But, that not the only angle.  There's also the trope that moms are supposed to raise respectful young men and sending her the pic isn't a fair thing to do to the mom.  So, in the act of using social pressure (the dude said that wasn't cool, so he cared that his mom would find out), another sexist act happened.  While I think parents do bear some responsibility for setting a good example for their kids to follow, I personally don't blame his mother for what he did.  I don't recall ever sending somebody a naked pic of myself in my less thinking years, but there were lots of other things I did that would make my mom (and dad) cringe.  Parents, and specifically moms, are a special category of people in the list of folks where social pressure can be applied to stop rude behavior. But, asking victims of inappropriate sexual behavior, who are willing to do something about it, to avoid all possible side effects (even if a bit sexist in and of themselves) of their actions is something that I won't be doing.

Random Feminist Father Thoughts

Of the various thoughts that occupy my mind are those concerning how to raise my daughter to be free from the standard gender roles of American society.  As with most of these sort of things (I'm an engineer, OK, life is a puzzle :o), there doesn't seem to be an absolutely right or wrong way to do it.  My daughter is still pretty young (3), but you can already see that she's aware of the meme of male and female roles. Mainly I focus choosing words that are as gender neutral as possible, even to the point of saying that both girls and boys can do/have/play with something if she says something is for boys or girls.  I also spend time with her doing things that have more of a stereotypical "boy" bent.  One of things that I think any rational parent should do, which will lead to the detriment of their own authority, is to teach them to question and understand the "why", even if it's something daddy says.