From: strom@watson.ibm.com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: Missionizing (sic) to 2-y-o
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1992 19:29:10 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM Research

In article <1992Sep3.151423.16985@pbs.org>, btiffany@pbs.org writes:

|>   (Robert A. Levene) asks:
|> >Are you seriously suggesting that shunning grown children is somehow
|> >worse than making death threats against pre-schoolers?  If not, then
|> >please clarify what you meant.
|> >R
|>   IF you check my original post on this topic Rob, You will see I said
|>   they are equal. Here are my observations (FWTW). :--)
|> 
|>   1) There were no death threats made to Rob Strom's children that
|>      I was aware of.

I agree that the term "death threat" is inappropriate.  However, I
think that what was done to my children was abusive and frightening.
They were told that non-belief could lead to hurting themselves
in the water (and my son interpreted that as thinking he might
drown), and that non-belief could lead to eternal hellfire after death.
Waiting for a child's parents to go away and then telling the
child such things is severe psychological abuse.  Saying
this to adults who are already in your religion is one thing ---
saying this to someone else's children is another.  Religious
groups that encourage evangelism should just condemn this behavior
outright.

|>      We are talking about frightening pre-school  kids. There was no
|>      mention until now of death threats. Do you think I am wrong, as a
|>      parent, if I frighten my children by telling them that if they don't
|>      look before crossing the street, they will be killed? Am I wrong
|>      in telling my children to run home if Jimmy pulls out his fathers
|>      pistol to play with, because you could get shot and die? In these
|>      examples, I have given my children fair warning that if a certain
|>      action takes place, they may/will DIE. That is the case with all
|>      who reject Yeshua. All who seek another way of salvation other
|>      than the one God implemented (FAITH IN Yeshua) will die.
|> 

Your belief that failure to acknowledge Jesus as saviour will kill
your child is personal to you and your religion.  I think it's
abusive for you to threaten your child with hell, but I have
to respect your right to bring your child up your own way.  You
have to do the same to me and not try to use psychological
terror to frighten my child into believing your religion.
My sister-in-law wouldn't understand this because that's how
she became a Christian herself --- as a result of such stories
from her older brother who had just converted, and as a result
of the failure of her parents to counteract this.
 
|>    2) However in shunning of children who believe in Yeshua, there IS
|>       the drama of death, with the sitting of shiva, and the parents
|>       acting as though their children are dead. This action, as with
|>       all acts of anger, do more to harm the parent then the child.
|>       The parent must live the lie that their child is dead, and to
|>       what end? So that the child might deny the truth of a relationship
|>       with HaShem. This causes even more damage to the parent, who has
|>       rejected God, even to the point of forgetting the child.
|>       Maybe my bias is protruding, but it seems that the guilt of the
|>       parent shunning a child for receiving Messiah into their heart
|>       is the greater crime.

Well here is the irony.  When my wife's brother and sister became
Christian, her family did not sit shiva.  Neither my wife nor her
parents nor I rejected them in any way.  When they married
Christians, my wife and I attended their wedding.  We respected
their desire to live in their religion, but what we got back
was lack of respect for our desire to live in ours.

I can't bring myself to cut off family members who leave
our religion.  On the other hand, I can't condemn those
who choose to do so.   Do I think that this is as bad or worse
than frightening children?  Not at all.   First of all
we're talking about adults, not young children.  And 
these adults have already chosen to cut us off in many
ways.  For example, at my brother-in-law's wedding,
his Christian sister and his new Christian friends were in the
receiving line, not my wife.  The wedding party was
filled with their new mutual friends.  When my wife
introduced herself as the groom's (Robert's) sister, they commented
that they had no idea that Robert *had* another sister. 
They had already left the family and entered into another world.
 
|> 
|>     3) There are those who get a thrill out of frightening children.
|>        I mean really frighten them. This includes the whole gambit of
|>        horrors. Here in Cleveland, we have many missing children who
|>        HAVE BEEN abducted by creeps who target children, and then do
|>        despicable things to them like torture, rape...In fact I find
|>        every city in America has this problem. Do you equate these
|>        actions with me EXPLAINING to my children that Salvation is found
|>        in Yeshua ALONE?
|> 
No, but I don't see the relevance.  Nobody is equating
teaching your own children your own religion with kidnapping
someone else's child.  But teaching *someone else's* children
that God will punish them for unbelief is abuse.

|>      4) Finally...I believe that all wrong doing is sin, and that if
|>         I or you keep the whole law and then break one of God's law's
|>         we are then law breakers, worthy of punishment. I don't believe
|>         we can truly weigh "SINS" on a human scale and determine which
|>         are better that others. That brings God's standards down to our
|>         level. We must understand that it is man who must strive to
|>         reach God's standard. At least that is what I've read in
|>         Scripture.
|> 
I think this too is irrelevant.  First of all, God's standards
are already "down to our level" --- remember Deuteronomy 30.
Second of all, we were not discussing whether God punishes
overzealous evangelism more or less than some other sin;
we were discussing whether evangelical religions should
teach their congregants that evangelism to children is
wrong.

-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598