ASM012 Spanking, Deconstruction, and Agnostics Teaching Sunday School

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spanking communal deconstruction and agnostics teaching sunday school all that and more on this week's episode of ask sciencemike

[Music]

welcome to another edition of ask science mike the weekly podcast where i answer your questions about science faith and life i do want to let you know that next week we're doing another episode of science mike after dark so we're going to tackle the band questions the mature themes about sex and sexuality christians drugs all those sorts of controversial things so submit those questions if you've got them otherwise let's get it started hi science mike joe here i go to a community where our pastor has successfully allowed us to deconstruct over the past five years or so to the point where we as a community went through deconstruction together and i think part of our issue is that we don't know how to reconstruct together so some people just went back to construction some people are completely stuck in deconstruction and other people have reconstructed on their own and ended up in vastly different places from traditional views all the way to the cosmic christ for some people so my question is more from my pastor of how do you lead a community like that where people are in such different places in their faith what do you preach on what do you talk about on sunday mornings we feel kind of stuck right now with our deconstructed views and don't quite know where to go any help would be great would love what you do you're helping us a lot uh thanks man this question means a lot to me um because it's my life i went through a period of deconstruction that led me to be out of step with my faith community and that ended up being really life-changing and not always in a good way and i think this question is especially important because so many people today in america especially are changing what they believe about god and they're going through this experience where they things they once knew for sure now have a question mark or a semicolon or some other non-period punctuation behind it but i'm lucky i actually go to a church right now where that is just part of it and that's understood as how the community operates and so i'm bringing in an expert for the first time ever on ask science mike we're going to have a guest answer from my good friend and pastor pastor betsy thanks mike i love the question i'm impressed that a pastor led a whole congregation through deconstruction in other words a community together traveled somewhere and i guess what i'm hearing him say is but now we're at different places and to me that is absolutely wonderful and one of the the joyful strengths of deconstruction people end up in different places and that is a good thing so while that's a good thing it can also cause some challenges and so what i would say if i if i were that pastor i would emphasize some of the basics i would emphasize worship when we're worshiping together we're not defining if we believe in the cosmic christ or you know we're not giving jesus necessarily definitions when we're worshiping especially in our church we focus on the sacraments and so i think the sacramental life is really important as you're going through reconstruction perhaps the most important thing to me is to understand that it's a good thing for people to be in different places and that you always will be if you stay in the journey so where you find yourself today thinking differently about a doctrine for example well if you're seeking christ if you're open to learning more god is so big that it's possible that what you believe today is going to be different a year from now and if you can live in a community where change possibility options the understanding that you can experience truth in different places it should not be scary so much as it should be an exciting part of learning how big your god is how gracious our christ is betsy and i dive into this issue a lot deeper on one of the episodes of the liturgist podcast called safe church i'll have a link to it in the show notes on ask sciencemike.com if you'd like to hear more thank you betsy you're welcome [Music] hi science mike my name is caitlin and i'm from california i just wanted to first thank you for all that you're doing i listen earnestly to the liturgists and to your podcast into all of your guest appearances even on other podcasts and i love all of it um marrying into a fundamentalist family it's been really helpful and healthy for me to be able to uh figure out what my own faith looks like knowing that it didn't match what i was hearing from fundamentalism so thank you for all you do my question is regarding uh spanking corporal punishment um in family and in faith my uh extended in-law family gives me a lot of grief because i don't believe that spanking is appropriate um i think it it damages attachment relationships and i get told often that that's not biblical and i'm wondering um i know the the whole spare the rod spoil the child's idea and where that's found in the bible kind of loosely um and i'm wondering your thoughts on the science around spanking your children and what the bible says about that thanks unfortunately the science on spanking is pretty clear-cut it's bad it's it's developmentally bad it has negative effects on iq on trust uh frequent spanking has been linked to increased likelihood for children to be physically violent themselves more likely to be engaged in criminal activity to have mistrust of their parents and in terms of studies being done it's not actually all that effective in modifying behavior versus you know other non-violent forms of discipline i try to answer the questions i'm most afraid to answer and this one is right in the middle of that and here's why i'm gonna be honest i know great parents who spank their kids and i know great parents who would never dream of it parenting's hard you have to keep another human being alive and on top of that you have to grow them into a functioning member of society i've got two wonderful kids but man is it hard work and it's most difficult in those first few years when your children are learning to assert their ego when they don't necessarily have great language skills they don't have good emotional control and mom and dad are exhausted because sleeping patterns are inconsistent and you know with very young children you're you know a cook and a sanitation worker and a superintendent plus a parent it's exhausting so i have to start this answer by extending grace to parents but the science behind spanking is bad and i have spanked my children when my oldest was very young she ran into the street once with a car coming and i wanted her to associate that with pain and make it a very negative response conditioning negative conditioning immediately and i spanked her as soon as i grabbed her from in front of the car didn't want to run to the road i have not been a frequent spanker i don't spank my children much i probably wouldn't do it today but this this comes to this debate um that isn't actually about spanking it's about parenting style children who are spanked often it's associated with a pretty regimented program of discipline in the child's life and on the other side you have what's called attachment parenting the idea that you should just be available to your children and both of those have pros and cons here's what i would say where the conflict comes from a lot of people who are against spanking then don't provide consistent boundaries or consistent discipline for their children and that's important if your children are tyrants that run around you know uncontrollably and are disruptive in public and and very disruptive in your home you may need to look at other strategies and if spanking's not effective which science says it really isn't very effective what is having clear rules and consistent consequences and fostering a trust relationship where your children feel like that things can be discussed especially as they grow and become more sophisticated cognitively but that ultimately rules our rules and consequences are consequences so i don't spank my children but if my children have a temper tantrum i never and i absolutely never give them what they want in the tantrum and if the tantrum you know is really bad i send them to their rooms they get destructive then i lay out consequences so you know my kids uh are extremely fortunate that they have their own ipods and i'll take the ipods away the ipods are something they only get returned for good behavior anyway but they lose that potential for a set amount of time that it can escalate but the trick is sticking to that right children are very very smart they're human beings they have very advanced human brains and they learn quickly whether you're going to follow through with consequences for actions or not and that's a critical life skill because actions have consequences in the real world places of employment school the natural environment all these things have structures and rules that have to be understood and that's essential so maybe first of all your main focusing in parenting is your own children not other people's children and uh so you do the best you can with your child right so if your family has an issue with you not spanking well that's their problem you need you do need to have some ability to try to objectively measure the behavior of your child and see if there are adjustments required to your parenting strategy and it is not easy what's biblical spare the rod spoil the child is in the bible and that was really in line with the best thinking at the time that the old testament was written because people wrote it it also says in the old testament that it is biblical for children who make fun of a bald men to be mauled by a bear i don't think your relatives your in-laws would advocate your children being eaten by a bear if they make fun of a bald man so part of a way to understand when people say the term biblical that comes from a very specific type of interpreting the bible and they they do take the bible as authoritative within this school of interpretation they don't actually literally apply every verse in the bible even people who say that they do and that kind of comes to something unrelated to your questions and that's setting up healthy boundaries in family relationships it's not necessarily your in-laws rights to tell you how to raise your child and you don't have to listen to them do so okay that's that's a big point the big the most important thing is that you and your partner are on the same page with parenting that you have those discussions and as you're on the same page you are providing consistent boundaries with consistent consequences to your children even if it's late in the day even if you're tired uh anytime your children whine and you acquiesce to the whining you're actually positively reinforcing whining right you're teaching your children that you can be worn down and the best way to get what they want is that behavior it's you know we are very intelligent animals but we're animals positive and negative reinforcement absolutely works well on human beings so i guess my bottom line is i don't recommend spanking as a disciplinary tool but i do recommend parents use consistent discipline in order to have children who are psychologically healthy and who are able to contribute well to society i could be totally wrong though after all my kids are 10 and 7 and i haven't even hit the teenage years and so i'm sure someone who's had uh children for longer would have a a better take on that the big thing do you love your kids do you love them let them know that the fact that you love your children and they know it will cover up all sorts of things that you've maybe done wrong and i've got little air quotes here but had good intentions about right love genuinely and deeply loving your children and making sure they know that is the most powerful thing you can do for your children according not only to common sense but also to science [Music] hi mike my name is jessica and i'm in a pickle two years ago i broke up with god and my ultra-conservative fundamentalist way of thinking i'm still working out what i believe and honestly i'm going even further away from the sunday school stories that i have to memorize and teach to young curious wide-eyed children my son included easter is particularly hard because i'm pretty sure i don't agree with the penal substitution theory of atonement my 13 year old son and i have frank conversations and often listen to your podcast together and he mostly lets all or nothing theology roll off of his back however my seven-year-old son is like a sponge and in my sunday school class how do i reconcile what i'm teaching the entire group and the way that we do or don't do religion in our own home do i have to approach this like we do with santa and the tooth fairy thanks for your help this is one of the most common questions i get uh on my blog you know i've got this doubt series i wrote that i'm actually about to turn into an ebook i'll probably announce that in a couple of episodes you guys can hear all about that it's going to be free so you'll be able to get that on my website but i have this series i wrote about doubt that basically was an attempt to handle the unmanageable amount of email i was getting as my story of going through atheism back to god kind of got out into the public eye and people wanted to know how they could have that experience how they could get through their own doubt and i wrote this series and the most common question that continued after the series was done was what about my kids what do i tell them while i'm figuring this stuff out so this is a really common common theme playing out all over the world right now so you're not alone and i would kind of repeat something i said in the last question full stop the most important thing is that you love your kids and they know it that's the that's the biggest thing your children need uh psychologically that they have to have certainty about is the fact that you love them it's actually most important to children they know mom loves them uh and then after that dad okay now i haven't if you know if you're in a same-sex partnership i know some of my listeners are parents that are same-sex and they have kids i haven't seen the studies on that i don't know i know that in traditional male-female partnerships uh mom's love is the most important for psychological health certainty about that doubt number two anyway when it comes to god different understandings are appropriate at different ages and this is critical when scientists have looked into the brain's capacity to know and understand god it varies dramatically with age very young children don't have the neurological capability to understand abstracts they only can understand concrete things and they understand best anthromorphic ideas human centered ideas so if you try to teach a toddler about democracy you can't but you can teach a toddler about a president or a congress or a mayor or a police officer they can't understand justice but they can understand a judge so for young children a god with a face a god with a name is completely developmentally appropriate it turns out some of these traditional ideas about god are quite well suited for children so you begin with young children if you want to teach them about god teaching them that god loves them teach them that jesus loves them as you're deconstructing you this may feel like brainwashing it is not if you want to teach your children about god you may do so without doing any long-term harm to them okay you can tell them god loves them jesus loves them as children grow more sophisticated and as they they age they go from understanding god as just a face to a face in some kind of context or setting this has all been done with experiments and then they begin to understand conceptual things attached to that original human-ish form of god so if you ask uh children of different ages to draw a picture of god very young children will draw just a face a little bit older maybe a face on a person with a body a little bit older that god will now be in a setting he might be in the clouds he might be on a throne a little bit older suddenly the cross starts showing up different religious motifs to indicate character attributes of god and then as people get into teenage years and and further and as their ideas about god evolve they begin to get increasingly abstract depictions of god and what this tells you is that these different ideas about god can only be understood as the brain gets to different levels of his sophistication so there's nothing wrong with telling your seven-year-old ideas about god that your seven-year-old is ready to handle well your ten-year-old is more sophisticated that's the pattern in my own home my seven-year-old doesn't have a lot of discussion about doubt she she has much more discussion we just pray and pray to god it's fine my 10 year old is wicked smart super sophisticated and not only started to say she believed very emphatically and got at a very young age but also at a young age started to doubt and so as she's had the capability and i've as her father understood that she was growing in sophistication i've answered her questions in increasingly sophisticated ways she said well dad how do we know god is real and i told her well we believe god is real but not everyone does and i told her about some of the other images and then i told her why i believed what i believe so i introduced her to the fact that i am not all-knowing but within the context of i know i love her and she can be certain that i love her you see the difference there so when you go to a sunday school class there's nothing wrong with teaching young children simpler ideas about god you teach young children simpler ideas about everything but when you get to you know the common notion of penal atonement theory the idea that jesus was crucified for our sins because we're awful and his death protects us from god's wrath i'll tell you a story i was asked to teach at a vacation bible school at my church there was a great curriculum but when we got to the end we were supposed to take a wooden cross with nails get the children to write their their name on a piece of paper and then nail their name to the cross and tell them that jesus died for their sins for what they've done and i was horrified to do that to a room of very young children so i just twisted it a little bit and i told them about jesus throughout the week and then we got to that that pivotal night and i had i cut out valentine hearts and i had the kids write their names uh on a heart and i did tell them about the story of jesus and i even told them that jesus was killed because he had such radical ideas about loving others and how it was a threat to a government system i don't think i said the words government system but i did have the kids write their name on heart and when they came up uh they put a little piece of tape on their heart and they taped it to the cross and as they did that i said god loves you and then said their name i didn't feel comfortable offering a graphic depiction of violence to young children i did not feel comfortable telling children that they were awful and that jesus had to die so that they could escape god's wrath instead i told them what i believe that jesus showed us the best way to live and that jesus loves us if you can't do that in your church setting you may be in the wrong church setting i know that's a tough answer but i think it's critical that in your faith community you can follow your convictions so what would i do if i was teaching sunday school and i and i i did i taught sunday school for a long time as an atheist and pretended and uh that was bad for me and it was bad for my church i thought i was doing the best thing i could do by trying to fit in and follow along and instead i repressed what i believe for so long that when i finally popped my cork you know i couldn't contain all these ideas and i created a huge disruption in the church i was going to it's a really bad scene and completely unnecessary i caused a lot of people grief and stress and anxiety for no good reason so if you are in a church where you have to teach things that make you uncomfortable it is probably time to look for a new church people do it all the time your kids will survive my kids survive just fine sometimes they still talk about things they miss and they like to draw church and when they do we talk about those things and we talk about all the good things about that church because there were so many great things about that church and we want them to have fond memories of it but ultimately the best thing for my children is for their parents to be at a church where they feel whole and that's the best understanding you can give a child about god [Music] our last question comes from the email inbox and it says hey mike i'm going to start out by saying this is not a very good question and i'm terrible at leaving voice messages but i have to get this out and ask someone i grew up a christian in a strong evangelical home but lately my view of god has been completely challenged i want so badly to believe in the god you know and talk about but my religious upbringing has taught me that will get me a one-way ticket to hell my god seems very angry and fickle yours seems loving beautiful and full of grace it feels like my soul is at war within me i'm tempted to abandon god completely what can i do thank you for all you do john well john first of all there's no need to apologize for your question i'm happy you asked and i'm happy that you feel comfortable asking questions and that there's a safe place for you and on behalf of not only me but all the people who listen to this show we're happy to have you and we're happy to have your question i also grew up in a very strong evangelical home although you know my parents were pretty graceful folks even with conservative theology but i do understand what you're talking about there's been this movement is you know in the last 30 years in evangelicalism to really emphasize hell and to really emphasize the association of right beliefs with salvation and that has produced tremendous anxiety for a lot of people and it works for a while uh until you run up against something in the world and you start to have questions about your ideas about god and instead of being comforted by god's assurance you are instead terrified of his wrath what can you do first consider therapy i'm serious you have emotional trauma and anxiety related to your religious ideas and a therapist can help you unpack that and deal with those feelings and those emotions two get into some form of safe spiritual community find fellowship of believers who are comfortable with your questions who are not threatened by them and who won't try to rush you towards any kind of conclusions but simply be your friend as you try to figure out what you believe i would pray honestly every day to god about what you don't understand and what you're afraid of and what you would like to believe maybe you could even ask god how this experience could help you grow as a person and help you help other people let go of the fear of not knowing who god is you say your soul is at war well have a ceasefire what if no part of you has to win so pray ask god to show you who he is find a community that can support you and if you feel at war and torn up and attempted to abandon god i would probably seek counseling or therapy of some kind because your feelings and anxiety are going to get in the way of your ability to experience grace and to experience god's love i believe god loves you i believe that god will honor your attempt to know him i believe that right now god is looking on you with favor and i believe that god wants to use you to heal this world as you are healed i can't prove it john but i do believe it i've seen it in my own life don't give up and even if you do god is very patient i became an atheist and god came and found me and drew me back and he can do the same for you just be patient find people who love you [Music] well as i mentioned at the top of the show next week is going to be a science mic after dark we're going to talk about uh the pile of questions i got in response to the last after dark episode which was uh what masturbation monogamy and marijuana um so we've got a lot of questions um mainly about just one of those m's yeah so if you have other questions about sexuality if you have questions about uh you know the ethics of different behaviors that you can't ask at church or you don't go to church you just like some christian perspective just send me questions right now most of them are overwhelmingly written questions i love to get some recorded questions if any of you feel comfortable doing that but we'll do another ask science mic after dark i've gotten a lot of requests for it um we do need your questions really great questions coming in i appreciate it always need more i am thinking about you know starting to offer longer episodes based on all the feedback you guys have given me that you're interested in that i have my qualms if the show can be interesting in much longer than 30 or 45 minute doses and adding another episode per week would be really time consuming so we'll see how that goes but you can submit questions using hashtag asksciencemike on twitter soundcloud or youtube of course you can go to asksciencemike.com and you can put a typed question in right there or even record a question right on the website that's actually how most of the questions come in now it's really easy and works well this show is listener supported thanks so much you guys have pitched into for like twelve hundred dollars a month now and that is incredibly helpful because not only does it cost money to keep the show running for web servers and people's time it also takes a lot of my time and a boy's got to eat so i really appreciate that if you want to contribute just go to ask sciencemike.com and there's a little link to our patreon page and every single dollar helps you can change or cancel your pledge at any time the show is produced by greg nordin the amazing canadian and he does a great job also our theme song is by jeff waterford if you've got a podcast i'm telling you guys he is the guy to help you create theme music and hooks and tags and all the resources you need have a professional sounding podcast both greg and jeb can be found in the show notes on asksciencemike.com as well as resources for every single question i answer on every single show you can go to the website and you can dig deeper i'll have links to websites and books and all the things you need to get deeper into those questions thanks for listening guys and i will see you next week