Straight, No Sugar

"Now, dear," said the mother of a three-year-old, "I think the time has come for us to talk about God."

"Who's God?" asked the child.

"Well," said the mother, "He gave you all the birds and flowers and trees and everything you see."

"Why did He?"

"Because He thought you'd like them."

"Well, I don't," replied the child.

This runaway conversation is reported in a book published this week, Children and Religion (Scribner; $2.50). Its author, Dora M. Chaplin, director of religious education at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, Mass., cites it as an example of the kind of thing children hate--"the saccharine voice and the tense moments of imposed instruction." Instead, Author Chaplin recommends honest parental example and as little watering down of religious doctrine as possible.

"Saying one's prayers," she holds, is a term to be avoided; prayers too easily lapse into a quick bedtime formality like brushing the teeth. Parents should rather encourage spontaneous prayer. She cites one she once heard: "Oh thank you, God, for our muddy garden and my Sister Baby and the lovely spiders. I want to be a Good Big Girl. Amen."

Children, says Mrs. Chaplin, should not be cursed with "Christmas card angels and depictions of an effeminate Jesus in a long, white nightgown. The simplicity of the old masters--for example. . . Fra Angelico--are loved by most children if they have not had the overdose of sentimental pictures beforehand."

A careful religious education, says Mrs. Chaplin, should help a child to express church doctrine in his own words. She quotes Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick's account of a 14-year-old boy's answer to the question: "Why did Jesus have to die?" Replied the youngster:

"Jesus saw a lot of good in this world, and He didn't like the way it was being pushed around; somebody had to take the rap, and He took it."

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