Bringing Up Agnostic Mormon Baby

The trickiest (and to many people, the most hypocrital) part of my Agnostic Mormonism is the question of where exactly I'm leading my children. My participation in the church and how I reconcile that with my actual beliefs are very complex things. I can't really discuss them with a 6-year-old. And yet, I'm bringing these kids to church and I'm reading the scriptures to them and we're listening to and singing Primary songs. They're slowly picking up on gospel principles. And I'm sort of encouraging it!

In this post, I talked a little bit about how I answer gospel questions and how and why I teach my children the gospel. Today I want to talk about what outcome I'm hoping for.

One of my brothers (who has been inactive his entire adult life) has always let my mom bring his kids to church with her. They've even been baptized! My husband and I were baffled by that for the longest time, because we couldn't imagine sending our kids into a place to learn things that we definitely do not believe.

But you know what? That attitude was actually born of my Mormon upbringing.

It's my Mormon upbringing that makes me terrified (or even just uncomfortable) that my kids will believe something different from what I believe. It's my Mormon upbringing that makes me terrified that my kids might subscribe to something that isn't "true". Mormons are scared of that. They're scared of "losing" their children to other belief systems. But the only reason to be scared of losing your children to another belief system is if you actually believe the thing you have is absolutely and exclusively true. And since I'm agnostic, and agnosticism is all about NOT claiming truth, the reality is that it just isn't that big of a deal if my kids believe something different from me or something that I feel is untrue or just plain crazy...as long as it isn't making them do crazy things or treat other people badly. What's the worst that could happen? My kids might become faith-filled, believing Mormons. There are worse things. (Although there are few things worse than the idea of my kids becoming the judgmental, a-hole kind of Mormons. You know what I'm talking about, right?)

What I don't want for my kids is for them to experience a traumatic, life-changing faith crisis like mine. That's why I teach them the gospel from an agnostic perspective.

I teach them the stories from the scriptures, but I teach them as just that--stories. Even better if those stories illustrate courage or kindness or some other awesome character trait that I want my kids to develop. The biggest reason I teach them the scripture stories is because I plan to raise them in this church community and I want them to be culturally literate. I want them to know the stories and understand the references people make to them, because I don't want them to feel like outsiders. This is their church and their community. They shouldn't feel like outsiders.

When it comes to the hard theological questions, I try to answer in agnostic terms: "Some people believe X, some people believe Y, but nobody really knows for sure." I want them to be comfortable with not knowing the answers. I'm okay if they grow up to have "real" testimonies, but I kind of hope that they'll grow up to be agnostic Mormons like me. I want them to believe that we can't really know the church is true, but that the principles of the gospel can enrich your life and strengthen your family and make you a better person. I want them to believe that they can benefit from it without it necessarily being true.

I tend to look at the gospel narrative very figuratively, and I try to teach my children in the same way. Tons of religious people interpret their religion figuratively. They don't believe that some guy named Noah actually built a gigantic boat and then rounded up two of every.single.animal in the world and stuck them on said boat for 40 days. They view it all as an allegory, a vehicle for communicating worthy principles. Mormons don't do that. Not only do they interpret it all literally, but they also have a weirdly detailed answer for everything (Kolob, anyone?). I just try to benefit from the principles, and if that means imbibing the stories--and letting some weird details go in one ear and out the other--then that's okay.

My husband works with a lot of cultural Jews who maintain their traditions because it's what they grew up doing, it's a community they value, it gives their lives some kind of structure and meaning, etc. They don't have life-changing faith crises, because they never believed that their faith was the absolute story of existence. They never based their lives on whether or not it was true. They didn't allow the stakes to be so high.

I try to approach Mormonism that way. I don't take it too seriously. It's more my culture than it is my religion. I'm hoping that my kids will sort of catch that. Right now, I can't have deep theological conversations with them, but I can answer questions in a way that tells them we don't really know and that's okay.

WWBD--What would Batman do?

The other day, my 6-year-old was faced with a very important decision. Her little brother asked her for some help and she hesitated, because she was in the middle of something and didn't want to help him. I encouraged her to do it, giving the usual reasons. You know, when someone needs help, you should give it to them. In our family, we love each other, and that means helping each other. If you needed help from him, what would you want him to do? You get the picture. She chose to whine and complain that it wasn't fair and she was busy, blah, blah, blah.

And then, in my failure to convince her, for the first time ever, I employed the old, "What would Jesus do?" It was terribly effective. She knew immediately what she should do and she did it without further complaint.

For shame, huh? Manipulative? Disingenuous, given my agnostic leanings?

I don't think so, and here's why.

If my kid has to go the doctor and get a shot and he is terrified, is it manipulative of me to ask him, "What would Batman do if he had to get a shot?" Is it disingenuous, because I technically don't believe that Batman is a real person? I don't think so. But it IS effective. Batman has some good qualities, bravery and fearlessness among them. If my kid admires Batman, and Batman is a character worthy of emulation, why wouldn't I use that to help my kid make good choices?

Regardless of my opinions on the divine status of Jesus, I do find him to be a very admirable character. He is, at the very least, a symbol of everything good. After all, he IS perfect, at least according to the narrative. He is honest, kind, loving, gentle, charitable, generous, patient, forgiving, just, merciful, etc. He is everything we want our children to be. Even if he is only a literary character, the idea of him is something worth emulating.

My daughter gets tired of hearing me lecture about how she "should" behave. But this question, What would Jesus do? It kind of wraps up a lot of preachy teaching in one question. It's like asking, "What is the honest/kind/generous/merciful thing to do?" She knows what it means. She learns about this Jesus guy and she looks up to him. It's a simple, non-preachy way to get my message across without her turning her ears off.

On a similar note, I was recently at a park day gathering of Mormon homeschoolers (that's right, y'all, I homeschool!), and they were discussing an idea that I think is pretty smart. They were talking about noticing certain qualities in your children and relating them to scripture characters. For example, "Wow, you were really obedient, just like Nephi!" I think it's awesome. And it takes a little of the preachy preachy, yappy Mommy out of the picture. These good qualities are summed up in upstanding characters that our children admire. I say use them!