Lifespan Religious Education

Unitarian Universalism holds as one of its central principles the "free and responsible search for truth and meaning." Religious education and spiritual growth with a loving and respectful community are at the very heart of what this church seeks to offer.

We believe that ongoing religious education is essential to the spiritual strength of both young and old alike. Our Religious Education programs for children, teens, and adults both nurture and challenge us as individuals and families and provide strength to flourish.

Should My Child Go to Sunday School?

In Unitarian Universalist Sunday schools children learn about the beliefs and practices of all the world's major religions. This not only encourages understanding of other cultures, and a feeling of being a world citizen, but also helps children see our Jewish and Christian cultures in perspective. When other children tell them Jesus was born of a virgin, for example, our children know that many religions say that about their founders. Buddha was said to be born of a virgin too, as was Lao-Tse, the founder of Taoism. When someone tells them that Jesus is the savior, our children know that many faiths teach about the coming of a savior-including Jews, Shiite Muslims, and certain Buddhist sects.

Our children also learn about the Bible in Sunday school, in age-appropriate ways. We do not teach it as the literal word of God, of course, but we do think the Bible is important to know, for at least three reasons: 1) There are good lessons and inspiring words in it; 2) Ours is a predominantly Jewish and Christian culture, and anyone who doesn't know about the Bible is culturally illiterate; and 3) Knowing more about the Bible from a historical perspective enables our children to explain their own beliefs better to others who are biblically oriented.

Our Sunday schools also teach our own Unitarian Universalist heritage. Children learn about Unitarian and Universalist forebears-like John Adams, second president of the United States; Susan B. Anthony, who worked for women's rights; Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone; and Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. We teach our children what Unitarian Universalism stands for today so that when people ask them about their faith, they can feel confident answering questions. We help them understand that the inspiration of the divine is to be found not in one book but in many; that we are born not in sin but with the potential for goodness; that the doctrine of hell implies a cruel god, and salvation for members of only one religion would be unjust; and that we have a duty to cherish the earth and revere life instead of sitting back and waiting for some divinely sanctioned cataclysm to come and end it all.

Finally, in our Sunday schools we teach children about ethical living. For if Unitarian Universalism has a creed, it's not so much a doctrinal one as a moral one: to love your neighbor, to work for a better world, and to search for truth with an open mind.

These, then, are four of the subject areas that UU Sunday schools focus on: 1) the religions of the world, 2) the Jewish and Christian scriptures, 3) our Unitarian Universalist heritage and principles, and 4) the goal of ethical living. But--and this is important to us--we do not impose these things as doctrines that our children must believe. We present them as a framework that they can build upon. Ultimately, we want our children to become responsible adults who make their own decisions about what to believe and how to live.

If this sounds like the kind of religious education you want for your family, we hope you'll bring your children to a Unitarian Universalist Sunday school. And we hope you'll attend a Unitarian Universalist church yourself--and participate in our programs for adults, since religious education is a lifelong process. We find that it's a lot easier when you have a little help from your friends.

Written by Rev. Dr. Tony Larsen, minister of the Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church in Racine, WI

Thoughts For Parents

One of the seven principles that Unitarian Universalists affirm and promote is "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning." We believe this is as important for our children as it is for the adults. Since children absorb their religious understandings in terms that are unique to their stage of development, we as adults must be sensitive to their evolving sense of the holy. We have much to learn from our children, for their spiritual language and images seem to flow so smoothly between the concrete and the ethereal.

"Enjoy your child's personal philosophy as it unfolds," says child-study professor George Scarlett of Tufts University. "Listen to the child's thoughts about God. Try to understand and show respect for their ideas, even while sharing your own. The point is to keep a dialogue about spiritual matters going."

Harold Howe, former U.S. commissioner of education and a Unitarian Universalist, jotted these words to his minister at church one day: "Here's a definition of a Unitarian Universalist: a person who can ask children, 'What is God?' and listen seriously to their replies. P.S.: I once went to Sunday school for about 7 years, but no one asked me 'What is God?' Instead, they told me."

Unitarian Universalists find value in listening to what our children are saying about God.

Written by Beth Graham, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington, NY