Kids and the Good Book

Holy crepe!

James McGrath has an interesting posting up about misreading the Bible.  He relates an example from his (adult?) Sunday School class, which has been covering the letters to the seven churches of Revelation.

One of the attendees said that at first glance they thought that two of the churches were having problems with the Nicotines.

Well, there's a smoking hot issue!  Then:

We also had mention of another issue that comes up in Revelation 2, as it was misread in a Sunday school class for children, namely “sexual immortality.” It sounds like an interesting topic, and yet I still kind of hope we won’t come back to it.

Yup, I can understand that.  Then James goes on to ruminate about putting the unexpurged Bible into the hands of minors.

But the very fact that such a misreading apparently came up in another Sunday school class, one for young children, makes me wonder once again what people are thinking, giving Bibles to the very young. Presumably it is a bad idea to do so unless one is prepared, and considers it appropriate, to talk with them about all the sorts of contents the Bible has. Otherwise, just give them a collection of excerpts, or perhaps give the Bible as a collection an R rating and leave the reading and discussing of it until people are mature enough to deal with all its contents.

I keep thinking about all those niche Bibles that have been targeted at kids in recent times.  Ones with pink 'little princess' covers for girls, ones with action figure-type covers for boys, and  it sends a shudder down my spine.  Two shudders actually, one for the content and another for the kitsch.

All of which reminds me that, as a nine-year old I had my first theological crisis - of many to follow! - trying to work out why, if the Lord was my shepherd, I should not want him.  Good old King James English.