COMMENTARY: Putting away childish things

NEW YORK (RNS) As I walked down Tenth Avenue, I watched a mother send her children across the street. She stood there while they skipped happily to school, then turned and went about the rest of her day. When her children leave school and see mom back at her watching post, they might think she […]

NEW YORK (RNS) As I walked down Tenth Avenue, I watched a mother send her children across the street. She stood there while they skipped happily to school, then turned and went about the rest of her day.

When her children leave school and see mom back at her watching post, they might think she spent the entire day standing there waiting for them. It might come as a surprise to them to learn what we all learn: our parents have lives apart from us. We matter to them, but they have other passions, as well.

So do our partners, our neighbors, and, in time, our children themselves. None of us has exclusive claim to the love of another.


Many Christians want to believe the same about God, that God is theirs alone, that God stands at the corner waiting only for them, that God’s affections are limited only to those who believe in Jesus Christ.

They latch onto Scriptures that suggest exclusivity, wanting to believe that they — and they alone — are God’s beloved. They are the “elect,” the “chosen people,” the “apple of God’s eye,” and all others are heathens who need to be brought into the one holy tribe.

The idea that other pathways to God might exist is anathema to them. How could God hear a non-Christian prayer? How could a competing faith, like Judaism or Islam, have any claim on God’s delight? How could God care for nonbelievers, for those who find meaning and joy outside the boundaries of a religious institution?

This childlike view of God has caused no end of warfare and terrorism, bigotry and arrogance. It also stunts our relationship with God. Childhood, after all, is a condition we are meant to outgrow.

Thinking they are special enables children to take the risks of growing up. But in an adult, such exceptionalism and entitlement become ugly. Narcissism can turn a person into a monster.

To function as adults, we need to learn perspective, proportion, sharing, tolerance and self-sacrifice. Christianity cannot build its franchise by denouncing such basics of humanity and declaring the child’s view — grounded as it is in self-absorption — as the pinnacle of human development.


The point of Jesus’ teaching, it seems to me, wasn’t that only people who believe in him deserve God’s love. Rather, believers would be able to see that God is love, and a life grounded in God’s love will be good and holy. It is a promise of joy, not an arrogant claim of exclusivity.

When Jesus dispatched his disciples to change the world, he gave them minimal instruction: a few parables and sayings, no rules, no doctrines, a promise to help and, most importantly, his own example. Jesus gave them what he had received from God: a calling and some basic words, but not a detailed plan.

Jesus treated them as capable adults. And so, with varying degrees of insight and success, they did figure it out on their own — until the day when smart guys decided the faithful were, in fact, children who needed more structure, more instructions, more rules, more plans and less freedom. Only uniformed experts could show the way.

When you treat adults as children, they eventually rebel and walk away. Or they become hopelessly dependent, willing to take but feeling inadequate to give. Neither is what Jesus intended for disciples. Embracing adulthood is a better path.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter (at)tomehrich.)

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