"They don't need the good news because they don't get the bad news." Nope.

Your kids are not Gollum in this story.

The quote in the title comes from this comment by Steve McCoy. Steve McCoy has been in the spotlight lately for a recent tweet. McCoy wrote "Tell your children they are broken. Deeply broken."

Now, I get what McCoy is trying to emphasize here. We all have a sinful nature from birth. Because it is so fundamental, he wants everyone to know this. He wants them to know it as early as possible because, in his view, anyone who doesn't properly embrace this bad news cannot properly appreciate the good news of the Gospel.  I get it. Most of my experience with Christian communities (beginning in high school) has been with people who agree with his theological point. I happen to agree with his theological point, myself.

But I am dead set against his prescription. (more below the jump break)


Now, I used to agree: I was totally on board with the idea that we only recognize the gift Jesus offers when we know how horrible we are, and how utterly hopeless life is otherwise. But I know from experience now that isn't helpful to most people. Trying to make people despair--and once they're despondent enough you'll talk about the Gospel--isn't what most people need. Most people don't need you to make sure they understand the bad news before you're allowed to tell them the good. And as far as I'm concerned, if we took the theology that emphasizes this more seriously, we would already know that.

You see, most people I know, whether Christian, or Buddhist, or Atheist, or any other Ist, don't need help recognizing that there is evil in the world. Everyone has seen tragedy. Everyone has known loss and pain and despair. Everyone. I have not yet met someone who could hear about a terrorist attack or a family breaking up who doesn't think, to some degree, "it's not supposed to be this way." They know, and they'll tell you they know. You just have to listen.

What they need to hear is that it won't always be. That they don't have to sit by while bad things happen. That Jesus came to make all things new. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in His Name all oppression shall cease. People respond to that. Humans respond to that message. They don't respond to messages about rules, because the rules aren't good news. They don't respond to claims of superiority or self-righteousness, because division isn't good news. They respond to listening, and caring, and saying "You and I both know how things are now, but they won't always be this way." Every human being of every background and experience knows good news when they hear it: "It gets better."

You don't need to force-feed tragedy to your children. At its worst, this becomes abuse; and at its best it's still piling on, a redundant message that delays what they really need to hear. So remind your children, every time they are hurt (there will be plenty), every time they make a bad choice (there will be plenty), every day, that it gets better. There is Someone who is making it better. And we get to help; we are all here to make it better. That's what being human is really all about. That's what Thy Kingdom Come is all about. And it's good news.