Zadok Paper S100 Winter 1999
Less Observed Sources of Spirituality in Children
by Glenn Cupit

Social environments in the transmission of faith

To appreciate fully the gospel, children require direct experience of human social life which is both the outcome and evidence of the Spirit's presence and work among people. Only thus can they have direct experience of the qualities of the Person to whom they are reconciled. Without that experience, the nature of God remains an abstraction, his essential goodness is disembodied, and they find it harder to recognise his presence in their own lives.

A close friend, a mature Christian believer, says that one of the most profoundly spiritual experiences he knows is to sit among the crowd on the hill at Adelaide Oval watching an international cricket match. He identifies how people react as a corporate unity, rather than as collected individuals, as a sign of a shared spirit. I've shared that 'hill' experience; and similar examples of corporate spirituality at a football final, in the crowd watching the Adelaide Christmas pageant, and with smaller groups in a church, in a pub and on a mountain top. Such experiences can be very powerful, with lasting consequences. They seem to underlie the nostalgia of generations of war veterans for what, to us who did not share the experience, seem times of unrelieved horror.

The spirituality of groups is as open to contending influences as is the spirituality of individuals. While a group creates its own corporate spirit, that reflects the impact and influence of contradictory spiritual forces. A group may become infused with a vengeful spirit or a spirit of goodwill, a factional spirit or a generous spirit, a complacent spirit or a gentle spirit, a brutal spirit or a joyous spirit, a self-indulgent spirit or a sacrificial spirit, a cynical spirit or a repentant spirit, a sceptical spirit or even a Holy Spirit; and that spirit may vary with time.

Jesus told his disciples, "Where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them" (Matthew 18:20), referring to his Spirit, rather than his physical presence. It was no accident that Jesus' followers had "all met in one room" when the Pentecostal visitation occurred.(Acts 2:1-4) Where the group of believers was open to his presence, the New Testament writers expected the Spirit to come upon the group and remain with them.22 As a corporate group imbued with his Spirit, the church becomes the "body of Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:27). There is a strong witness to the nature of God incarnate in the group of believers.23

It is easy in our highly individualistic culture to overlook the corporate nature of biblical spirituality. Many puzzling passages make sense when spirituality is seen to invest an entire group, not just individuals in the group. We can thereby understand judgments and blessings on families, even across generations, and also the conversion of entire households. Individuals may exempt themselves from what is happening in their spiritual reference group but, all are assumed to share the common spirituality, usually determined by the head of the group. Typical is the reference to the family of the Roman jailer at Philippi: "Then they preached the word of the Lord to him and to all his family. Late as it was, he took them to wash their wounds, and was baptised then and there with all his household. Afterwards he took them home and gave them a meal, and the whole family celebrated their conversion to belief in God" (Acts 16:32-24).

It is possible that each individual in that family separately considered Paul's case and was converted. It is not very likely. Rather, as a corporate family group, they jointly made a decision affecting each individual.24 Doubtless, given the culture, the father would have dominated that process.

This corporate family spirituality may be the context of that very difficult passage in 1 Corinthians 7:13-14. Family spiritual solidarity is breached by the disparate beliefs of husband and wife. The unbeliever may choose to exempt themselves from the new, and potentially dominant, presence of the Holy Spirit in the household. However, if they share the new spiritual home environment, they are caught up in the wider spiritual community, despite their unbelief. Sharing this environment may even lead to their subsequent conversion. The Jerusalem translation is consistent with this reading in rendering hegiastai (to become holy) as "made one with the saints", even though the subsequent reference to children retains "holy" as the translation for hagia.25 It is instructive that Paul justified his argument that the spouse is made "holy" by the presumption that the children of the marriage cannot be anything but holy.

New Testament writers represent the group of Christian believers as the 'ideal' group despite their 'warts and all' depiction of such groups. Corporate failure to live up to the presence of the Spirit seems as prevalent as individual 'backsliding'. The spiritual influence of a group that designates itself 'Christian' depends upon the degree to which they are receptive to the influence of the Spirit. It is equally true that groups that could not be described as 'Christian' are not thereby insulated from being a source of the Spirit's influence.

The label worn by a group is less important than the extent to which the group engenders love between its members, works together in fellowship to achieve common goals, demonstrates personal sacrifice for the mutual good, supports its weaker members and so on, because only God's Spirit can stimulate such goodness.

Words have value in naming and interpreting these experiences, but they cannot reproduce the reality of the Spirit's presence. No talk about the beauty of Christian fellowship can substitute for actual immersion in its real expression. If children are to grow up with more than rote learned words, they need involvement in groups where the Spirit is actively at work.

THE LIFE OF EVERY group is a mixture of responses to God's Spirit and responses to spiritual evil. Each group bears the signs of the spiritual battle being waged. One need only reflect on the fragility of the Christmas 'celebrations' suffered by many households gathered to reaffirm their sense of 'family'. They struggle to maintain the good inherent in the ideal, but are constantly ambushed by old hatreds, past strife, unforgotten slights, unresolved betrayals and unforgiven hurts. We find the same struggle in political and community organisations, sport and social clubs, returned soldiers' clubs, school councils, work teams, church councils and diaconates, ladies' and men's fellowships, convocations of bishops and meetings of heads of churches. These, however, fall far short of families in their potential for good and ill.

The same social environments which may mediate God's Spirit can powerfully counteract his influence. A crowd easily becomes a mob capable of acts of evil unthinkable to individual members acting alone. I have seen children, achieving the independence of action that comes with adolescence, driven from the gospel by the destructive social behaviour within their church group. How can they appreciate the value of fellowship with Christ, if fellowship between those who profess the Spirit of God is barren, sterile, factional or competitive, and in no way better than that between groups who make no such claim.

Children will be exposed both to spiritual good and spiritual evil in groups to which they belong. Their household is most critical, but they will also experience the conflict in other groups with adults, as well as in school classes, play groups, clubs, gangs and cliques. Experiencing both the good and the evil gives substance to the choices of life direction children may make. Nevertheless, the stronger the positive influences in their group experiences, the better it is for children. Consequently, it is important that Christians recognise their roles as 'salt' and 'light' in all such environments (Matthew 5:13-16).26 The 'goodness' of those aspects of group life which are directed by God's Spirit is made evident by contrast with the other aspects of the life of those groups. Children need to experience the fruits of the Spirit in social relationships wherever possible.

It is most important that the Holy Spirit is the dominant influence in social environments which children understand to be 'Christian'. This is true whether they are evangelistic missions, Sunday schools, 'kids clubs', churches or Christian families. Children will learn much more about the 'god' we worship from the spirit which infuses our meeting together than from any words we may use about 'fellowship' or 'unity'. Given that Jesus indicates that he is actually a participant in the gathering of a Christian group which is welcoming of God's Spirit (Matthew 18:20), as children are incorporated in such groups they experience directly the presence and work of the resurrected Christ. This is independent of their level of understanding or expressed faith.

The greater the exposure children have to the Spirit present in the groups to which they belong; in particular, the more they are exposed to the Spirit at work in a group of believers; the more they will participate in a shared experience of the living activity of Christ. This may occur in families, in congregations or secular equivalents, or in informal occasional groups. The distinctive significance of the Christian family or group lies in the particular nature of the post-Pentecost experience of the Holy Spirit. Scripture identifies four modes of the Spirit's interaction with humans: a general presence that comes with being alive; a temporary and focussed 'seizure'; a more lasting presence for a specific purpose; and the post-Pentecost experience of the Christian community. The first three require no commitment to Christ; the last does.

Jesus' fiery interaction with one group who "believed in him" (John 8:30-59) is evidence enough that the nature of the corporate spirit is more relevant than public affiliation. The less social environments encountered by children reflect the impact of God's Spirit, the more difficult they will find it to be at ease in his presence. Without experiences of group spirituality, whatever we teach about the immanence of God will have little grounding in the child's experience. The Spirit, working through children's participation in the social world, gives substance to the promise of God's intimate presence, turning heard words into received Word. To fully understand, and adequately respond to, the God of the Bible, children must have ongoing occasion to meet his Spirit in the social environments of which they are a part.

To: Personal relationships in the transmission of faith

Glenn Cupit is Senior Lecturer in Child Development at the University of South Australia and is currently working towards his doctorate on the implications for a Christian understanding of spiritual development for secular education systems. He is part of the Unley Uniting Church community and is married to Cecily. They have two adult children