Published by As we grow up we are taught many different things throughout life. We are taught by our parents, teachers, experiences, and society. Religion is the most widely taught subject in this society. Children are brought into religion at a young age. However, children should not be cultured and molded into religious beings because we are all given the ability to choose our paths from birth.
Religion is a very touchy subject and is mostly seen as a taboo subject. It is not a conversation you have over lunch, or coffee, and many people do not talk about it at all. Parents have the belief that they are to guide their children into their religious values. Thus equaling a child who feels pushed into situations that they do not feel comfortable with.
Mark Twain and Langston Hughes both wrote essays that convey the ideas of religious teachings on children. The literary conventions used in these pieces help depict what religious coaching does to society’s children. Through Salvation by Langston Hughes he speaks of childhood and how it was affected by religion.
“My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came into your life! And God was with you from then on! She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul. I believed her. (Hughes, 1940)”
Hughes was ultimately made to believe he would see Jesus. He believed his aunt who told him that there were things that would happened once he was saved. A child believes what elders will teach. An impression is able to be made on children at any age and everything that a child learns is through what they are told and what they hear. Hughes wrote about his experience in a way that let the reader know that he was uncomfortable in the situation.
“The preacher preached a wonderful rhythmical sermon, all moans and shouts and lonely cries and dire pictures of hell, and then he sang a song about the ninety and nine safe in the fold, but one little lamb who was left out in the cold. (Hughes 1940)”
In this piece Hughes is the protagonist. He is facing a challenge that is deeper than the normal challenges a person faced. The antagonist in this piece is the church itself, and it’s members. This opponent pressures him to make the decision to be saved regardless of how he personally feels about the situation. Being saved is a very important decision that one must make. Hughes did not take this decision lightly and after feeling guilty for holding up the congregation he finally gave into the pressures of his peers. “The whole congregation prayed for me alone, in a mighty wail of moans, and voices. (Hughes 1940)” Sitting alone with the urging of the congregation Hughes makes a choice that is directed by the needs of the members of the church.
The statement made by Hughes (1940) “Still I kept waiting to see Jesus” proves that he was not ready to approach the altar and be saved. G. Betts (2008) who writes about teaching religion states “If our leading of the child is wise, and his response is ready, there will be no falling away from normal Christian life and a growing consciousness of God.” By pressing the issue of religion on a child we are shaping the way a child thinks, and lives without actively giving the child the right to choose.
Twain’s essay Little Bessie Would Assist Providence supports the same theories. The protagonist is Bessie with such an inquisitive nature that it is hard for her to comprehend the reason behind what she is taught is “God’s Work”. The antagonist is the recurring answer she is given by her mother. The child in this piece, even though she is only the age of three, displays a sense of Socratic irony when questioning her mother. Through the questions she ultimately tries to listen to her mother, but also tries to disprove what her mother is trying to convince her of. While tentatively listening and then rebutting with opposition the child is attempting to excavate a rational answer to why the world has suffering.
“One day she said: ‘Mama, why is there so much pain and sorrow and suffering? What is it all for?’ It was an easy question, and mama had no difficulty in answering it: ‘It is for our good, my child. In His wisdom and mercy the Lord sends us these afflictions to discipline us and make us better. (Twain 1908)”
This child is being taught these ideas at such a young age, and these ideas will help sculpt her life. Betts (2008) believes “Left without the right training, or allowed to turn in wrong directions, and these infinite capacities for good may become instruments for evil, a curse to the one that owns them and a blight against whom they are directed.” Speaking of a child as if property suggests that parents may believe they have the privilege to teach the child in any way they see fit. This practice is generally accepted world-wide, but even God suggested:
“…and if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourself today whom you will serve…” (Joshua 24:15)
Free will was given to man. This free will is what allows us to make choices to guide our lives. However, parents often take the free will of decision making away from their children when they force them into Sunday school, and worship services. A child who is placed in the church from birth will turn what should be a learning experience into a simple routine that is wrapped around their weekly lives.
We were all given the choice to make decisions and through incorporating choices made throughout our lives, we grow into the adults we are today. “And I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting-but he didn’t come. I wanted to see him, but nothing happened to me. Nothing! I wanted something to happen to me, but nothing happened. (Hughes 1940)” Hughes expected to feel and see just as his aunt had taught him. The connotations that Hughes (1940) used to display emotions throughout this piece, “Still I kept waiting to see Jesus.” Seeing Jesus to Hughes is just as important as believing in Jesus.
Just like Hughes the character in Little Bessie Would Assist Providence also needs concrete answers and rational facts to come from her mother. “‘Who taught you so, mama?’ ‘Why, really, I don’t know-I can’t remember. My mother, I suppose; or the preacher. But it is a think that everybody knows.’(Twain 1908)”
In trying to teach Bessie why things are done she is also letting the reader know that these teachings come from generations of the pruning of our children. This character is being taught that even if you do not deserve to have something bad happen that God can do it anyway because he is teaching a lesson to you. This instills fear of the consequences of not following the “chosen path” of the religion they are subjected to. Children are moldable, just like clay, and can be shaped into anything a person wants them to be. A child can be taught at a young age not to run into the road. The child will associate the fear of being spanked with running in the road and not so much that the cars in the road could kill them. Therefore, when teaching religion to our children parents need to take the approach that allows the child to explore different aspects of religion rather than making them fear what will happen if they do not believe. Richard Dawkins (2006) feels that parents should not have the parental right to mold their children into religious lifestyles.
“Moral, and religious education, and especially the education a child receives at home, where parents are allowed-even expected-to determine for their children what counts as truth and falsehood, right and wrong. Children, I’ll argue, have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people’s bad ideas-no matter who these people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no God-given license to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith. (Dawkins 2006)”
Twain lets little Bessie become the voice for many who are trying to decipher the reason that bad things often happen to good people. “‘…Did He give Billy Norris the typhus?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What for?’ ‘Why, to discipline him and make him good.’ ‘But he dies, mama and so it couldn’t make him good.’ (Twain 1908)” The child is trying to debunk the theories given to her by her mother. By countering her mother’s answers she is opening her mind to disprove that things are done by God to make people learn. Both of these pieces use abstract language to make us think about God, Jesus, and religion.
The choices that we are given are the choices that we use throughout life. Both Twain and Hughes use symbols to convey the choices the children should be allowed to make. Hughes (1940) is placed on the mourner’s bench, and in the end he ends up mourning the decision he made to lie. While Twain’s (1904) character Bessie symbolizes the reasoning that everything isn’t God’s will by saying that the reason her mother fainted was because of hot-weather. These symbols are the painted pictures of the choices that are made throughout both pieces.
Twain was trying to convey the image of a child that is fortunately not susceptible to the teachings of her mother. She is adamant about finding the true reason for suffering in the world. Hughes also attempts to project the same belief on the reader. He wishes to see Jesus and feels as if through lying about his automatic experience of being saved was not justifying enough.
“….I was really crying because I couldn’t bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn’t seen Jesus, and that now I didn’t believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn’t come to help me. (Hughes 1940)”
The instruction Hughes received from his family and the church ultimately caused him sorrow. The coaching and training Bessie receives throughout the conversation with her mother causes her distress as well. Children are open books upon which anything can be written. Parents, family members, and the church can teach a child to believe, to fear, to love, to hate, to obey, and to violate. Without the freedom of choice a child may make a decision that is not what they intended. The child will feel guilt for having lied, and will have to live with this guilt. The child will also feel that the teachings of the adults in their lives were wrong and forceful. Giving a child the right of choice will steer them in the direction that they feel most comfortable with as they grow to adulthood.
Works Cited
Betts, G. (2008). How to Teach Religion. 196p. Published by BiblioBazaar.
Bourke, J. (2006). Fear: A Cultural History. 416p. Shoemakers & Hoard publishers.
Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. 416p. Bantum Press.
Hughes, L. (1940). Salvation. In Literature: The Human Experience (p. 1231). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Twain, M. (1908). Little Bessie Would Assist Providence. In Literature: The Human Experience (p. 1231). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
