Children and Church

Should young children be taken to church? Billy Graham certainly thinks so...

Q: Our two children are too young to come to church with us, but at what age should we begin taking them? They stay in our church’s nursery right now, but we want them to learn about God once they’re older. — Mrs. B.C.

Personally, I think the time to take kids to church is when they want to go to church. I'm strongly against indoctrination of any sort. Children should make up their own minds on such subjects. They shouldn't be brainwashed into believing that their parent's beliefs are the indisputable truth.

A: Not all churches are able to have a nursery, I realize, but I’m thankful yours does. Hopefully it includes a program of simple Bible stories, prayers and songs designed for young children. This will help prepare them for church later on.

In any case, I encourage parents to bring their children to church whenever possible, even as babies or toddlers. No, they won’t understand everything that happens; in fact, they may understand very little. But over time they’ll understand one thing: Church is very important to you. And some day they’ll realize that the reason church is important to you is because God is important to you — and should be important to them, too.

Here's the thing... How do you think Billy would answer this question if it was sent to him by a Muslim parent? Somehow I don't see him encouraging the Muslim version of BC to take their children to mosk on a regular basis while making sure they know how important Muhammad and Allah is to them.

And that little aspect should tell you need to know about Billy's advice. If he would give such different advice just because the religion is different, that exposes a clear double-standard. Something that shows that Billy's advice to BC is actually bad advice by his own inadvertent admission.

-Brain Hulk

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