Subtle indoctrination

We have a house heavily loaded with bibles, including many children's versions. I have really enjoyed reading the scriptures with AO1 and talking about the Lover, His stories and His footprints left throughout the word, in history and our lives.

Some things mainstream Christianity has tried to teach our kids I don't like or I wonder at the accuracy of it. I kept a book, "my stories about Jesus" because I liked how they related the stories for children. Right now, AO1 just wants to read the first page over and over and over. He's memorizing it and I'm not so sure how much I like that. It's titled "the 1st Christmas" which would cause our CoC roots to go into frenzies, but doesn't give me any heartburn. The worst part to me is this picture! Since when did Mary have make-up or time-warp transportation to flight her from the 1950s? There is no hint of a stinky stable and dirty animals and Jesus is blond and blue eyed, which I suspect was highly unlikely.

The reading is not so bad, but the movie "the Nativity Story" made me think of some issues and thus question this rendition. Our child's story says that Mary got married to a good man and they were very happy. I had never thought of this, but in the movie, Mary was none too happy about marriage. She was young and her marriage was arranged for her with an older man. Getting married meant leaving life as she new it, as well as any remaining sense of childhood and entering another status, jumping into adulthood... Not to mention, the circumstances were not exactly perfect. Mary was pregnant, she said by God. How many people believed that? I'm sure there was happiness and in the movie, the couple learn to love each other, but I'm also thinking there was some stress, troubles, difficulties... The movie also brought out the heartache the couple must have felt over having their child in a barn. Joseph languished that this was the best he could offer God- the King of Kings making his "grand" entrance into the world. As a kid, I thought a manger was a bassinet. They should say it like it was, "and the newborn baby, that could have gotten any number of diseases from the manure filled barn was laid in a trough, yes the kind the snotty nosed donkey ate out of". I think I would be at least very horrified by this. Although I'm sure births were not done in sanitized hospitals like here and now. But instead of being slightly bummed at having their baby in a barn, our little story book says: "I guess you can stay in my stable with the animals if you want to." "Oh, thank you!" said Joseph. Other flowery depictions of the birth entail, which I will not bore you with.

We have one picture of the Lover in our home. We spotted it as we went through a nauseating exhibit about Jesus. Picture after picture presented a floating, glowing, emaciated or herculean Jesus so above and apart from the rest of humanity. The picture we were drawn to was a controversial one because Jesus was pictured with peasant German kids interrupting their religious lesson. It was seen as a "blasphemous incongruity" by the laity of the day. The Century Magazine said that the artist (Von Uhde) "had unmistakingly and convincingly made to live again the carpenter's Son, the God-man, the Friend and Comforter of the common people... His aim has been to separate the divine Founder of Christianity from the smoke of the incense, from priestly tradition and sacerdotal enthronement and to make him live again as he lived 1900 years ago, the homeless wanderer, the Man of Sorrows."

This is the Lover/Man I need and follow. The one who hangs out with the least of these. I guess with all our readings and interpreting, we have to take it in carefully and talk with our children about the accuracy and perceptions behind the telling and trust the CEO to take the loudest voice, calling over and above even my false impressions of the Lover and His ways.