Parents, children and faith

Talking about faith with your own children, (how) is that possible?

Participants in an international Zoom event have now explored this question. Two ELM employees Kurt Herrera (Church Development / Ecumenical Cooperation Officer Peru and Brazil) and Dr. Joe Lüdemann (Global Cultural Diversity / Ecumenical Cooperation Officer South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini) invited the participants. The testimonies of a mother of four from South Africa and a couple with Christian-Muslim-Hindu roots living in Hermannsburg made it clear in the first half of the event that this topic is more complex than it seems at first glance. And that there answers to the question posed at the beginning are very different.

For Lungisile Khumalo, who works as a manager in the financial sector and is a volunteer in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa, the biggest challenge with regard to the Christian upbringing of her children is that she spends little time with them during the week. "We only see each other in the evenings. For most of the day, it's other people who look after them," she reports. Although the children, who are still at school, attend a Christian educational institution, they have a lot of contact with their peers from other cultures and religions. "We live in an urban area, so it's no longer the case, as with previous generations in the countryside, that you do everything with your children in exactly the same way as you did when you were growing up," says Lungisile Khumalo. She is convinced that parents need to live Christian values every day in order to set an example for their children.

Zamida and Kirk Chamberlain did not want a purely Christian upbringing for their two daughters. He is a Christian, she only recently converted from Islam to Christianity. Their maternal grandfather is Hindu. "We decided early on that our children should learn about different faiths and then make their own decision." Which they did - both girls were baptised at the age of 11 and 13 respectively. The ceremony took place in Lutterbach in Hermannsburg. "We didn't force our children into anything, they knew that they were free to decide for themselves," emphasises Zamida, who celebrated both Hindu and Muslim festivals in her childhood. "I wasn't taught that one religion was better than the other," she recalls.

Nowadays, children not only come into contact with different religions and cultures more frequently than in the past, but also - as is noticeable in Germany - with a secular or atheistic environment. "In South Africa, I had more support with the Christian upbringing of the children than here in Germany," says Ingrid Lüdemann, for example, who lived with her family in Durban for a long time. And Pastor Anne Mattys from South Africa, who has been living in Lower Saxony for over a year as an ecumenical employee of the ELM, reports on her "culture shock" when she came to Germany regarding the low level of attachment of children and adults to the Christian faith or to the church.

A completely different kind of realisation also came up in the hour-long meeting: it is not just the adults who teach the children something. Children also get their parents to question their own faith.

The next event in this series will take place on Saturday, February 22, at 3:00 pm (German time) or 4 pm (South African time) on the topic: "See you Sunday morning! Really?" The question will be explored as to whether the classic Sunday morning service time is still helpful and contemporary - and also whether there can be a worship service for different age and interest groups in a congregation at all. The language of the meeting will be English.