Taking My Kid To Church: "The Belief That Baffled the Best of the Buddhists"

Image text: "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart." Image source.

Part of the Taking My Kid To Church blog series

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Those of you who grew up in the church, going to VBS and Christian camps, probably know this song:

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart to stay

(Apologies if that song is stuck in your head for the rest of the day.)

There are a bunch of other verses to this song too- "I've got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart", "I've got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus, down in my heart", "I've got the wonderful love of my blessed Redeemer way down in the depths of my heart." And of course, "And if the devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack."

It's the sort of song that's very easy to make up new verses for. It's upbeat and goofy and fun, especially on those verses that try to shove a whole long phrase into the space where "joy, joy, joy, joy" was. I remember one especially fun camp leader that would add some flourishes like "and I'm so happy WOO WOO so very happy WOO WOO, I've got the love of Jesus in my H-E-A-R-T" etc. 

Anyway, yeah this song has lots of verses, some more "official" than others, and I remember hearing one verse that goes like this: "I've got the belief that baffled the best of the Buddhists way down in the depths of my heart."

Doing a bit of googling, I don't find this verse in any official writeup of the lyrics to this song, though there are references to something like it here, here, and here. I guess it's an extra verse that someone made up but never really got widespread popularity.

Okay but let's stop and think about this. Why is "the belief that baffled the best of the Buddhists" thrown into this song as a positive way to describe our faith in Jesus, and nobody bats an eye? Isn't that a little, uh, weird? Isn't that a little, uh, us-vs-them, kind of introducing an unnecessary conflict into this song? And also, why do we Christians see it as a good thing that followers of other religions are "baffled" about us? And, has anyone singing this song ever even met a Buddhist? Do we have any actual evidence for this claim that Buddhists are baffled?

I don't actually think Buddhists are sitting around being "baffled" by Christians, and if they were, why would that be a good thing?

Even though this particular verse of "I've got the joy joy joy joy" doesn't seem to have caught on, the ideas found in it are widespread in white evangelical American culture. The idea that people of other religions just don't understand Christianity, and that they all judge us and think we're ridiculous and our faith makes no sense, and we Christians see that as a badge of honor. And the way that we're so quick to buy into these one-dimensional stereotypes about people who believe differently than us, happily repeating them in a fun song, without stopping to think about whether we're misunderstanding or misrepresenting other people's views. The idea that we should actually ask them what they believe never even occurs to us. (Can't do that- you might be led astray! You need a Christian leader to tell you what atheists believe, what Jews believe, what Buddhists believe, what Muslims believe, etc.)

So all of this has got me thinking about what I'm going to tell my kid about ideologies I don't agree with. I'm not evangelical anymore; I'm a Christian feminist- so the "ideologies I don't agree with" is a very different set than back then. But this is something every parent should think about, regardless of which beliefs they themselves hold.

Okay let me give you an example. In my August 27 blogaround, I had some mean things to say about Matt Walsh: "I totally understand if you do not want to spend 1 hour and 10 minutes of your time thinking about Matt Walsh" and "If you are unfortunate enough to know who Matt Walsh is". I stand by that; I believe his ideology is abhorrent enough that it calls for this kind of criticism. 

BUT. This is not how you should explain him to your children.

When I write in that way, I expect that my readers recognize that I'm coming from a certain perspective, and I have strong opinions about things- typically things like feminism and queer acceptance- and so I have this kind of emotional reaction, and I believe that it's fair to use this kind of strong language, but you don't have to agree with me on that. Even if you generally agree with me on issues related to feminism, that doesn't even necessarily mean that you yourself would also describe Matt Walsh in such harsh terms. When someone uses language like that, you should recognize that their own feelings and biases are playing a big role in it. And sure, there may be a lot of solid evidence to back up those feelings and biases- but you should really look into the evidence yourself first, before you just accept their description at face value. (Although, honestly, your life will be better if you don't bother learning who Matt Walsh is. ... Wow this is so meta, because hopefully you also recognize that that statement has a lot to do with my own biases. IT'S THE TRUTH THOUGH.)

Anyway what I want to say is, children don't know any of that. Or, maybe I should just speak for myself- when I was a child, I thought in terms of what's true and what's false, and I trusted that my parents had the right answers. Yes, I was one of those kids who questioned a lot, but overall I believed it. It never would have occurred to me to realize "we are describing this group of people (who believes differently than us) in a way that is COMPLETELY NOT what they would say to describe themselves."

I'm not even sure if "bias" is the right word for this. It's more like... when you describe the ideology of people who disagree with you, do you make them sound ridiculous, or just plain evil, or do you make them sound like good people who have good reasons for their beliefs but they're just missing a few key facts, or somewhere in between, or what? And it's totally valid to answer that question differently in different situations, depending on your audience and what goal you are trying to achieve. Are you trying to have a reasonable discussion and convince people to change their minds, or are you "blowing off steam" in a setting where everyone already shares your ideology? There's a time and place for both of those- but you have to be aware of that. 

And my point is, children are not aware of that.

Like if I tell my kid "conservative Christians want to make such-and-such law because they hate trans people", isn't the kid gonna take it at face value? Like he will think I mean if you walk up to a conservative Christian and say "so, you support such-and-such law because you hate trans people?" then they will respond "yes, that's right." Whereas actually what I mean is, people on both sides of this issue make all sorts of arguments about it, but in my personal opinion, it can all be summed up by saying they hate trans people. If you're familiar with how arguing about politics works, then it's obvious that that's what I meant. But a little kid doesn't have that background knowledge.

(Though honestly I don't actually think the issue is "they hate trans people"- I think there's more to it than that, I think it's about people in power throwing trans people under the bus because it's politically useful for them, and then the average conservative person hears all this misinformation about trans people and buys into it- which, to some extent it's ignorance, but also they're not innocent, because if you're an adult you should be able to recognize when some ideology is that full of bullshit- you should realize "hey they are saying a lot of dehumanizing things about trans people, without actually talking to actual trans people about what their lives are actually like- something feels wrong about this"... lol I am not going to tell my kid all of that either. He is a toddler.)

Anyway...

This is one reason that I'm glad my husband is not a Christian. It's good for our son to see that people can believe different things and it's fine. And if any Christian tries to teach him some strawman argument about what non-Christians believe, he'll know it's not true, because that's not what Daddy is like.

Though of course when you say it's "fine" for people to believe different things, well, it really depends what belief you're talking about. Some ideologies are really harmful. There may be some ideologies that are so evil that you decide no, I'm not going to let my kid interact with that at all. You have to decide where to draw that line- and there could be a bunch of different factors that come into it, like whether you yourself are part of the demographic that is harmed by that ideology, whether you have close family members that believe in that ideology and you want your kids to be able to meet them, etc. I don't think there's one "right answer."

I realize that I've written this whole blog post but it doesn't actually have any answers. I guess I won't try to give answers here, because it really depends a lot on the specific situation. I just want to write this to say this is an important thing that parents should all be aware of. The power difference between a parent and a little kid is so huge that you can easily make them believe in whatever ideology you believe in, as if it's so obvious that it's true and everyone who disagrees with you is evil or stupid. But I would say it's immoral to use the power difference in that way. And when the kid gets older, that power difference won't exist anymore, at least not in the same way- so that strategy won't "work" in the long run. Your kid will realize the world is bigger than what you told them.

Overall, the goal has to be teaching your kid critical thinking skills, rather than teaching them the "correct" opinion to hold on every single issue. Your kid will end up disagreeing with you on some things, and that's okay. I think the main thing has to be teaching them to have compassion for people, and let that guide them as they try to sift through what's true and what's not.

And definitely teach them that it's a huge red flag when someone says "here is what people from this other ideology (which I don't agree with) believe", without actually listening to actual members of the ideology describe their beliefs in their own words.

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Related:

I Went to a Buddhist Site and Nothing Was "Sad"

This "Do Not Intermarry With Them" Stuff Hits Different Now

Taking My Kid To Church: "We are so happy to know Jesus, we want to share that with other people!"

"My Evangelism Isn't Working" is a Very Creepy Thing to Say 

"This Doesn't Make Sense, But It Must Be Right"