203 Teaching children to give

I’m definitely out of touch. I didn’t realize there were funded organizations and programs and websites “to teach children to give.” So the public schools, the very folk who pushed all religious training underground and drove millions to home schooling, now are filling the values gap with “teaching to give.” At a web site dedicated to workshops, lesson plans, history of philanthropy, and civic engagement we read:

“We have relied in the past on churches, families, friends and neighborhoods to teach children the value and significance of service and giving. We have assumed that our children know their heritage as citizens who do not need to be "empowered" by an outside agency, but who are born empowered as their inherent right of citizenship. It is sadly ironic that today, as emerging foreign democracies seek our assistance in establishing philanthropic traditions of their own, the traditional forces for teaching this ethic to children in the United States are eroding.” Learning to Give

Recently I visited a friend homebound due to a fracture. She lives close to my church, it was a Sunday morning, so I skipped the 9 a.m. service and made a house call. We were comparing our faith’s teaching on this. “In the Jewish faith, doing a mitzvah, a good deed, is very important,” she told me. “Visiting the sick is called the mitzvah of Bikur Cholim.” “Same in the Christian faith,” I replied. “Jesus taught that when the sheep and goats are separated on judgment day, those who fed the hungry and visited the sick and took in the stranger, will be treated as though they did it for Him.”

According to the website, the DotNet generation (16-26) have a high level of faith in government and support for much of what it does, but very low levels of involvement in civic life or volunteering for others. Well, I’m not surprised! They probably think the government should do everything all major religions teach their adherents to do!