POSTMODERN CHILDREN AND ‘IN THE BEGINNING’

Multi-media exposure to science in all its forms, but especially to such fields as paleontology which bear on the evolution controversy and astronomy which generates its own godless cosmology, pushes kids into relativistic positions no matter what their storybooks contain; and of course a lot of storybooks deal with that kind of subject matter as well. My hunch is that books dealing with creation myths would be a drop in the proverbial bucket.

To take this another step, isn’t it probably true that we live in a secular, relativist age largely because traditional forms of religious training have simply failed the challenges posed by science? Most Sunday schools are still highly traditional, my ecclesiastical friends tell me, and pretty dull. Also--at least in many urban areas--doesn’t the sheer variety of religious and other cultural life experiences in schools and neighborhoods push observant and thoughtful children toward relativism? Of course I’m revealing my own biases, but how can it be otherwise? Just about all frontier areas of scientific research, and much else in the culture besides, seems pointed in that direction.

GRANT BARNES

DIRECTOR

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STANFORD