Monsters Under the Bed (and Other Biblical Doctrines)

Theologian Russell Moore had a discussion with with musician and author Andrew Peterson about the importance of cultivating the moral imagination of children:  From Peterson, on how children see the world:

“When I walk through the woods with my kids, it’s not just a walk through the woods; it turns into a walk in ‘the forbidden forest.’ So being around kids and remembering what it’s like to look at the world in this way is a really healthy thing. It’s one of the many layers, I think, behind when Jesus says, ‘The kingdom of heaven is made up of such as these’—there’s a lot you can get out of that—but one of those things is I just think kids remember that the world is a dangerous, harrowing, magical, beautiful, wonderful place. And we lose some of that as adults.”

From Moore , who gives his take on monsters under the bed:

“The kids know—they instinctively know—that they’re living in a universe in which something’s gone awry. It’s not our job—as parents, or as Sunday school teachers—to disengage that. It’s our job to come in an to provide an answer to that. Yeah, you’re living in an enchanted world. Yeah, you’re living in a haunted world. You’re living in a world haunted by demonic powers. That’s exactly right—what you deeply fear is indeed the case . . . . Your worrying about the monster under the bed isn’t unreasonable; there’s a monster under the fabric of the cosmos. Instead, we give them a story that provides the only comfort that really is lasting comfort; it’s a comfort that the enemies have been defeated.”

Justin Taylor has more on the exchange.