catapult magazine

Small, sheltered, Christian communities that distort the truth—known as “bubbles.” This was once an extremely hot topic in this area—perhaps worth some discussion.

What is The Bubble?

The Bubble, as I mentioned before, is a very sheltered community. Protective, perhaps, is a better word for it. In this case, The Bubble mostly refers to the situation children of very conservative, Christan parents find themselves in. These children (and youth and [sometimes] adults) know very little of what the real world actually is. Everyone tangled and wrapped in such a community are wearing the blinders of tradition—Chaim Potok hits on this in his classic My Name is Asher Lev—the fact that tradition can often blind us from the truth. The Bubble, The Blinders, whatever you want to call them, distort reality. And, like everyone at *cino knows, that’s bad.

On the other hand, it can be a big help. Keeping children and youth from the dangers of the world is a noble goal. Sheltering them from sin and evil has a good purpose. Letting them grow up in security can only help them.

But how much is too much? Where do they realize the truth about the world?

Thanks.

I’m not sure it is ever good to keep the truth from children. Sheltering them in that sense, especially when they are learning about the world is, it seems to me, a bad thing.

I think, though, there may be two different kind of bubbles you are talking about. One is a bubble that is designed to shelter them from sin. i know some high school students whose parents have kept them from ever seeing television. I myself have watched a lot of television in my life, decided i would rather be doing other things with my life than watching meiocre stuff, and so I live without a television. When my daughter gets to be junior high or high school age, if she wants one, I suspect we will buy a television — so that she can reach her own conclusion.

there is a second sort of bubble in which, for example, parents keep kids engaged in activities, and having friends within a narrow, denominational suburban community. This bubble prevents kids from seeing the variety in God’s world. I have high school students who are convinced that all neighborhoods with black people living in them are ghettos, that if you journey into downtown Chicago you will get beaten and raped, that all muslims hate Americans, that all homeless people are lazy drunks, that all hispanic people are poor, and on and on. Even if you can make a case for the first bubble, i don’t think it is as easy to make a case for the second sort. Christians need to be aware of a wider community than just their own. This world needs to be ministered too, this world is crying out for justice. As Christians, we can provide some of these things, — but in order to do that, we need to get to know some of the people that are in it.

We all agree that reservation of the truth is not right. We also agree that closed, blinded viewpoints are destructive. So, in the context of the second example listed above (the one I wish to address), the question of “how much is too much” is a moot point. The question then becomes “What do we do about it?”

The world will suffer because of this destructive near-sightedness: children will grow up believing that all Muslims hate Americans and the only thing Mexicans are good for is mowing their lawn. This creates even more tension (racially, socially, economically) and they’ll teach their children the same thing. The walls will become thicker and stronger, the boundaries indestructable.

One thing God commands to all Christians is to teach their children the truth. Initially, one thing we can do to combat these blinders of tradition (and fear? and hate?) is to raise our children in the ways of the Lord, showing them right and wrong, and the truth about the world. This can get ugly and is often difficult.

Some Christian parents, however, may actually believe that all homeless people are lazy, or that African-American communities are ghettos (perhaps they believe that because they were raised in a bubble) and they are teaching that to their children. They may just be trying to teach the truth—but yes, even Christians aren’t perfet.

We are not that child’s parents—nor are we that child’s parents’ parents. But unless something happens to stop it, this cycle will continue to poison our world.

So I ask, what can be done to stop it?

The begining of this post will focus on the first definition of “The Bubble.” I understand where you’re coming from Norm and I will address BBC’s second example later on but I would just like to reiterate the fact that “The Bubble” can be a good thing for children to grow up in. Just because children grow up in the Bubble doesn’t mean that they will believe things like all black people are bad and/or all hispanics are poor. In fact I think some shelter is necessary for not scarRing a child for life and in fact preparing them for the world outside the bubble before they encounter it. I don’t think that we should throw the idea of the bubble out completely.

Roight, what are we supposed to do about bubbles that are nearly impermeable. We can attempt to change the minds of the parents with examples and/or we can continually educate the young inside of the bubble that there is a world outside of theirs and how to discern what is worthy of their time in that world.

(I know that’s much to concise a summary for this situation and the solution isn’t that simple but it’s a start).

You say the sheltering of the truth “can be a good thing for children” and is necessary for “not scaring” (perhaps you meant scarring) “a child for life and preparing them for the world…”.

Do you have any specific examples, Mr. Rama? I do agree with the fact you state: just because a child grows up in a bubble does not mean he will think all black people will kill him or hispanics should trim his bushes for three fifty an hour. But how does witholding truth from children prepare them for the world?

Perhaps you made your summary a bit too concise, as you say, but I’m interested in hearing the rest of your argument.

One point I should make a bit more clear:

Firstly, raising one’s children in the truths of Christ’s Gospel and the doctrine of the Word should be foremost in a Christian parent’s mind. This is not A Bubble—it’s God’s command.

Secondly, exposing the raw truth of the world for what it truly is (as Paul often and indiscriminately did in his letters) is not something that will scar children—provided it does so through the spectacles of Christianity.

What will scar children is the discovery of the raw, unadulterated evil of the world through personal experience without the ability to discern properly.

Another thing that will scar children for life: being taught a lie.

I was raised to think that black people aren’t as good as white people. Black people are dirty, they don’t wash their windows, they don’t mow their lawn, they’re terrible drivers, they drive stupid, loud cars, and they drive property values into the ground. And they’re loud in the movie theatre.

And ever since I realized the truth (which took much too long), every day I have had to struggle to make them people. I have had to fight very hard to make them human. It takes so much effort for me to treat them the same as everyone else. To give them a personality. To make them individuals. Admittedly, not all bubbles teach that. But that, Mr. Rama, is a scar that I have had to bear my entire life because of The Bubble.

Kids need the real Truth. All of it.

Well Norm, I apologize for your bad experience in this Bubble, but I do believe it was the people inside this bubble that gave you that scar, not the idea of the bubble itself. The ideal Bubble does not involve being told lies, ever. The ideal Bubble also doesn’t have fallible human beings.

First of all, I was operating under the assumption that the Bubble was the Christian community you grew up in, the Christian schools you attended and the church you went (are still going?) to. That is not in fact witholding truth rather than it is making them more aware of it, the truth of God’s Word. The Bubble is not a necessity to grow up into an upstanding Christian citizen, that is true, but I do believe it is a wise idea.

The only aspect of “witholding truth,” as you call it, would be what I was thinking of as censorship for small children. I agree with you completely when you say that “What will scar children is the discovery of the raw, unadulterated evil of the world through personal experience without the ability to discern properly.” Which is exactly why they need to be taught how to discern properly within the Bubble before they encounter the raw, unadulterated evil.

It’s like censoring bad words on TV (though the TV censorship guidelines are shaky at best). They do that for small kids who have not yet gained the ability to discern properly. Would you want to plop your (metaphorical) two year old daughter in a room full of drunken sailors ( yes that’s a sterotype, I know it’s not true, but for the sake of argument we’ll just go with it) who find swearing an amusing hobby? She would most likely be unable to know that the words she’s just learned how to say arn’t exactly God-honoring, but she thinks it’s funny that some peoples faces turn colors when she says them. In the Bubble, she will indeed be sheltered from this until she will fully be able to understand what they are and why she shouldn’t use them, then she will recieve the truth of the evils of the world and WILL be able to discern properly.

You don’t have to wallow in the mud to know it’s there.

In the bubble, you see the “mud” but aren’t allowed in it. If you so choose to, later in your life you may choose to break your bubble and wallow in the mud anyway or your bubble will eventually break when your fully matured and know well enough to avoid the mud. It’s kind of a matter of maturity.

Thanks, Ms. Drama, for arguing this point very well, and you too Norm. I probably find myslef a little more in Norm’s camp, but I would argue that both positions are a lot closer than you think.

No, I don’t want to plop my two-year old down in a room of drunken sailors ALONE. But I do want my four year old (sorry, but that’s what I’ve got at the moment) to meet sailors with me there. I want her to know that not all sailors swear, but also that some do. I want her to know what those words are and which ones are harmful because they are vulgar and which are wrong because they are an affront to God. I want my child to make moral decisions because she knows what is right and what is wrong.

I think sometimes parents think they can keep their child from sin by not letting them witness any. The problem is, eventually they will see sin (it is inevitable in this world) and if they have not had guidance, they will not recognize it as such. I also want my child to see things that are wrong in larger senses — to be aware that the MacDonalds Corporation is providing poor nutrition for the world, that the lottery robs from the poor, that Tommy Hilfinger doesn’t manufacture anything but simply makes money off selling a name. I also want her to see the ways that God’s glory shines through when you look at a tree, when you listen to a symphony, and when a cornflower grows up through a rusted tin can.

Having said that, i also have to say that Go Drama is right. When Sept. 11 happened, my daughter was 3. I told her there was a big accident and we prayed for all the people that were hurt. I still haven’t told her about the terrorists, but she is a sharp girl She is going to be asking soon. And when she asks, I will tell her. I have told her already about a former student and current colleague both of whom have cancer. It makes her sad. I feel bad about her sadness, but i also know that i am commanded by the Bible to teach her. To protect her too, but to teach her.

I think we need to teach and protect, but wouldn’t you both (or anyone esle reading) agree that Christians tend to err on the side of protecting rather than teaching (a strange position for a group of people who know that our God rules over all and will win in the end. Why are we such a paranoid lot?)

BBC beat me to it, but I don’t think we’re all that different, Drama.

Simply stated, I agree that there needs to be a protection provided by parents. We should protect our kids from the mud slinging world.

A couple of things, though—we can’t deny the existence of the mud. One doesn’t have to be in the mud to know it exists, but one has to know it exists to avoid it.
I think BBC’s daughter with the drunken sailors is a good example of protecting and teaching in truth. In that room filled with the tipsy yeomen she is protected by her father while her father shows her what the world is—and how a Christian should react and interact with it. If that’s what a bubble really is, than I’m all for it.

When we don’t teach our children like that, when we keep silent, when we say little more than “no no, honey,” we are protecting our children from the mud, but not teaching them. This is less like a bubble and more like a granite wall. The children are then blinded to the mud. And if they can’t see it, how can they avoid it?

That’s when kids start to think that Muslims hate Americans, and all black people are bad. That’s what we’re trying to avoid, right?

Conclusively, protection from the harmful world while readying children to protect themselves should be what The Bubble is.

Thanks.

Though I agree that a “bubble” exists for Christians as something that keeps us ignorant of the larger world (an ignorance that is just as common in African-American young people who grow up in the projects here in Chicago), I don’t think it helps to think of the bubble as a way to protect children from the sinful world, since the sinful world starts with us. The “bubble” idea seems like a nice dream and surely some people are able to maintain it all their lives, but I don’t think it’s a fantasy we should be holding onto. Thinking we can keep our children in the safety of this bubble assumes that our bubble is a sin-free zone and that’s the real lie.

Good point.

If the bubble, however, does what it’s supposed to (that is, teach children the truth while teaching them how to react to it as a Christian), the child(ren) will know that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. They can understand that. This means the bubble will have its holes due to that sin.

A bubble without the holes is the dream that you are talking about, Grant. Yes; a bubble is not a sin-free zone, and yes, the dream is a titanic lie.

That’s why I brought this up in the first place.

Amen. Excellent points Grant and Norm (Where’s Drama?).

So if it is obvious in fairly short order that the bubble can’t protect us from the world, and that it shouldn’t protect us from the world (parenting and mentoring being far more useful than ignorance as a protective measure), then why do Christians cling so tightly to the notion of the bubble? What is so seductive about it?