Kicked out of Sunday School?

In My Humble Opinion
21

jayjay-you had those rumors going around your school too!

LOL.

Never went to Sunday School, because I attended a parochial school for nine years. Questions-depended on the teacher, but I’d say they were encouraged.

When my sister went there, though, it was different-things became slightly more Ratzenbergeresque.

I had a lot left over from the Vatican II era, so I became pretty liberal in my views-especially now.

We were never told about Limbo. We WERE told about Purgatory, but I never thought of it as anything evil. I pictured it like a carwash-they’d scrub some minor sins away from your soul and then it would pass on to Heaven. For reals.

22

For what it’s worth, a few years back, I myself was rooked into teaching religious education- and believe it or not, I’d have been DELIGHTED to get some questions, even smart alecky or skeptical, probing questions… because at least that would have meant the kids CARED enough to ask!

In reality, the kids I had (7th and 8th graders) were all perfectly nice kids. I LIKED almost all of them… but found, to my chagrin, that none had the slightest interest in being there. All were bored silly by the material. And the only question any of them ever asked me was, “Can we go now?”

Not that I could completely blame them, mind you. This class was on a Sunday. Their day off, for crying out loud, and they were stuck in a classroom! When I was their age, I wouldn’t have wanted to be there, either!

23

Did you go to your religion’s equivalent of Sunday school?
Yup. My dad was an elder in the church and I went to Sunday School faithfully until I was 16, at which point I stopped going to church altogether.

Did you ask questions about your faith?
Not when I was younger. My main memories of Sunday School involve feltboards and making lambs out of cotton balls. By the time I was in junior high, I was asking more questions.

Were you encouraged or discouraged?
It depended on the instructor. A lot of the teachers were basically nice old ladies without any kind of theological grounding, so they didn’t provide very satisfactory answers. The assistant minister taught my Sunday School class one year, though, and she really encouraged questions. By the time I was in high school, I just flat out didn’t care enough to ask. Like a few other posters, I was pretty much the nerdy outcast of the youth group. I was so glad when my folks let me quit going.

What is your religion?
Used to be Presbyterian.

They never kicked me out.

24

I’m with Romola on this one. I too was raised Mormon (yikes) and actually didn’t question it until I went to BYU (HUGE mistake, ask my parents, they still cry at the thought that BYU was my religious downfall) and started questioning EVERYTHING. Never got kicked out of Sunday School, though once I went to BYU I started getting really bored with the whole Mormon religion (no offense to BYU’ers/Mormons out there) since it was mandatory that to stay at BYU you had to attend something like 85% of church during the year. Once I started asking questions about the Mormon religion, I was just “being difficult” and trying to cause problems for everyone else. But I wasn’t, I just wanted it explained to me in a way that makes sense. People who haven’t seen me in years can’t believe I don’t want anything to do with it since I was the typical “good little Mormon girl.”

25

Hey, Beighley, you shoulda gone to Berkeley with me–we had a great little student ward full of nothing but questioners and interesting people, and an Institute director who was happy to have us. It was very cool.

(Institute, for those wondering, is the college equivalent of Seminary–you can take classes there by the semester, and I understand most of them have homework, papers, and BYU credits, though ours were significantly less structured. I’m afraid we were the renegades of the Church Educational System, and obnoxiously proud of it.)

26

Institute at Notre Dame is pretty much the same thing - lots of grad students with all sorts of interesting questions, and poor little me the only undergrad who didn’y understand most of the questions, let alone the answers. I still managed to pick up lots of interesting stuff though. But we were definitely CES renegades too.

27

Did you go to your religion’s equivelant of Sunday School? Yes

Did you ask questions about your faith? No

Were you discouraged or encouraged in your questioning? Neither, the way I was raised, it’s an unspoken rule that you don’t ask questions unless it’s a purely academic matter. So I did very well in academics.

What is your religion? Atheist (raised Protestant)

If you were kicked out, why? Not kicked out. I stopped believing at age 13 and just stopped going to church.

28

*Did you go to your religion’s equivalent of Sunday School? **
Yup. In my teen years I sometimes ducked out when possible. That was mostly due to my opinion that the lessons were superficial and repetitive.

Did you ask questions about your faith?
Yup.

**Were you discouraged or encouraged in your questioning? **
I actually don’t remember. I don’t recall ever being discouraged from asking questions.

What is your religion?
LDS.

If you were kicked out, why?
Wasn’t kicked out.

*I’m actually the Sunday School teacher for one of the grown-up classes at church now. It’s quite demanding to come up with personal insight into (say) 1 Kings every week. We have a very good lesson plan, but in order to keep it from being superficial and repetitive, I find myself working hard to put as much of my own feelings into the lesson as possible. Hopefully it’s more interesting, and provides more opportunities for the Spirit to help in the instruction.

At any rate, I also did a stint teaching the age 12-13 class as well as the 14-15 class before we moved. I had a few trouble-makers, but I never asked them to leave. I tried hard to make the lesson interesting, brought chocolate for correct or sincere answers, etc.

Now I find the hardest part of the lesson is actually getting people to interact in a (surprise) more than superfical way. I find that Sunday School is far more edifying if people are really speaking from the heart.

I would add that if someone were to begin a line of questions asking if the LDS church were true, I’d answer the first question as well as I could and then suggest that the person and I speak together afterward outside of class time–simply because the lesson time starts with the assumption that we agree on the basics and work from there. While I’m happy to converse with people about the veracity of what I believe, Sunday School isn’t the appropriate forum.

[side note: Romola, what do you mean that Sunday School is for children under age 12? Did you mean Primary?]

29

Did you go to your religion’s equivelant of Sunday School?

Yes, until I was about 16 or so. Then I quit going to church because I didn’t fit in with the other kids.

Did you ask questions about your faith?

Sure. I remember a particularly painful time when I was about 14. A beloved teacher of mine had been killed unexpectedly and I had a lot of “why” questions.

Were you discouraged or encouraged in your questioning?

Encouraged, big time. One, I had really kickass Sunday School teachers. Two, I was the only kid who paid attention and actually wanted to be at church. Usually the teacher was thrilled that somebody was awake and thinking.

**What is your religion? **

I was raised Southern Baptist. I guess now you can call me, for all practical purposes, Pentecostal (the modern kind).

If you were kicked out, why?

I was never kicked out but in a way I feel I was driven away. I was the oddball – the fat kid, the only kid who didn’t have a dad, the smartest one, the only one my age, etc. There was a whole group of kids a year ahead of me and a whole big group behind me, and there I was, stuck in the middle. In elementary school one year I was so harassed by the boys in my Sunday School class (I’m talkin physical abuse here) that they had to separate us by gender. The boys generally made fun of me, the girls just ignored me.

I’m okay with it, though. Nobody cool in the Bible ever fit into the clique either, so I’m in good company :slight_smile:

30

Who knows genie, maybe I would have done better in that kind of environment. :slight_smile:

31

I was raised agnostic, so this doesn’t apply to me, however, I shall answer on behalf of my Ma.

When she was young, yes. A little older, rarely.

Yup.

Discouraged. As in the following example:
“Why is such-and-such?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because it’s in the Bible.”
“I know it’s in the Bible, but why is such-and-such?”
“Oaky, so anyway class, continuing with today’s lesson…”

Was Roman Catholic, now agnostic.

Sort of. Ma refused to go after they refused to answer her questions anymore. They got really mad when she asked “Why do we have to recite the catechism?” (The one that goes “Who made you? God made me. Why did he make you? Because he loves me…”) She wanted to know what that had to do with anything, cause it was mindless repitition and she couldn’t find a cite for why it seemed to be so important. They told her they wouldn’t answer any more of her questions because they said she was deliberately trying to waste their time.