Ten years ago now, I read what has become one of my favorite books, The Truth About God: The Ten Commandments in Christian Life by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon. In the chapter on the first commandment, they tell the story of Millard Fuller who had spoken on the Duke campus where they taught. Mr. Fuller told how his family sold everything they had, left a successful law practice and moved to a poor neighborhood in Americus, Georgia to “wait for God to tell them what to do next”. What was next, turned out to be Habitat for Humanity.
Later that week they were asked, “How old were Fuller’s children when he and his wife pulled up and moved to Americus?” Behind the question was the modern idea that it’s okay for you to have some religious experience but it’s not okay to drag your children into it with you–to ask them to sacrifice because of your values. They go on to say that, “The first commandment reveals to us the sobering truth that all of us are sacrificing our children to some god or another.”
“The good news, the gospel, of the first commandment is that God has done an extraordinary thing–God has given us his name. God has entrusted to us the means whereby we might faithfully worship the true God. If we fail, we also fail our children.”
Probably more than any other, that part of the book is very emotional and sobering to me. For I realize it’s not a question of if I’m sacrificing my children to god? It’s a question of which god am I sacrificing my children to. As a parent, I want to be sure that I rightly name that god. I know all too well that if I’m not willing to, someone else will gladly do so for me and my children.
