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 PrintableVersion Protecting childrenIn the light of the dreadful murders in Soham, every parent must be asking the crucial question ... No one living in Britain can fail to be aware of the horrific murders of the two Cambridgeshire schoolgirls, Jessica and Holly. The picture of them in their Manchester United strips has been dominant throughout our media and the nation is rightly horrified and shocked at the evil of those who perpetuated such a crime. I have no wish to go into the details and the speculations about their untimely deaths - one of the most disturbing aspects of this story is the way in which every sordid detail has been reported in our press - however, I would like to reflect on the general issue of how we protect our children. I suspect that in the understandable general hysteria surrounding this case there are many parents who have wondered about how they can protect their children and whether there is anything that we can do to make them safer. How could it happen?Holly and Jessica were two normal girls who went together, in their football strips, for a walk to the local shops. They lived in a quiet rural village. They had a mobile phone. They were well educated in not speaking to strangers. And yet they were murdered. If it can happen to them then it could happen to any of our children. And so we want to protect them. Even though the possibility of our children being abducted and killed is very low we still want to do what we can. And in order to protect, we lock them away. We think they are safe if they are in their rooms or in our home. We rear our children on mindless videos and junk TV. We may allow them to visit McDonald's, or to go round to a friend's to watch a video there. But would we let them cycle to the beach, or take a picnic in the forest? I doubt it. Irresponsible parents?When I was a young boy I remember doing several things which I would hesitate to let my own children do. I can recall, as a ten year-old, riding off on a pony called Pixie with a packed lunch prepared by my mother and an air rifle - to hunt rats. As a teenager I spent many happy hours playing and climbing on Nigg cliffs and the old army gun emplacements located there. Despite the fact that these cliffs were 150 feet high, I was allowed to go there to collect sea-gulls' eggs and to act out boyish fantasies of stopping the Nazi invaders. Nowadays I expect my parents would be branded as irresponsible. I guess I could sue them. Actually I am very thankful to have had parents who cared, protected and yet did not smother. Going to schoolI used to cycle two miles to school down a really steep brae and walk back up. Now parents insist on driving their children 100 yards to 'protect' them. In 1970 80% of seven year-olds travelled to school in the company of other children. By 1990 that figure had dropped to 10%. Yet the number of children abducted on their way to or from school each year in Britain is less than a handful. Meanwhile over 40,000 children are killed or injured on the roads each year. It does not make sense. Let the children be freeI will continue to allow my 13-year-old daughter to go 'down town' with her friends on a Saturday. I know that there is a possibility that out of my sight she may be attacked or harmed. But to try and guarantee absolute protection is firstly impossible and secondly will result in a cure which is worse than the disease. I do not want my children living in a prison, provided with every material comfort, but not having the freedom to explore, create, have adventures. If we want to protect our children let them be free. Burdening childrenThere is another aspect of this which is very disturbing. I was alerted to it by The Scotsman columnist, Joyce McMillan, who is surely the most perceptive and insightful of all Scotland's opinion makers. She points out that in this godless age many people have become more dependent on their children to give them a sense of purpose and meaning. They have become more than the centre of our lives. They have be-come the whole meaning. Rather than this being good for the children it has the opposite effect. It places an impossible burden upon them. Why should children be the last remaining source of light and love? Why have they become the ultimate possession? If we want to protect our children let their parents have something/someone else as the ultimate meaning in our lives. Protecting innocenceAnd if we want to protect our children let us protect their innocence. Our media, reflecting ourselves, seems to have a fascination with evil. The horrific side of this story is what sells newspapers. We may profess horror but many of us want to read the details. All we need to know about Holly and Jessica is that they were killed. All the rest is unnecessary. Yet we live in a society which wants to know the details of horrific crimes and especially of sex murders. Our video stores are filled with horror and slasher movies. Erotica (the posh name for pornography) is used as a justification for selling everything. Can you name one women's magazine which does not promise details of either how to have a more satisfying sex life or of how (shock, horror) some man ran away with his brother's wife on the day of their wedding? We read with horror of paedophilia, but at the same time we allow our seven year-old daughters to wear blatantly sexualised clothing. Almost as bad is the fact that we have now turned cruelty into an 'art' form. We claim to want to protect our children's innocence and yet our society is obsessed by shows such as 'Big Brother' and the 'Weakest Link'. Shows which are, in the words of Ms. McMillan: 'rude, graceless, destructive, witless, sometimes almost demonic in their sheer empty malevolence'. Christian prisonsSo I want my children to be free, to be adventurous and to be innocent for as long as possible. Children should not have to live in a prison. As adults they will soon have prisons enough. However, there are Christians who imprison their children in order to protect them. And sometimes they use theology to do so. If only we bring our children up right then they will be protected. If they read the Bible they won't come to harm. If they go to church they won't fall in to gross sin. If they keep the Sabbath they will be kept safe. That is true. But it is only half the truth. And therefore all the more dangerous. Wrong theologyIn the midst of writing this column I have become aware of a really sad commentary on this whole situation. Doubt-less by now most of you will be aware of the Free Presbyterian minister who apparently declared that if the parents of Jessica and Holly had kept the Sabbath then their children would not have been killed. This statement was repeated by a fine Christian columnist in a national Scottish newspaper. A statement which in turn has been defended by some on our message board as brave Christian comment. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. This statement is not just cruel and insensitive to a quite breathtaking degree, but it also identifies the Christian gospel with a crude (and unbiblical) cause-and-effect theology. Does anyone really believe that it is either appropriate or right to state that if only the girls' parents had kept the Sabbath and not allowed their children out then they would not have been murdered? Would God have protected them on Monday? Should the parents have that added burden of guilt imposed upon them? Does the 'fact' that if the girls' parents had kept the girls at home reading the Bible then their daughters would not have died, have any more relevance than the 'fact' that if they had taken them on holiday that day to Disneyworld they would not have died? What point was the minister trying to make - that God will allow your children to be killed if they go for a walk to the shops on a Sunday? Surely not. Lessons from JobI have recently been enjoying preaching through the book of Job. Whatever my congregation may think, I have benefited enormously from taking time to study this particular section of God's Word. I can hardly wait to get down to my study and learn something more about God and his workings in this world. One thing I have learned is to avoid like the plague a mechanistic view of both the universe and God, the 'reap what you sow' theology which is so easily turned into 'because you are reaping evil you must have done evil'. The God of the Bible is not like that. The world is not like that. In the real world good is rewarded, people who do bad things suffer from them and God blesses the godly with material prosperity. In that same real world bad things happen to good people, children get cancer and mass murderers live long and become wealthy. Why does God allow it? Why does he not stop it? One day we know that he will. We know also that he provided a remedy for evil in Jesus Christ. But meanwhile we live in the 'not yet'. We do not see clearly. We do not understand fully. We weep and are confused. Yet we still believe in a sovereign God who is Love. But we do not believe in a mechanistic God. A slot machine cause-and-effect God. The God who says if you keep the Sabbath your children will live long, but if you let them go out for a walk on Sunday then watch out. Speak of God what is rightJob was 'comforted' by men whose theology was as harsh and as unbending as that. What did the Lord say about them? He did not commend them for their 'faithfulness' whilst criticising their timing and their insensitivity. No. He was angry that they had misrepresented him. 'I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has' (Job 42.7). Let us be absolutely sure that if we are to make Christian comment and speak on God's behalf that we speak of him what is right. David Robertson,
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