improve and elevate the children...

Fascinating, influential, yet infuriating, Bronson Alcott has long held an uneasy place in my mind and heart.
This from one of his later works, "Concord Days" on the ideal church. I offer it as we (in what is to me an "ideal church") prepare to Commission our Religious Educators tomorrow...

" Always there had been two divisions in the theological as in the political and social spheres, — the conservative and the radically progressive. This division marks itself at the present, so sweeping is the wave of religious speculation, not only among professed Christians, but among the thoughtful outside of churches. Wherever we look, earnest men are pondering in what manner they can best serve God and man.

Let us discriminate religious truth from mere opinions. The fruit of temperament, culture, individuality, these are wont to be local, narrow, exclusive. The planting of a church to which all men can subscribe, demands a common bond of sympathy, the feeling of brotherhood, mutual respect, peculiarities, culture, respect for old and young. Such is the bond of union for the New Church. The essence of all creeds is God, Personal, Incarnate, without whom a church and divine worship were impossible. Not to enter into the metaphysics of creeds and philosophy of systems, let us sketch an outline of our Ideal Church...

Let the children have a larger share in the religious services than hitherto; one half of the day be appropriated to them. Who can speak to children can address angels ; true worship is childlike. " All nations," said Luther, " ... school their children more faithfully than Christians. And this is one reason why religion is so fallen. For all its hopes of strength and potency are ever committed to the generation that is coming on to the stage. And if this is neglected in its youth, it fares with Christianity as with a garden that is neglected in the spring-time. There is no greater obstacle in the way of piety than neglect in the training of the young. If we would reinstate religion in its former glory, we must improve and elevate the children, as it was done in days of old...

Blessings