Those swayed by the anti-cartoon rhetoric might possibly have some sense that their child's relationship with anyone outside the family - at that tender toddling age - could somehow compete with the intimate harmony of the family in a home setting where spiritual brainwashing is so powerfully accomplished as a normal part of growing up.
Such a concern might be more legitimate as the children get older - say nearer the pre-pubescent junior-high-school ages when peer pressure mounts with terrifying rapidity.
In a home where a dissatisfied Christian conscience possibly acknowledges that the family life has not been "perfect" as idealized in every Christian congregation, the parents justifiably -in their heart of hearts - sense that forcing religion on children may not have been the best way.
Communicating religious dogma and doctrine is a hell of a lot easier than communicating a spiritual sense of ethical morality and doing good for the sake of goodness.
How many kids grow up in so-called Christian homes having reached a point of tuning out the preaching?
How many have grown up admiring their parents but struggling with a sense of quiet desperation in not living up to an unreasonable standard of "righteousness" that has made so many Christian clergy-celebrities rich and so many families torn?
Recently, as I have participated and contended with critics of a liberal Christian point of view, I have realized that the fortress of justification for that criticism is in reality a quite small edifice. It's walls of protection and the moat surrounding it are all constructed by a lazy insistence on the absolutely inerrant Bible.
Every day these literalists - especially the celebrity literalists such as Dobson, Falwell, Robertson - even George Bush - are challenged on their dogmatic declarations. Every day, it seems, someone somewhere publicly requests theological and scriptural justifications for actions and viewpoints that contradict the teachings of Christ.
To name a few:
Jim Wallis and his liberal Sojourners organization;
The clergy who recently signed an open letter to the administration regarding the environment;
The 200+ prominent religious leaders who wrote an open letter entitled The Question of Torture: Open letter to Alberto Gonzales (our new Attorney General);
The United Methodist Church congregation in Dallas, Texas who openly published a resolution regarding the memberships of George Bush and Dick Cheney.
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