Hallelujah!!!

Alex was going to Vacation Bible School last week through daycare. I guess, let me preface this story with a little background on us and church... I was raised as a Lutheran, and that's what I believe - FuddyDuddy was raised as a... well, I'm not sure what - but he's got his own beliefs that don't necessarily fall into any of those of organized religion. Basically, he believes in living a good and decent life - just to sum it up. We do not go to church now, although we have been talking about doing it - just to expose the kids to it. My theory is - I want to expose the kids to religion, maybe several different types - and when they are old enough to make a decision, they can choose when and where they want to go. I feel that my responsibility to the kids is to at least show them religion and help them learn what is out there.

SO... Alex was going to VBS at a local baptist church - I was good with this because he was enjoying it and he was learning something. Friday, I go to pick him up at daycare and his teacher says - "oh, Alex was saved today" - huh? I look at Alex and he's acting all sheepish, and says, "I'll tell you in the truck". So he goes on to tell me that Brother Guy asked the class today at VBS who wanted to be saved, who wanted to ask God and Jesus into their life so that they won't burn in hell for all eternity? So Alex says - "well, I don't wanna burn in hell for all eternity - save me!" lol. So apparently, they say some sort of special prayer together and now, he's SAVED!
me: "so is that it? Is that all you have to do and now you won't burn in hell" - trying to see how much he understands of this all...
him: "well, yeah - that's it. Well, I can't kill anybody either."
me: "oh, yeah - well that's probably good."

So, after talking to him for awhile and asking him many questions - I've come to realize that he was basically "scared" into being saved because he didn't want to burn in hell. He believes in God, too and that was part of it - but the fact that I feel they used "scare tactics" on him to goad him into being saved - I have HUGE issues with. I mean really, he's 9 years old and does not understand this at all - why would they do this with him, why would they do this without talking to his parents first??? What the hell kind of church is this??? There's so much more to it, then saying a prayer - and poof - you're saved - it just doesn't work that way!!! So, I've spoken to daycare and told them how unhappy I was about this and that they had no right to do this with my son. She's spoken to Brother Guy, who is supposedly gonna call us. That should be an interesting conversation! We haven't said any of this to Alex - well, except for the fact that there's more to being saved then just saying a prayer. We've talked about living a good life and all that, and that there are other beliefs out there as well and we would start taking him to church to learn more about it. We shall see.

Anyway - sorry this is so long, I just needed to vent on this for a minute or two. Thanks for listening! Gonna run now...