QUOTE: “Let us also use our common sense and our understanding of the plan of salvation to be bold and straightforward when it comes to teaching our children and youth the essential gospel principles they must understand to navigate the world in which they live. If we don’t teach our children and youth true doctrine—and teach it clearly—the world will teach them Satan’s lies.” –Bonnie L. Oscarson, Young Women’s President, in General Conference, 24 September 2016. [text not yet available online, but will be in the coming weeks]
COMMENTARY: “Teach children doctrine” is the same thing as “childhood indoctrination,” but it probably feels better to say it a slightly different way to avoid the cognitive dissonance that would come if you called it by its true name. So here’s a thought for you. If you don’t have enough faith that your “true doctrines” will be accepted and embraced by your children if they were to hear them for the first time as fully grown adults capable of self-directed critical thought, maybe you should ask yourself why you have so much faith in your “true doctrines” to begin with. Seems to me that if they were true, you could adequately teach them with reason and logic later in life. But what do I know? I’m just another apostate.
