My daughter and I were scuplting little bears out of modeling clay today with a kit that she got for her birthday. We had a wonderful time shaping the clay and the colorful bows and buttons for their bear clothes. Then as I slipped them into the oven in order to bake the clay into a permanent, hardened shape – it occurred to me that this is what so many Sunday school programs attempt to do with the children at their church – permenantly shape them into a mold that they insist their children fit.

But there are no ovens in our RE classrooms, and although we do attempt to shape our children in the way of Unitarian Universalism, there is no permanance or molding that cannot be undone. In fact, we feel that even as adults our ideas about the divine and what happens to us after death are constantly changing. Growth means reshaping and rearranging the pieces of the puzzle that may have once fit together quite well but now needs adjusting.

We believe that all throughout life our ideas and the values that shape us must remain pliable and flexible to change. In the words of Sophia Lyon Fahs, "Religion is not like an old suit or dress that we need to cut down to fit the child. It should be a quality that develops naturally as the child’s experiences expand and deepen."

How Unitarian Universalists have been going about doing this over the years has changed with the passage of time. Ideas about what makes a quality religious education program at our congregations means under going a continuous process of examining what we want our children to gain from the experience and what knowledge we expect them to carry away with them. In the past, fear of indoctrinating them with our religion was to be avoided at all costs – in fact, often the case was to impart so little Unitarian Universalist identity to our children and youth that our young people began to understand a wealth of information about other religions without any understanding of our own faith and beliefs.

But in recent years, this fear of indoctrination by teaching UU identity is fading to be replaced by a new movement to strengthen and positively communicate a good feeling about being a Unitarian Universalist to our young people. This is due, in part, to what the Rev. Dr. Barry Andrews claims is the new character of many of the adults joining our churches today who did not have a traditional religious upbringing. In fact, Andrews states, "relatively few come to Unitarian Universalist congregations with the sense of religious rebelliousness that brought so many to our congregations in years past. Newcomers today are curious, open-minded, and intelligent ... Typically parents say they are looking for a religious education program that fosters religious identity and a sense of belonging, nurtures spirituality, provides an ethical framework, and helps them and their children answer the difficult questions of religion and life."

And so it seems that ideas and philosophies about what makes a good religious education program are being molded or shaped in a new way for many religious educators. Because not only what we teach should be constantly examined – but how and why we teach what we do – in light of current needs and changing values.

After all, we’re shaping very malleable human beings here – not bears or modeling clay.