Thursday, April 18, 2024

J. Reuben Clark, Jr. (August 8, 1938) Cautioning Teachers and Parents Not to Spiritually Coddle Youth

  

I have already indicated that our youth are not children spiritually; they are well on toward the normal spiritual maturity of the world. To treat them as children spiritually, as the world might treat the same age group, is therefore and likewise an anachronism. I say once more, there is scarcely a youth who comes through your seminary or institute door who has not been the conscious beneficiary of spiritual blessings or who has not seen the efficacy of prayer or who has not witnessed the power of faith to heal the sick or who has not beheld spiritual outpourings of which the world at large is today ignorant. You do not have to sneak up behind this spiritually experienced youth and whisper religion in his ears; you can come right out, face-to-face, and talk with him. You do not need to disguise religious truths with a cloak of worldly things; you can bring these truths to him openly in their natural guise. Youth may prove to be not more fearful of them than you are. There is no need for gradual approaches, for “bedtime” stories, for coddling, for patronizing, or for any of the other childish devices used in efforts to reach those spiritually inexperienced and all but spiritually dead. (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., "The Charted Course of the Church in Education," August 8, 1938)