What is your favourite Bible story? Which one would you tell children?
I’m interested that you talk about Daniel with little kids, because that’s a ‘God saves the day at the last minute’ story. Would you tell stories with bad endings?
HW Yes, I would do stories with bad endings. If you sanitise all your stories, it’s a bit like when fairy stories were told. Some idiot took hold of Grimm’s and Andersen’s stories and sanitised all the endings. They got rid of the witches and didn’t have wolves falling into pots of boiling water. And do you know what; the children said that those were boring stories. I think in the same way there are difficult stories in life and children know that. They know that there are dark woods; they know that there are uncomfortable bits. They know that there’s a devil. There are seriously unpleasant people in the world and children need to engage with that through stories. To tell a story well, you have got to have the child in a safe place so that they can talk to you about the story.
What’s a story with a sad ending that you would use?
HW Well, a quite tough story is the story of Jonah, I would be really careful though about some stories. I wouldn’t like to say that they’re off limits but… the story of the father sacrificing the child (Genesis 22:1-19) — that needs to be handled really carefully. Some adults think that just because it’s in the Bible, a child can cope. But if you’ve got an insecure child, you’re on a hiding to nothing telling the story of Abraham and Isaac, or the story of Japheth and his daughter, which I personally think is an outrageous story.
Would you use a story where God doesn’t save the day? For example Stephen who is taken away to be stoned?
HW I think so… that is the experience of a lot of Christians around the world. In fact, you can use the story of Jesus dying on Good Friday. Jesus rose from the dead, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a really sad story.
So how would you tell these stories?
HW The telling is really important. With the child you certainly have to have eye contact, you’ve got to show imagination. You’ve got to show your own empathy and get right into the story. I’ve known some brilliant storytellers who use all the sound effects and voices, turning the lights down in the room, using smells. When it comes to the Bible, others switch off their entire storytelling charm and make it something written in stone and rather dull. It’s very sad when I see people not bringing those gifts to the telling of Bible stories.
If I just sit behind a smug answer , that is not a good way of opening up a conversation
How would you have a conversation with a child about a Bible story?
HW The biggest way to have a conversation with a child about the Bible is to not be the total authority. In other words, it’s important to allow the child to interpret the story. So you can say, ‘What do you think?’ Show some level of wonder in the story yourself. So if asked, ‘Why did Stephen get stoned to death when he was a good guy?’ you could say, ‘That’s a really interesting question, there are some things I don’t know.’ I’m being quite honest with you; I’m telling you that as a modern - day theologian with a PhD in the subject, I don’t actually know why there is suffering. And why should I tell a child that the reason for suffering is so that God is glorified? Now I happen to also believe that, but if I just sit behind a smug answer, that is not a good way of opening up a conversation. I think the best conversations I’ve had with children are to enter the theological discussion and to let the conversation open and open.
Tell us about your latest research and your book…
HW Over the last five years I’ve run a project funded by Bible Society called ‘Bible Stories between Children and their Parents,’ which was published as a book called A Child Sees God (Jessica Kingsley, 2009). What I’ve found, I’m pleased to say, is that a child can be prophet and have a new insight into what the Bible means.
