Those who think an honest look at our messy church history, with all its conflicts, disagreements, and outright misconducts, might be discouraging to our children need to think again. The reason why the Bible is such a comforting book in spite of all the messiness it reveals is that it keeps bringing us back to the only true Hero of history, our Triune God, who has never swayed from his perfect plan of redeeming a people for himself.

A few years ago, after writing the nth article on the benefits of learning church history, I decided never to touch this subject again. Editors kept asking me to write more, but I thought I had said all there was to say about it. Until now, when recent events have brought the study (or ignorance) of history in the limelight, providing inescapable object lessons on the dangers of dismissing, over-simplifying, or distorting historical facts.

When some deface statues of abolitionists in an effort to speak against racism, while others defend the past by keeping it under a veil of comfortable silence, we wonder what happened to sound reason. To resurrect reason, we need a serious commitment to honesty, humility, and hope in our study of history—and in how we present that history to our children.

Honesty

Few historians today would deliberately write a biased account. While it’s true that different authors bring different points of view to the same narrative, most try to present facts with some objectivity, offering various sides of each story. But this is not always true in children’s books, particularly in the Christian market. Although the quality of Christian biographies for children has improved from the largely fictionalized hagiographies of the 19^th century, embellishing stories and using them to convey a specific message are still pesky habits that need to be recognized and fought. The temptation is strong; most people like a world with a neat distinction between good and evil, and it’s a distinction that children readily understand. But that’s not the real world. Even masters of depiction of battles between good and evil—such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis—knew that the lines of distinction are not strongly marked, and the conflicts that rage within a person are just as important as those that are fought in an open field.

The main reason we tend to accept simplistic stories for our children is a belief that they can’t handle complex issues, problematic situations, or accounts of regretful behavior. But in reality, children can understand more than we think. The Bible is an excellent example of an honest account, and children who are kept with their parents during worship (rather than being sent to “children’s church” – a fairly modern invention) can benefit from hearing stories of the dysfunctional families, flawed heroes, and perplexing situations God has used in his great story of redemption.

It’s true that many Bible stories raise uncomfortable questions, but they also allow parents to provide prayerful explanations to issues their children may encounter on their own, probably sooner than expected. Honesty in retelling the past may make parents uncomfortable in more ways than one. Parents who hide their faults from their children and try to keep up an unrealistic image of perfection at home may have a hard time conveying the struggles, inner conflicts, and faults of historical heroes. Exalting some people and discarding others is a simple, time-efficient solution. Thankfully, the practice in most Reformed churches to have a weekly, common confession of sins where parents and children are on the same level before God is helpful in this regard.

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