Religious thinking of Indonesian children from childhood to adolescence

Abstract

The main problem of this thesis has been to study what Indonesian children think about the Church, Prayer and the Bible, and to study what they think about: God's activity in the natural world, the holiness of God, God's concern towards men, Jesus and the problem of evil. To know; their thinking about these four themes, the writer has used three pericopes of the Bible: Hoses and the Burning Bush (Ex.3:1-22), Crossing the Red Sea (Ex. 14: 1-31) and Jesus ' Temptation (Matth. 4 :1-10). It is to be expected that tills study will help the writers of curriculum pastors, teachers and parents to understand how children think about religious matters. This thesis has been a comparative study between Goldman's conclusions reported in his book Religious Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence and data obtained from an investigation of children's thinking in West Java about the same questions studied by Goldman. The writer's hypothesis was that the way of thinking of Indonesian Children about religious themes would support Goldman's conclusions. To place this research in perspective, the writer made a brief summary of the thinking of the following persons : D.Elkind, in his Children and Adolescents (Interpretive essays on J.Piaget); I.Cully , in The Children in the Church; E .H. Erikson, in Children and Society; G.Allport, in The Individual and His Religion; J.Sherrill, in The Struggle of the Soul; F .L. Ilg & L .B . Ames, in The Gesell Institute's Child Behaviour. The heart of this study has been research among children aged about 6 , 9, 13 a n d 1 6 , the ages studied by Goldman. She conducted her research in the Indonesian Christian Church of West Java' s Elementary and Junior High Schools in Jakarta (big city), Sukabumi and Tasikmalaya (average cities ) , Indramayu and Jatibarang (small towns). The methodology used was similar to that of Goldman's. To obtain data of children's thinking about the Church, Prayer and the Bible, she used the same type of pictures but ajusted to the Indonesian situation. Pictures of a family going to Church, a 61 x 87 cm., using several colours to makе the pictures alive and attractive. The three pericopes and research questions were stencilled on good quality paper and administered to all children, except for those aged six with whom all questioning was done orally. The answers given by children each age group were classified according to similarity of ideas with prosentage noted for each answer. The writer's hypothesis was not fully supported. Indonesian children (West Java, mainly of Chinese answers) of the same age as English do not give the same types of answers. However, they go through the same intuitive, concrete and abstract stages, but with an age rank of one less than the English; that is: answers given by a nine; old English child are not given until thirteen years old by Indonesian children. The reason for this difference is probably related to the type of education given to the Indonesian schools in general, because students from Diponegoro School approach the answers given by English children at the same age. But this is suggested as a matter for further research.