Sunday school answer

A photograph of a woman wearing a red-and-blue-striped robe holding a white stick and speaking while standing in front of a group of children who are facing her
To call an answer a "Sunday school answer" is to suggest that the answer could have been provided at a Sunday school by a child who wasn't even listening to the question.

"Sunday school answer" is a pejorative[1] used within Evangelical Christianity[2] to refer to an answer as being the kind of answer one might give to a child.[1] The phrase derives its name from the concept that certain answers are likely to be an appropriate answer to a question asked in a Sunday school even if one has not heard the question.[3] These answers include Jesus, sin, and the cross.[4]

For example, if a Sunday school teacher were to ask the question, "Now class, what is brown and furry and collects nuts for the winter?", a student might respond, "It sure sounds like a squirrel, but... is it Jesus?"[5] The term "Sunday school answer" is commonly used to criticize someone for attempting to answer a complex question with an answer that is simplistic, that has not been thought out well, or that is not connected with reality.[6] It can also be used to criticize someone for boastfully trying to call attention to their knowledge of the Bible.[7]

According to James W. Fowler's stages of faith development, people who are in Stage 4, the "Individuative-Reflective" stage, find such answers an impediment to addressing new questions that they wish to ask.[8]

In her book Love Letters to Miscarried Moms, Samantha Evans argues that answers dismissed as Sunday school answers "for being obvious, corny and surface-level answers... are most often the right answers".[9]

National Basketball Association player Jeremy Lin said in a 2013 interview that, although he "knew the Sunday school answers" while he was growing up, it wasn't until he became a high school freshman and joined a youth group where he experienced "radical love" that he felt like he wanted to commit to Christianity.[10]

In Mormonism

"Sunday school answer" is also used in the culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) to refer to trite answers that one might provide to a question posed during the church's Sunday School classes. Such answers include "reading the scriptures, praying daily, serving ... family and others, and attending the temple and ... Sunday meetings".[11] Church members sometimes argue that if the Sunday School answers are truly implemented in one's life, they are the answers to life's challenges.[11][12][13]

References

  1. 1 2 Sanders (2009), p. 41.
  2. ↑ Wax (2013), p. 24.
  3. ↑ Moore (2006), p. 80.
  4. ↑ Lawrence (2010), p. 38.
  5. ↑ Weibel (2007), p. 28.
  6. ↑ Hunt (1997), p. 47.
  7. ↑ Putman (2010), p. 142.
  8. ↑ Galindo (2004), p. 103.
  9. ↑ Evans (2011), p. 37.
  10. ↑ Murashko, Alex (October 2, 2013). "Interview: Jeremy Lin on Embracing 'Linsanity' Spotlight, Where God Wants Him to Be". The Christian Post. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
  11. 1 2 Emma Addams, "Sunday School Answers", Liahona, October 2012.
  12. ↑ Kate Manning, "BYU–Idaho Students Told to Let Their Light Shine", lds.org, 22 June 2015.
  13. ↑ R. Bruce Money, "The Lord’s Country and Kingdom–Your Passport", speeches.byu.edu, 22 July 2014.

Bibliography

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