How Will Our Children Know God? Resisting Cultural Epistemologies that Hinder Spiritual Wisdom

This article critiques contemporary children’s ministry curricula, which mirror general education’s emphasis on transmitting discrete knowledge units and assessing “correct” answers. A review of Protestant curricular resources from the late 1990s through the 2000s reveals persistent reliance on simplified, predetermined “truths” presented as age-appropriate facts, with minimal regard for children’s developmental diversity or theological reflection. Such approaches prioritize content delivery over skill development, reducing prayer to a didactic tool and framing teachers as conveyors of fixed information. The author argues that this rationalist epistemology, shaped by Enlightenment and standardized educational models, neglects historic Christian understandings of revelation, illumination, and embodied wisdom. Reclaiming traditions that emphasize prayer, contemplation, and religious intuition—drawing from scripture, patristic, medieval, and reformist epistemologies—offers an alternative pedagogy. The article calls for curricula and congregational practices that cultivate children’s capacity to encounter God through communal discernment, contemplative practices, and integrative forms of knowing beyond measurable outcomes.