Was it a dove and does it matter?

A church member sent me this question:

“I have a question that has come up in our Sunday school classes and wanted a professional educator’s opinion. This past week we were studying the passage where John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and then the spirit descended upon the earth “like a dove.” Now of course, any story that I have heard says that the spirit descended and it was a dove. But one of our teachers was offended because the Bible doesn’t say it was an actual dove but “like a dove”. [My husband] and I have been having this discussion because how would you teach this story to a 1st-5th grader about an abstract thought. Would it be better to tell them it was a dove since that is very concrete or tell them about this abstract thought of the Holy Spirit?

”The teacher’s thought was that we shouldn’t tell them one thing when they are younger and then teach them something totally different later on down the road. What is your opinion?”

Here’s what I think. For starters, it is appropriate, and desirable, to “just tell the story” without interpretation to younger children. And it’s o.k. to be concrete—Adam and Eve were “real” persons, the Garden was a real place, there were animals on the ark, Balaam’s donkey talked, and, if you like, it was “a dove.” Children really just need the story—not our (adult) interpretation of it.

For the issue you raise I go by “The Santa Claus Clause.” The age span you designated is pretty wide, and as you know, there’s quite a lot of developmental difference between a 1st grader and a 5th grader. “The Santa Claus Clause” says that when a child is able to cease “magical thinking” about Santa Claus (and the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Boogie Man, Chupacabra, whatever and etc.), then he or she is able to start moving from concrete-magical thinking to a more nuanced but rudimentary symbolic understanding. This isn’t a cognitive hard line, of course, more of a developmental process, especially since it involves not only cognitive but affective movement related to belief. So, we should be gracious and gentle.

So, one guideline to consider is, about when do the kids in your church stop believing in Santa Claus?

But, a larger issue is that one must still be true to the text: the passage is not about the dove, it’s about Jesus. I find it amusing that when people (adults) overfocus on things like “it’s a ‘real’ dove”, they ultimately do a greater harm by missing the point. The fallacy here is confusing “real” with “true.” The fact, of course, is that it really doesn’t matter whether is was a dove, a manifestation, a ray of the sun, or a beam of light—the term ‘dove’ is a simile—the POINT of the story is the identification (revealing) of Jesus as the Son of God—the Christ (the anointed one). [I’m always bemused to observe that any narrative that has an animal of some sort in it is considered automatically to be a “children’s story.” The worst violation of this is the misuse, misapplication, and overuse of the Flood narrative (in which God destroys the world and just about everything and anyone in it) as a children’s story in the guise of friendly Noah and his ark full of cute and cuddly animals. What exactly do people think they are teaching children with this narrative, I wonder? That the story ends with a colorful rainbow and a promise seems short of consolation for a story of terror. But, I rant…]

Given that, I’d stick with telling the story—sticking to the point of the messianic identification (or obedience, whatever you’re using the story for)—and say “like a dove” and not dwell on whether is was a ‘real’ dove unless some really smart kid actually asks the question. And if the kid does ask, I’d say, “Let’s read the passage again and see what it says,” and let the kid figure it out for himself. You’d be amazed at how sophisticated they can be in interpreting for themselves—much less reactive that some adults who are jarred by the fact that THEY have been concrete thinkers all this time and that there actually is no ‘dove’ in the passage!

As to the teacher’s concern of telling them one thing now and something else later, I’d just remind them that they do this to their kids all the time—including the issue of Santa Claus! Kids are resilient and can participate in shaping their own faith as appropriate.