A Child on a School Bus: A Theological Stress Test

Faith & Science Conversation
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Amy-Jill Levine, a Jew, recounts a formative childhood experience: at age seven, a Catholic classmate told her, “You killed our Lord. My priest said so.” Levine went home in tears, crying, “I killed God!” Her mother reassured her that God was “doing just fine,” but the incident left a permanent mark.

This story is often told biographically. I suggest reading it instead as a theological stress test:

What Christian theology, if taught responsibly and age-appropriately, would have made that accusation impossible—not merely unkind, but unintelligible?

The key phrase here is age-appropriately. A doctrine that may require nuance even for adults can become actively harmful when translated—without care—into a child’s moral universe.

1. Atonement theology that cannot be reduced to blame language

If the cross is taught to children in terms of who killed Jesus, rather than why Jesus died, the result is almost guaranteed distortion. Atonement language that is not carefully framed for children will default to moral blame, and moral blame looks for culprits. Properly taught, the cross is about sin and redemption—not ethnic or collective guilt. If a doctrine cannot be rendered without scapegoating when simplified, something is already wrong.

2. A doctrine of sin that is universal and teachable to children

Christian theology insists that sin is universal. But children reason concretely, not abstractly. If “everyone sins” is taught alongside stories naming specific groups as Jesus’ opponents, children will naturally infer that those people are the sinners. Age-appropriate theology must actively block this inference by teaching that sin is a shared human condition, not a group trait.

3. Teaching Jesus’ Jewishness as a first-order fact

Children should learn early that Jesus, his family, and his first followers were Jewish—and that this matters. If Judaism is implicitly presented as the “bad before” and Christianity as the “good after,” the charge Levine heard is not an aberration; it is the logical outcome. This is not advanced interfaith theory. It is basic theological hygiene.

4. Scripture taught as contextual witness, not courtroom evidence

Children are especially vulnerable to absolutized claims. Teaching the Gospels without context—especially polemical passages—invites them to read Scripture as accusation rather than proclamation. Historical context is not an adult luxury; it is a child-protection measure.

5. Ecclesial authority taught with accountability

The phrase “my priest said so” did the damage. A healthy ecclesiology teaches children that religious authority is real—but not infallible, and always accountable to love of neighbor. If children are taught that authority overrides conscience and compassion, theology becomes a weapon.

Levine’s story raises a sharp question for churches:

Is our theology robust enough to survive being taught to children without producing fear, scapegoating, or false guilt?

Questions

  1. Which Christian doctrines most urgently require age-appropriate framing—and why?
  2. Is antisemitic catechesis mainly a failure of interpretation, or a failure to consider how theology lands on children?
  3. Should “the child in the room” function as a theological test, not just a pastoral concern?
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I have never understood why a Christian would say “The Jews killed Jesus,” or even “The Romans killed Jesus” (even though the latter would be historically most accurate) as our theology states unequivocally that Jesus died for our sins. We killed Jesus, I killed Jesus. That is a little too abstract for children to grasp, so agree that it should be age and maturity appropriate.

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  • The Life and times of a Jewish New Testament Scholar
    • "Rewind to the summer of 1963: Future New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine was watching the broadcast of Pope John XXIII’s funeral on her parents’ TV set. The seven-year-old—who lived in a largely Portuguese Roman Catholic neighborhood in the town of North Dartmouth in southeastern Massachusetts—didn’t understand why she couldn’t just watch cartoons that morning, so her mother explained who the pope was, and that he had done good things for the Jews. Levine started paying closer attention, and soon announced that she would like to grow up to be Pope. After all, she reasoned, she would be able to eat lots of spaghetti, wear great accessories and help her own community. “You can’t be pope,” her mother told her, “you’re not Italian.” Levine chuckles at the memory of this 50-year-old exchange. “Clearly, for a variety of reasons,” she says, “I was in desperate need of instruction about the relationship between church and synagogue.”
    • Mysterious ways, IMO.
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A friend when I was in my university days encountered the same situation. His response was simple: “It’s okay; He got better”.
Of course the come-back was that people don’t come back from the dead. To that he said, “Not usually, but God isn’t usual.”

Amen!

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Both. If it isn’t good for children, odds are it isn’t good pastorally.

It also makes God look like an ogre.

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It’s blind thinking. Some Jews played a role in the execution of Jesus. Some Romans were directly involved in his crucifixion and Pontius Pilate was one of only a half dozen(?) hanging Judges at the time. Very few people could exercise capital punishment from what I understand of Ancient Rome. It’s part of a larger problem where Christians routinely read universal language in scripture with a wooden literalism or read scripture with a wooden literalism and invent universalist teachings from it.

Parts of the Gospels do seem to try to take blame off Pilate and place it on Jewish people. The fickle crowd just shouting Hosanna and making the authorities afraid to arrest Jesus now says his blood be on us and our children. John uses “the Jews” plenty of times and in hostile contexts. Judas means Jew and if you think Judas was an invention of the church since Paul shows no knowledge of the 11) this is basically saying the Jews betrayed Jesus. That view will not be held by most Christian’s though. Christianity includes a long history of anti-semitism and Christians and Jews seems to have had early conflicts and that is reflected in the gospels at times.

And I understand “we all killed Jesus” (he was pierced for transgressions) but even that is not the whole picture. Jesus willingly chose to lay down His life to save us. A ransom for many. No one had any real power over Jesus. Only what He chose and allowed before the foundation of the world. Not to mention, God killed Jesus. The overflowing love of God led to self “deicide.”

Vinnie

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  • Fretheim Lecture: Dr. Amy-Jill Levine (1/9/24), providing, IMO, a great sample of the kind of New Testament “work” A.J. Levine does, or at least did in a public lecture at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN [an annual event established in 2014 to bring renowned scholars to the Luther Seminary community. It honors the late Old Testament professor Terry Fretheim, often featuring distinguished lectures on biblical theology.]
  • I’d call this a real eye-opener. An edited transcript can be read at Edited Transcript
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That’s where I think people go off the rails theologically. I know - they can find a few scattered prooftexts that attribute all calamity and evil to God, and Calvinists use the concept of “Sovereignty” to logically enforce that understanding. But now I’m convinced that the only faithful understanding of God is to follow the N.T. scriptures as they inform us (by testimony of what Jesus himself said and taught and lived) - that when we see Jesus, we see God. And in that understanding the violence and evil associated with murders and executions is 100% us. The forgiveness that emanated even from the middle of those murderous evils (- from the cross itself) is 100% God. Or as Brian Zahnd put it, when we look at the cross, we see who God is. Not what God does. Once one sees that. They can’t unsee it. I’ll never go back.

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I think the issue is how we understand Providence and God’s sovereignty. Without having that discussion, I suppose we Christians will just proof-text hunt past one another. Isaiah 53 is a big one for God being responsible for Jesus. Though there are incongruities. Jesus asked that the cup be taken but he deferred to God’s will that He die as such. “God ordained but humans executed” is probably the larger message of scripture. Cause I don’t know how people killed Jesus before the world even formed (1 Peter 1:19-20) and this was part of the “definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” (Acts 2:28)

Or we see who God is by what God does. By not even sparing His only Son, but handing him over. Scripture uses a range of images and metaphors for atonement and what Jesus did. I prefer not to limit them.

The devil is in the details to me. Not saying you are doing this but when some people define Jesus by the Cross they usually bring in a specific version of Jesus they have in mind. If we look at what Jesus said and did throughout scripture, He spoke of God’s judgment quite bit and talked about a lot more than the lilies of the field, forgiveness and loving our neighbors. Repentance was a big one as well. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Vinnie

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But never in Jesus (i.e. - never in God).

Weeping and gnashing of teeth, to be sure. God allows us to see /experience at least some of the consequences of what we collecively and individually do. And will not let the lesson be lost on us. So in that sense, there is God’s permissive will. (Like Paul handing somebody over to Satan - not for their ultimate condemnation, but for their ultimate salvation after they’ve learned their lesson.)

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“handing him over” is probably even loaded language that leaves the wrong impression if by it one gathers that God needed violence to happen to his son. This notion (of Divine child abuse - if this is how God willingly treats his only son, how much of a chance do all the rest of us have?!) - that has generated more atheists (and rightly so) than probably most other notions. God in that case would not be somebody we would wish to emulate or admire.

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IIRC anyone we would call a “governor”, consuls, legates, and commanders of legions all had that power; regular magistrates probably not – they handed such cases to their superiors.

You mean he didn’t know that Judas was no longer among them?

A Lutheran professor when I was in grad school preached on “Who Killed Jesus?” once; he included the Father along with Jesus Himself in the list.

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Some critical scholars would argue Paul’s usage of the 12 is inconsistent with the later story about Judas and his contradictory fates since Jesus appeared to the 11. I think Judas is historical though.

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It also happens to be a bit of a technical term that I would try to expound on if I weren’t feeling so brain-dead at the moment (winter cold). It can in fact carry a very neutral sense of acquiescing to something already decided.

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Nonsense. “The Twelve” was a “term of art” or “technical term” that continued to be used by the early Fathers. That there were only 11 at the time of the Resurrection becomes irrelevant.

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I’d like to respond to Phil McCurdy’s comment regarding who killed Jesus. One should not blame an entire group of people whether it is the Jews, the Romans or “us”. The story is clear that the religious leaders of His day brought Him to the Roman governor so that He would be killed. The fact that Jesus died for us does not mean that we killed Him. Indeed, the focus should be that Jesus suffered paying the price we owed for our sins. Before Jesus died He said “It is finished”. He did His task. His death is just His return to the Father, a very welcome event…as our death should be. Fear of death is only for atheists or those not in the state of grace. Otherwise it is irrational. The terrible thought that each of us should keep in mind is that any sin we commit now increases the suffering of Jesus!!! Remember that God is out of time. Time is a created dimension of space that did not exist before creation. How painful it is to contemplate that by knowing something is sinful and still doing it or planning to do it (whether we do it or not) is a sin and adds to Jesus’s horrible suffering 200 years ago.

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Definitely. In the tradition of Gustav Aulen, Jesus stepped into the battle on our side and won for us. I think N.T. Wright leans that drirection as well.
We expect wrath from God, but God “switched sides” to grace and fought on our behalf – not just “God with us”, but “God for us”.

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I say that’s a “terrible thought” because it is wrong. Given that God is outside time, Jesus’ death paid for all sins, before the Cross and after the Cross. We cannot add to His suffering because He died with the Father knowing what sins we would commit.

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I agree that Jesus already paid for all our sins BUT we still have free will. Thus, we can decide to sin or not to sin. If we decide to sin then we do add to the suffering of Jesus. Yes indeed, that does not change the suffering of Jesus because He knew what we would do BUT when we decide to give in to temptation we need to realize that our decision increases His suffering as compared to a decision not to sin. Therefore this terrible thought should be a powerful motivation not to sin. The alternative would be to just say, it does not matter because Jesus already suffered for my sins. In fact it does matter. Look at the movie, The Passion of the Christ, and think how your sin contributed to that….it’s such a painful thought

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I’d like to express it differently. Jesus, being out of time, observes/experiences (the correct verb does not exist) everything that happened and will happen all at the same time. Thus, our actions today and His suffering are superimposed. In principle we could experience something quite similar if we were traveling at the speed of light next to the Earth and could see what is happening. At the speed of light, time stops and so all past, present and future activities on Earth would be seen as taking place in an instant (undefined infinitely short period of time).
How great is our God!!!