In the first generation of Christians, this was not an issue. They thought that before there was a next generation, Jesus would return to usher in the end of the world and God's judgment. However, they were wrong. The world did not end, and if the Jesus movement were not itself to die out, the good news about him would have to be passed onto the next generation. The first way Christians did this was to write down the stories about what Jesus said and did, before those eyewitnesses who could attest to their truth had all died. That way, people who had never known Jesus in the flesh could find out why he was so important. They collected these Gospels or good news stories together with letters written by Christian leaders to churches all over the Mediterranean area and added them to the Scriptures of the Hebrew Bible.
In the Roman Empire, where Christianity originated, the basic unit of society was the household, made up not only of parents and children but their household slaves too. If the head of a household converted to Christianity, so did the rest of his household. The Acts of the Apostles, mostly an account of Paul, one of the most important of the early church leaders, and the journeys he travelled to spread Christianity, describes him baptising whole households when the head of the family converted to Christianity - such as the jailor of a prison from where Paul and his friend Silas refused to escape, though an earthquake had set them free from their chains, because the jailor would have been punished in their place. Timothy, another prominent Christian leader described in the New Testament, had a mother and grandmother who were Christian, so faith had evidently passed down the generations to him.
Baptism was the way that Christians were initiated into the church - washing them three times with running water in the name of God the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The directive to make disciples from people of all nations and to baptise them like this comes right at the end of Matthew's Gospel, and ever since then Christians have sought to pass on their faith in God to other people. However, after the first few generations, passing on the faith to those growing up in Christian families became equally important.
In the fourth century AD, when under the Emperor Constantine Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it became much more popular. When people became Christians as adults, they went through a three-year preparation, teaching them about the faith and putting their morals to the test, before they could be fully admitted into the church. Until they were received by baptism into church membership, these learners or catechumens were not allowed to stay in worship beyond a certain point in the service. At first adult conversion and baptism was the norm. It was even sometimes left very late in life, because baptism shows that people's sins are forgiven, and some people wanted to do as much living as possible beforehand, to make sure of God's forgiveness. But we have evidence for children being baptised as early as the third century. Initially adult baptism and welcome into full church membership happened at the same ceremony, led by the Bishop, a regional church leader. But when the numbers of Christians increased, bishops were unable to attend every church for every baptism, so baptism of small children by the priest or local church leader was then followed at a later date by a service called confirmation, where the Bishop prayed for the person be confirmed and strengthened in their faith by the help of God's Holy Spirit. After confirmation they were allowed to participate fully in the church's life, including Holy Communion, our meal of bread and wine.
In the medieval period baptism of infants became normal, because people feared lest children who died before baptism would not be received into heaven by God. This, thank goodness, is no longer believed. By the time of the Protestant Reformation, though, people were questioning whether babies who could not make any response for themselves could really have a faith of their own. Christians called Baptists taught that people who had been baptised as children could choose to be baptised again as adults to show their own commitment to God. Children of Baptist Christians were welcomed into the church with thanksgiving as part of a household of faithful Christians. Now some Protestant churches like mine still baptise the babies of Christian parents who bring them for this purpose, as well as adults.
Meanwhile, the Orthodox Churches, mostly in Greece and Eastern Europe, baptise and confirm babies in the same ceremony, making them full members of the church from the beginning of their lives. The ceremony is not held until the child is old enough to remember his or her baptism, even if they are not yet of an age to make the choice for themselves.
Baptism is one thing, a ceremony symbolising God's unearned welcome and love, welcoming people into a church. But after baptism, people need to go on learning about their faith, if they are to grow up into it, rather than staying spiritual babies their whole lives long. That passing on of faith has taken many forms through the history of the Christian churches.
When in the fourth century it became so popular to be Christian, some people thought it was getting too easy to follow Jesus. They went into the desert to live very simple lives and be close to God. But others followed them, wanting to learn more about Christianity from these monks and nuns. One of the ways they passed on their faith was by getting people to memorise parts of the Bible, particularly the psalms.
Memorising parts of the Bible stayed part of Christian education for centuries after that. In the medieval period, again monks and nuns provided education for boys from well-to-do families, teaching them about the Bible and prayer as well as Greek, the language of the New Testament, and Latin, the language of church services. But everyone who came to church could learn about God from the stained-glass windows, showing pictures of stories from the Bible and the lives of saints.
When the Industrial Revolution came to Britain, and thousands of poor children were taken to work in the factories, Christians were concerned that they were no longer learning anything about God. So philanthropists set up Sunday Schools in which children whose families could not afford an education were taught to read, to learn verses of the Bible by heart and to sing simple songs telling Bible stories. Christians who weren't in the Church of England organised their own Sunday schools to teach their own understandings of the faith.
When compulsory state education began in England, in the nineteenth century, some schools were church schools, usually either Anglican or Roman Catholic. Some private schools also have church links. From 1944 compulsory daily prayer was introduced into all state schools, with or without church connections; from 1988 this was specified to be of a broadly Christian character except where this was deemed inappropriate for a particular school or group of children within a school, for example if there is a Muslim majority. However, though that act allows for the possibility of smaller numbers of children gathering for a specific form of worship rather than the whole school, with fewer teachers willing or able to conduct acts of Christian worship, this provision has frequently been ignored or side-stepped.
I have no background in education, but it seems to me that changes in the curriculum of religious education have also taken place. Where once it was commonplace in Britain to assume a Christian background to education and to teach about religion from a Christian perspective and largely on Christian topics, teachers coming from any particular faith perspective are now discouraged from speaking from a personal point of view, for fear of unduly influencing the children in their care. Information about major world faiths is taught and festivals of major world faiths are celebrated as even-handedly as possible. The advantage of this is that children are less ignorant about the faiths of their fellow-pupils than was once the case in Britain. The disadvantages are twofold: that children end up with a mixed picture of faith rather than fully understanding any tradition, even their own, and that they end up, taught by people who have not themselves experienced faith from a personal perspective, with the impression that faith is not a possibility for them.
Christians are now getting used to the idea that children will not necessarily learn the stories of our faith, unless we teach them. But at the same time, fewer children are in churches than was once the case. Where Sunday worship used to be the only or major activity on offer, there are now sports, shopping or visits to the other half of a split family competing for children's attention.
This means that churches which wish to bring the next generation up in the faith have a difficult balancing act to do. The majority of people in mainstream churches in Britain are older, with children and grandchildren of their own. They faithfully brought children to Sunday school, but many of those children, once adult, did not choose to carry on that family tradition. Many faithful churchgoers are accustomed to the quiet, regular style of worship, singing hymns from previous centuries and listening to sermons with old-fashioned language, familiar from their youth. Modern children, on the other hand, are generally accustomed to short spells of active learning followed quickly by doing something else. They learn through pictures, television, loud music and computer games - none of which play a very large part in church life.
Worshippers accustomed from their youth to being quiet and obedient in church - or getting into trouble for being otherwise! - may find it hard to accept small children running around and sometimes making a noise, or young people wanting to discuss their faith rather than listening quietly to a sermon. Yet if we stick to the passive learning methods that were once the norm, we will attract few if any younger people to the faith we hold dear and wish to transmit to them.
One method bridging this apparent gulf between the generations is the telling of stories. Storytelling is something that unites young and old - just think of the continuing popularity of soap operas! - and is one of the main ways Jesus taught his friends. And the stories of the Bible are still alive in popular culture. People who talk about good Samaritans, or prodigal sons, may not realise they are quoting from stories Jesus told, but those stories and many more are still well known among people who do not realise they know anything about my faith. And the retelling of those stories of our faith which mean a lot to us is one of the best ways Christians can help pass that faith on to the next generation. We can no longer assume that everyone knows our stories, or will automatically respect them, but if we live in ways that fit the stories of Jesus, which we believe are good news for everyone, then my hope is that others, children and adults, will find them attractive enough to want to find out more.