One day a boy named David, who had bright-red hair and freckles, announced that he wouldn’t go to heaven if he couldn’t have peanut butter. We all argued over whether angels (which we all hoped to become) ever ate anything, let alone peanut butter. As the debate raged on, each of us sought guidance from a higher authority—our parents. When we compared answers the next day, we found that grown-ups could not agree on this critical theological point, either.I sympathized with our parents years later, when Chelsea and her friends came to Bill and me with even weightier inquiries. By first grade, they were asking: “Where is heaven, and who gets to go there?” “Does God ever make a mistake?” “What does God look like?” “Why does God let people do bad things?” “Do angels have real bodies?” “Does God care if I squash a bug?” “Is the Devil a person inside or outside of us?”Bill and I were struck by these questions, even as we struggled to provide thoughtful answers within the scope of a child’s understanding.
