A story about god and coercion
NOTE: This is meant to be a kid’s story. At the end I have suggestions for how you can tweak it to make it your own.
There were a small group of friends who had their own special god. One day they were kidnapped by a ship captain and forced to work for him. Once aboard, the captain took the ship far out to sea.
The captain forced the crew to do all the work for him. He made them clean the ship all day. He also made them shoot canons at his enemies.
The captain worshiped his god every Sunday and forced all of his crew to worship the god with him. The group of friends he captured didn’t want to do it. They went off into the corner to worship their own god.
The captain didn’t like that they did that so he beat them up to punish them.
The next Sunday, the captain worshiped his god again. And again the group of friends worshiped and prayed to their own god instead.
So the captain beat them up again.
The friends did everything else the captain asked them to do, and they worked really hard even at night when the other people on the ship weren’t working. They even helped the captain shoot canons at his enemies.
Finally, the captain got tired of beating up the friends. He knew they worked really hard and he felt bad about beating them up just because they wanted to worship their own god in their own way. So the captain started sitting with the friends on Sundays.
One day when the captain was shooting canons at his enemies and he started to feel really bad. It didn’t feel good to hurt his enemies anymore.
He felt just as bad about them as he felt about beating up the friends.
The next time they got to shore, the captain and his new friends got off the ship, and the ship went back out to sea without them.
The end.
A few touches you can add to the story
Calling the group “friends” can make it confusing, so maybe give them a special name?
Explain who this real god is.
Personally, I have an aversion to going down this path. The story works without knowing what exactly the friends worshiped because their actions speak for themselves. Keeping god a mystery is important IMO, but for the record, this is a Quaker story, and it may even be a true story. Quakers call their members “friends”.
The group of friends can be almost any group your child likes. Maybe Elsa from Frozen is one of the friends who gets captured.
Both the captain and the friends called their god by the same name, but the friends still didn’t want to worship with the captain.
This detail could help show that the name doesn’t matter so much. Two people can believe in the same god, but it’s not really the same god
Explain what the friends worship looked like: maybe they prayed, shared stories, sang songs, danced, etc.
Does it matter how they worshiped? Would anything specific be off limits?
Does it matter THAT they worshiped?
Go meta. What if the captain worked for a king who was fighting a war with another king? And the king forced the captain to shoot canons.
Option 1) The captain refused to shoot canons and the king put the captain and his friends in the dungeon.
Option 2) The captain did go back to see and follow the king, but refused to worship the king’s god.
Questions to think about
It’s tempting to put the “dad” hat on and try to tell your kids what the moral lesson is. But this is like spoiling the end to a story, or teaching them how to ride a bike by holding onto the seat so firmly that the kid doesn’t have to pedal at all to move forward. Maybe your child’s insight will be a pleasant surprise.
Is it right for the friends to help the captain shoot canons but refuse to worship with him? Maybe it would have been better if they worshiped with the captain, but refused to shoot canons.
Now if they refuse to shoot canons, would it also be right for them to refuse to clean the canons? What about cleaning the ship?
If someone makes you do something bad, do you have to do it? Should the friends have shot canons?
St. Augustine would say that if you were forced, you’re morally blameless because you’re a tool in the hand of another.
The Nuremburg trials after WWII would say that if you helped the Nazis kill the Jews, you’re guilty even if you were forced.
Suppose the king sanctioned the naval war the captain was fighting in. And suppose that the king waged this war to help defend a small island that was being unfairly attacked. Would this situation make it ok for the captain to shoot canons? Would it be wrong for him to stop?