Should 4 year-old children preach the Gospel?

Question

WARNING: Turn your volumes down. Not all the way, but so they are pretty low. The sound on this video is loud. And, yes, it's meant to sound like it does. It didn't sound any better originally, I promise you.
http://www.uber.com/preacher

Little Hitler indeed. Poor kid. Every day I realize more and more just how many people actually screw their children up like this and make them victims of extremism. Just as bad, I watch too many Christians actually listen to and defend it. Those of you who answered my previous questions know that once I saw the horrors of the Creation Museum I stopped taking it lightly. If you don't believe me, check out my previous question:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ag4.CqKRz5csvm5P0mpjYvDty6IX?qid=20070715160555AAU37GC

I think the true Christians should stand up and help fight this oppression and abuse. I know some of you have already started in your own ways. The more the merrier.

Impossible_Dream - No, like I said before, what that little girl said sounded worse than this video. You didn't notice the 'Heil Hitler' signals? I'm wondering- do you wear glasses? It was very obvious.

Again, she is supposed to sound like that. It's not what she even says that's important, you can hear it all from any neo-Nazi. It's her gestures, her face. I wouldn't subject anyone to what this poor, abused child said. It's unimportant. It was militant extremism. That is not my video, btw - it belongs to the site.

*Somebody* - You are the worst of your ilk, a blight upon Christians who actually know the values of Jesus. How am I lying? Did you miss the Hitler hand-signals from the tiny girl and from the audience. How many times do I have to explain that the sound on this is doctored? The LIE is the one you make by accusing Al Gore of treason (!!!) which makes you cerifiably cuckoo and the one you tell yourself in your everyday life. You've misread your entire Bible. If Jesus was the son of God he'd have you burn for being such a hateful, malevolent human being. Oh, and thanks for you answer, dear!

Answer 1

Maybe it's just me, but when I click the link it's inaudible because playback is set too fast. How can you even hear what she's saying?

That said, I wholeheartedly agree with your premise that religious indoctrination and brainwashing is a horrible thing to inflict on our children. I also suspect that Faith healers and televangelists can relate well to this next quote.

"I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh whenever he sees another soothsayer."
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so.
— Ernestine Rose

The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age and then it is almost impossible to do anything with them.
— Thomas Edison, (1847-1931)

Give me child until the age of six and I will give you a Nazi for life.
— Adolph Hitler

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.
— Clarence Darrow

I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion.... If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible?
— Ruth Hurmence Green,

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
— Arthur Schopenhauer

Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of mankind trained from infancy to believe in error.
— Robert Owen

There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
— Arthur Schopenhauer

The loss of religious faith among the most civilized portion of the race is a step from childishness toward maturity.
— Charles Eliot Norton

Illusions die hard and it is painful to yield to the insight that a grown-up can be no man's disciple.
— Sheldon B. Kopp

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
— Bertrand Russell

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind--that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
— H.L. Mencken

If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.
— Sigmund Freud

For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.
— Albert Ellis

The origin of the absurd idea of immortal life is easy to discover; it is kept alive by hope and fear, by childish faith, and by cowardice.
— Clarence Darrow

Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment.
— Alan Watts

It is difficult, none the less, for the ordinary man to cast off orthodox beliefs, for he is seldom allowed to hear the other side.... Whereas the Christian view is pressed on him day in and day out.
— Margaret Knight

If we must play the theological game, let us never forget that it is a game. Religion, it seems to me, can survive only as a consciously accepted system of make believe.
— Aldous Huxley

Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
— Isaac Asimov

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
— Isaac Asimov

Answer 2

I watched the videos. They have all been altered in some way, with voice-overs of profanity and flatulance. The one of the young girl was done fast-action (chipmunk style).

Are you saying that you take these vids seriously or that you want us to take them seriously?

You "think the true Christians should stand up and help fight this oppression and abuse." What????

When you lie and misrepresent others in order to discredit them, you need to at least make your lies half way believable. Haven't you read "The Art of War" or "The ScrewTape Letters".

The use of videos is interesting though. That is how they convinced some people that Al Gore, a decorated war hero, was actually a traitor. They did it by only showing half the story and inserting their lies at the end. Some people are too lazy to look stuff up or lack the curiousity to ask questions so you might convince some people that way;

But Unibrow????? Have you lost your mind?

You might consider calling Hypocrites "True Christians" and point out all the atrocities done in the name of Jesus. Ignorant people buy that one all the time. Most people after all don't actually know exactly what Jesus taught.

Answer 3

I could not view the video, but this little girl is not the first 4 year old to preach, mabe the first girl. Marjoe Gortner was the first to preach at the age of 4 back in the 1940's. He grew up and made a documentary called simply Marjoe. In this documentary he came clean of the deceptive methods he was taught to use to bilk people out of the money. He quit preaching when this move hit the theaters and became a public speaker and demonstrated his techniques to people.

He was a fake and admitted so in his movie.He caused an uproar when he performed marriage cermonies at the age of five.]
I attended a UPC church in 1975 and the preacher had a 4 year old son who preached and I heard just last year that boy is a grown man in prison for child molestation now.
BB

Answer 4

THAT was truly disturbing! I missed the Hitler stuff, since I was so repulsed by the poor child's Pulp-Fiction-esque "furious anger and vengeance" mannerisms! Did she not look like she was in SERIOUS pain?! NO child gets that angry, for that long, unless she's suffered in the extreme. Ugh, those dirty, filthy, abusive MORONS, who would do that to a child...she should be taken from them STAT!

I mosied around that (excellent) and found another one, "cute" but still upsetting, called "Young preacher and his slip of the tongue":

This tiny blond boy, obviously coached by someone off-camera, holds a bible and says, among other things: "There's only one church of the lord...and I...I don't know what that church is". Pathetic...! Check it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py1QneIIQRg

Answer 5

Hmmm...the videos didn't work for me. But at least let me answer this...I have seen children preaching the gospel door to door before. It was big with the Jehovah's Witnesses to do so. Send in the little kids, less chance to get cussed at. Only some people are so disgruntled with religion and people that come to their door to sell it, that they cursed the children anyway, in lieu of an adult to cuss at. I have watched Jesus Camp and man oh man, is that scary, to so totally indoctrinate babies into a religion of hatred and threats of burning people up with hell's fire. Damned shame if you ask me.

Answer 6

no, a 4 year old child is not qualified to teach anything, they are still learning themselves. it is good for a 4 year old to learn and believe and know why they believe but they are incapable of teaching and knowing what to teach. and nobody should drag children into that. they should be allowed to be kids, enjoy childhood, and when they grow up and if they feel a calling to preach or teach then they should take the proper training they need to do that. some people don't even have that talent in them, it's not for everyone, and thats ok, everyone is called to do different things.

Answer 7

Yes they should, and I think most of the responders are wrong. I have seen a 4 year old preach the Gospel and I have seen it move adults to tears.. You do not haft to believe, that is your choice, but in case you do not know, the word Gospel means GOOD NEWS, and any one regardless of age, who wishes to tell a lost and sick world that there is more than just this life, who wants to see lives changed in a positive way, to see broken homes put back together, to see broken hearts healed, yes they should preach. Christ said very clearly, unless you humble your self as a child, you will not see the kingdom of Heaven. pride will put many into hell, denial will put even more.

Answer 8

No. I think if they are that young and preaching they are brain washed. At 4 years old all I worried about was what toy I was going to play with next.

She didn't have a choise in what religion she is preaching. Her parents probably rehersed the speach with her before church.

I think it is wrong for a 4 year old to preach

Answer 9

Generally, 4 year olds do not have the mental capacity or comprehension to preach the gospel, much less, make a solid argument. Whatever this 4 year old is doing is from rote, not reasoning.

Answer 10

I couldn't get it to load properly, she sounded like a tiny little chipmunk on speed (bless her) that was channelling Adolf Hitler. NO ONE should take away a child's innocence and subject them to that type of extremism. It's not only frightening but almost makes me want to start stocking weapons (I said ALMOST, sillies......)
Never again. Not that. Never again. I'll be with you on the front lines.