Hillary Clinton's book It Takes a Village to raise a child stressed need for community involvement in raising children. A book review in today's WaPo supports this position - but stresses that it is the church community that helps. Here is a quote from a review of GOD ON THE QUAD: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America By Naomi Schaefer Riley and SOUL SEARCHING: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers By Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton:
Any parent with a conscience who is raising a teenager will read these two books and immediately fall to her knees at the altar before God, Yahweh, Jesus, Muhammad -- nearly any recognizable deity will do -- and hope her children follow suit. Neither of these is remotely a parenting book, but the evidence they compile about American teenagers is pretty stark. Kids who describe themselves as religious are less likely to cut classes, do drugs, have sex, get depressed, feel alone or misunderstood, talk back to their parents, lie. Practically the only thing they score higher on is feeling guilty if they fail to do the right thing. Apparently it doesn't just take a village; it takes a congregation.
These authors provide Hillary with an opportunity to move towards the center. She can put a churchly spin on her secular sounding title of "It takes a village". Parents, she can argue, need help. Instead of coming from "a village" (aka "the government") it should come from "a congregation".
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