Parenting & Family Quote by Dwight L. Moody

Moody goes for the jugular: if you want to keep people from faith, don’t argue theology - just convince them they’re too young to “get it.” Calling that idea “a masterpiece of the devil” is deliberate escalation. It frames adult hesitation about children’s religious understanding not as caution but as spiritual sabotage, turning a seemingly reasonable pastoral concern into an enemy tactic. That’s classic revivalist rhetoric: name the obstacle, personify it, then dare your audience to stop collaborating with it.

The subtext is also a rebuke to religious gatekeeping. Moody is pushing against the notion that religion is a graduate seminar, accessible only after sufficient intellectual maturation. He’s defending a model of faith where comprehension is not synonymous with complexity. Children can grasp the core claim - trust, dependence, love, repentance - precisely because those ideas live in relationship and practice, not in footnotes. In that sense, the child is not an exception to the rule; the child is the indictment of adult overthinking.

The second sentence is a prosecutorial question aimed at parents, clergy, and Sunday school teachers. If Christ used a child as the “standard of faith,” then any religious culture that treats children as incapable is implicitly accusing Christ of bad judgment. That rhetorical move forces a binary: either affirm children’s spiritual capacity or undermine the authority of Jesus’ example.

Context matters. Moody’s 19th-century evangelism was built on mass meetings, simplified preaching, and urgent appeals. He’s not merely theorizing about childhood development; he’s rallying a movement to reach children early, before skepticism, status, and “respectability” calcify the soul.