Parenting & Family Quote by Andrew Young

Young’s line is doing something quietly radical: it shrinks religion down to a scale that can fit inside a child. Not a pulpit, not a party platform, not even a church community first, but “the still, small voice” - the famously understated biblical image of God speaking in a whisper, not an earthquake. The phrasing matters. “Still” and “small” imply restraint, patience, and moral attention rather than spectacle. It’s a rebuke to loud certainty and performative piety without ever calling anyone out by name.

The parental framing is the tell. Young isn’t praying his children will “obey,” “believe,” or “carry on the tradition.” He hopes they “respond,” a verb that grants agency and recognizes that conscience has to be chosen, not inherited. That’s pastoral realism: faith becomes less a badge than a practice of listening, discerning, and then acting.

Context gives the sentence extra charge. Andrew Young is not only a clergyman; he’s a civil rights veteran and public servant who watched American Christianity get pulled toward tribal identity and political theater. In that light, the “voice of God” reads as a moral compass that can challenge family, church, and nation alike. The subtext is an ethic of inner accountability: if your faith never contradicts your comfort, you might not be listening closely enough.