Tag Archive for: Apologetics For Parents

By Shanda Fulbright 

It never fails. When churched kids hit a certain age, I get panicked messages from parents. They usually start with, “We’re a Christian family, but my son doesn’t want to go to church anymore. He doesn’t believe in God.” Or, “I assumed my daughter was pro-life but she just told me women have the right to choose. How can this be when we are a pro-life family?”

These messages never come when the child is 8 or 9. I never hear about an 11 year old struggling to believe whether or not the Bible is true. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m just saying this isn’t the age where parents start to panic.

It’s usually around the time our kids are well into their teenage years that parents begin to notice our kids aren’t on board with the whole God, Jesus, and the Bible stuff. Why does it take so long to realize this? There are two main factors. First, we assume that because our kids go to church, they are adopting the beliefs of Christianity. Second, most parents aren’t being discipled, so it’s impossible to catch the discrepancies in the worldview our child actually has compared to a biblical worldview until something big happens – like the approval of abortion or a blatant disbelief in God.

This is where parents hit the panic button.

Is there hope for parents whose teenagers are about to walk away from Christianity? The good news: as long as we have Christ there is always hope. The reality: it’s not going to be as easy in the teen years as it would have been to teach them when they were younger. It will take diligence, and if diligence is what’s been missing all along, be diligent now.

The question is, what does diligent teaching look like in the 21st century?

Learning is a layered process.That means we must transfer knowledge strategically, layer by layer. There has to be a foundation laid and basic knowledge taught before anyone can understand larger concepts. This goes for students of any age. If we skip the foundation, there will be a gap in knowledge. In Christianity, the gap in knowledge is evident when Christians lack a biblical worldview. By the time parents hear their kids expressing a disbelief in God, the gap is already there and it’s likely because they skipped the foundational stage.

So, let’s discuss the three basic stages in the layered process of learning, no matter how old your kids are. Keep in mind that there are recommended age groups to begin each stage, but if you are just beginning to disciple your kids, this is the process from beginning to end.

The good news is that you can always begin at any stage, depending on where you left off. And if you have been doing this all along, keep plugging away knowing that in due time you will reap a harvest (Gal 6:9).

Foundational stage: God’s Word (suggested age – birth to primary)

The path to a biblical worldview begins with biblical literacy. The Bible talks about the word of God as the foundation on which to build (Matt 7:24-27). It also refers to the word of God as spiritual food. It is a necessity of life that all who follow the Lord must implement into their daily walk. But we can’t expect our kids to do this without help.

The approach we take to teaching our children is important because how we present the word of God will determine how they view the word of God. Is it important to you? Then it will be important to them. Do you believe it is the infallible word of God? Then they will too. If you present it as stories instead of historical narratives, then they will view it as a fictional story thrown into their bedtime routine. The language we use when we talk to our kids about God and His word matters. So present the word as a necessity, not as an option.

Connection Stage: God’s World (suggested age – adolescent to preteen)

When we teach apologetics to Christians, we must take a different approach than when we use apologetics to defend our faith with a secular audience. Middle schoolers must begin to make the connection that God’s word and God’s world are not in conflict. We will only be successful at adding this layer to our children’s learning if we laid the foundation of biblical literacy during the first stage.

What happens if we didn’t? The good news is that we can start now. Weave biblical truths into your instruction so that the apologetics concepts are tethered to Scripture. For example, kids need to know God’s nature of goodness in order to understand why He is the moral law-giver. Do a study on God’s attributes before you study the apologetics arguments. This will help fill-in the biblical literacy gaps missed in stage one. Just remember – saturate them with the word of God in every stage, not just the first stage. The word of God is at the core of Christian education.

It’s imperative that we ensure our middle schoolers see how God’s word and God’s world connect. Scientific evidence that points to God’s existence supported by biblical truths accomplishes this. This is where the Cosmological and Design Arguments come in handy. If we don’t help middle schoolers connect the word with the world, it’s likely they’re already questioning the validity of one and where they fit into the other.

Action Stage: Live God’s word in God’s world (suggested age – teens to adult) 

How we view the world affects how we live. At this stage, it is important to help your teens make the connection between the word of God and how it applies to the issues of life. In other words, get comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations.

It is the goal to get them to this stage with a biblical worldview so that they draw from biblical truths when looking for the answers to life’s questions. Students who have been discipled and understand why there are good reasons to believe Christianity is true will begin to connect knowledge of God and His word to the understanding of God and His word, and live for God by His word. In fact, this is where the evidence of a biblical worldview is seen in the life of our kids. When the knowledge of all they’ve learned leads them to an understanding of it, they are able to live it. And that’s how we know what someone truly believes.

All too often, Christians compartmentalize the Bible and separate it from the real world. We must be willing to bring real world issues into our conversations with our teens.  But I caution you not to wait for your teen to come to you. Open the door to hard conversations about gender and sexuality, abortion, co-habitation, and all of the hot-button topics that make parents cringe. Trust me. Once you get used to having hard conversations they won’t be so hard anymore and you will help your teen live the word in the world.

Successful parents have this in common

If you find your kids are older and they’re beyond the first and second stages suggested here, don’t panic. As I said before, as long as Jesus is in the equation there is always hope. However, the stages of teaching a biblical worldview don’t change:

First, lay the foundation of biblical literacy: God’s word.

Next, add the building block of apologetics: God’s world.

Finally, teach them to apply it: live the word in God’s world.

For those parents who are wondering if the opportunity to teach your kids has passed you by, I want to offer some encouragement. You are the most influential person in your child’s life and that will never change. Use that influence to go back and make up the ground you think you’ve lost. Because as I’ve said before, with Christ it is never too late.

It is our job as parents to make sure we do all we can to raise godly men and women. Our culture looks different today than the cultures before us, but the biblical mandate to parents has always been the same. God calls us to be diligent, and parents must answer the call.

 

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Check Let’s Get Real: Examining the Evidence for God Premium Course: This 12-week PREMIUM COURSE also includes 10 Zoom sessions where your child can ask questions and participate in LIVE discussions with Shanda (and even once with Frank) course commentary, student activity sheets, recommended resources, quizzes, assignments, an apologetics chat group, and free enrolment in the PARENT GUIDE to give you additional questions/activities to discuss with your child, and will help you encourage them to keep up with the course material through answer keys and vocabulary words. Class starts on 2/6 and spots are filling up fast, so be sure to grab your child’s seat in class TODAY!

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 

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Shanda Fulbright is a credentialed teacher and has a certificate in Christian Apologetics from Biola University, a certificate from the CrossExamined Instructor’s Academy as well as several certificates from Online Christian Courses. She hosts Her Faith Inspires podcast where she takes cultural issues and aligns them to biblical truth. You can read her blogs and find out more about her at shandafulbright.com

By Alisa Childers

When my daughter Dyllan was a toddler, I exercised quite regularly at the YMCA. (And by “exercised,” I mean that I read a book on the stationary bike and pedaled as slowly as possible while I enjoyed an hour of free childcare. Not gonna lie.) One day when I picked her up from the kid’s room, the childcare worker pulled out the unopened granola bar I had put in Dyllan’s bag, handed it to me, and said, “We can’t give this to her because it contains peanuts. We don’t allow anything with peanuts into the childcare area.” I admit I was a bit surprised because it wasn’t something I had given much thought to. But I quickly learned that there was almost nothing parents feared more in 2010 than the dreaded peanut.

Of course, peanut allergies are very real. In their book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt reported that before the mid-1990s, peanut allergies were extremely rare in American children. However, by 2008, fourteen out of every thousand kids had developed peanut allergies. No one knew why there was such a drastic increase until an authoritative study was released in 2015. It was discovered that many kids were developing peanut allergies because their parents avoided giving them peanuts. The study revealed that introducing peanut products to infants with a high risk for allergies actually reduced their chances of developing a peanut allergy by a whopping 81%. In other words, giving peanut products to infants caused their immune systems to respond and build up a tolerance.

Our kids have amazing bodies that react to bacteria, parasites—and yes, peanuts—with an immune response that teaches their system to adapt and fight off future threats to their health.

In the same way, I believe our kids have spiritual immune systems.

Several years ago,  I was a participant in a study and discussion group about Christianity. This was the class that challenged my faith intellectually and I’ve told that story here. One day, the subject of Adam and Eve came up and it was asked, “Does anyone still believe they were actual people?” I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I was entirely naive when it came to this subject. Even as an adult, I thought the literal existence of Adam and Eve was something all professing Christians believed in. Chalk it up to the Evangelical bubble I grew up in or the fact that most of my life happened before the invention of the internet. But the question threw me because I had no idea how to answer.

Until that moment, I didn’t even know it was a question. I had zero immunity. 

This was simply one of many skeptical claims raised against historic Christianity that snowballed together to send me into a dark time of doubt. I’ve often replayed that moment in my mind and imagined a different scenario. What if I had been aware of this question from childhood? What if I had already thought it through? What if when I read the Genesis account of creation, someone had told me, “Hey, some people don’t think Adam and Eve really existed. Let’s think about what the Bible says about it, what scientific evidence shows, and what that would mean for the gospel.

If my spiritual immune system had been strengthened in this way, hearing this question as an adult would have been no big deal. It wouldn’t have shaken my faith one bit. I would have simply engaged in that conversation intelligently, without fear or doubt.

Other than teaching our kids the basics of the Christian faith, there are many practical steps we can take to help bolster their spiritual immune systems. Here are three to start with:

1. Read the Bible with your kids, and don’t skip the hard stuff. 

By “don’t skip the hard stuff,” I certainly don’t mean you should freak your kids out right before bed by reading about the Levite hacking his concubine to pieces in Judges 19, or Samson getting his eyes gouged out in Judges 16. Obviously, there is an age-appropriate way to introduce biblical stories to our kids. What I mean by “don’t skip the hard stuff,” is that reading stories and accounts that skeptics typically challenge is a great way to inoculate our kids against their false ideas.

For example, when my daughter was about seven, we read through Genesis together.  In chapter 26, we read the story of Isaac lying to the Philistines. He told them his wife Rebekah was his sister, fearing that someone might kill him in order to marry her. I said to my daughter, “Did you know that some people think this story is made up because it’s so similar to what Isaac’s dad Abraham did twice before? What do you think about that?” We had a great conversation about how it would make perfect sense for Isaac to repeat his father’s lie, because there seemed to be no major consequences for doing so. In fact, in both cases, Abraham left richer than he came. We also looked at the biblical theme of sons tending to repeat their father’s sins. After we talked, it all made sense. And now my daughter won’t be caught off-guard should she hear that skeptical claim in the future.

​A great resource to help with this is The Apologetics Study Bible. As you read through the Bible, it footnotes the verses that skeptics typically challenge, and offers intelligent and credible responses you can talk through with your kids!

​2. Expose your kids to atheism.

As a parent, it can be scary to intentionally tell your kids all the reasons why atheists reject Christianity. Based on her experience teaching apologetics to Christian parents,  my friend Natasha Crain noted that many parents don’t want to risk leading their kids astray by introducing atheist arguments. But she rightly points out that all of our kids will inevitably hear these ideas. She wrote:

The only choice you have as a parent is if they’ll hear them first from you—in an environment where they’ll have your guidance readily available—or if they’ll hear them first from nonbelievers—in an environment where they’ll be processing what they hear on their own.

Brett Kunkle compares exposure to atheist ideas with teaching his kids to surf.  In this video, he explains that as a parent, you wouldn’t throw your kid into the ocean to surf big waves before you teach them basics like swimming and how to handle smaller waves. Watch below:

​Getting our kids used to the “smaller waves” of atheism can be a great way to prepare them to encounter the “big waves” when they are out on their own.

3. Expose your kids to false gospels and other religions.

​Just like it’s important to expose our kids to atheist ideas, it’s equally important to expose them to counterfeit gospels—which almost always masquerade as authentic Christianity. It’s been said that the best lies contain the most truth. This is why false gospels can be so tricky to discern. . .they contain so much truth.  They will often emphasize Jesus, use the right lingo, and even appeal to the Bible to back up their claims. Explaining the differences between authentic Christianity and Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the prosperity gospel, or progressive Christianity will prepare our kids to interact with their ideas and see through the deceptions they espouse.

Another important step is talking with our kids about what people of other religious faiths believe about God, Jesus, and the nature of reality. Although they agree on some points, every world religion contradicts the others at a fundamental level. Logically, they can’t all be true. This is a great opportunity to expose the contradictions and talk with our kids about why Christianity is true and best explains reality.

Who would have thought that giving a baby a tiny bit of peanut butter could potentially save his life? In the same way, giving our kids tiny bits of anti-Christian ideas and allowing them to process these questions within the safety and guidance of our care could have a lasting impact on their future spiritual lives.

Other practical resources:

For years, Brett Kunkle has offered theological training for teenagers and facilitated trips to Utah to interact with Mormons. When I interviewed him on my podcast, he reported that the impact of these trips has been tremendous in the lives of young people, motivating them to study theology and apologetics on their own. He now offers trips to the Berkeley college campus where Christian kids can share the gospel and interact with atheists and skeptics. Find out more at www.maventruth.com.

Another ministry doing great work in this area is Jonathan Morrow and Impact 360. Every summer, they offer experiences in which Christian teenagers are trained in leadership, apologetics, and theology after which they are given real-world experiences to test their knowledge. They visit Buddhist and Mormon temples, meet atheists, and more. Find out more at www.impact360institute.org and listen to Jonathan’s interview on my podcast.

If you want to be intentional about this, pick up Natasha Crain’s book Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have, and follow Natasha’s blog for more great tips. Or pick up J. Warner Wallace’s trio of kids’ books (12, and 3) that explore everything from the existence of God to the truthfulness of Christianity.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

So the Next Generation will Know by J. Warner Wallace (Book and Participant’s Guide)

Fearless Generation – Complete DVD Series, Complete mp4 Series (download) by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

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Alisa Childers is an American singer and songwriter, best known for being in the all-female Christian music group ZOEgirl. She has had a string of top ten radio singles, four studio releases, and received the Dove Award during her time with ZOEgirl. In later years, Alisa found her life-long faith deeply challenged when she started attending what would later identify as a Progressive Christian church. This challenge pushed Alisa toward Christian Apologetics. Today you can read, listen and watch Alisa’s work online as well as purchase her recently published book on Progressive Christianity titled Another Gospel.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3pDSI7V

 

By Jason Jiménez

This article is adapted from Jason’s book Abandoned Faith.

Inevitably we carry some amount of parental regrets. Freedom from regret comes when we admit our weaknesses before Jesus. No one is perfect. Our imperfections, though, shouldn’t become a wall between God and us or our children and God. At the cross we can lay down our regrets over our failures and move on. Remember that even the great heroes of the Bible did things they regretted.” — Mary DeMuth, Building the Christian Family You Never Had: A Practical Guide for Pioneer Parents.

Holding on to regrets prevents you from experiencing true freedom in Christ. It’s hard not to think back on all the moments you should have acted differently.

The would-of-could-of-should-of attitude does not help. It only makes matters worse between you and your millennial child. The key is not to regret having regrets. It will only bring on more regrets. What you need to do is give your regrets over to God and allow His healing power to take control of your life. Like the old saying goes, you can’t change the past, but you can learn from it.

Being tossed around by waves of regret is actually where Satan wants you to be. He doesn’t want you to let your regrets go. He wants you to drown in them. And every time you see your son or daughter making bad choices—Satan wants you to feel regret. He wants you to blame yourself for their sinful choices. But like the apostle Paul, you need to gain the assurance of saying, “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead (Philippians 3:13).”

Stop living in the past. Rather, look forward to how God can use you in the life of your millennial right now. Take your focus off of fear-driven parenting, and turn it to a faith-driven parenting.

The Psalmist says those who look to God will reflect His glory and will not be ashamed. Every parent needs to hear that. They need to know that they don’t have to live a shameful life. What they need to do is let it go, and trust that God will restore their family.

When we’ve done that, we can become excited about what lies in store. God has uniquely equipped you to minister to your children. One of the greatest ways to be a conduit of grace is by living it out for others to see. Paul declared, “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ (Philippians 1:27).”

When a Christian parent lives out his or her faith in a way honorable to God, it will have a lasting impact on their children!

Release Your Children

Moses’ parents saw how special their baby boy was and did not fear the Pharaoh’s edict. Rather than be stricken by fear, they released their son to God. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Children are a gift. But they are also on loan. You don’t own your children. They may have your DNA. But they are made in the image of God. You would lay your life down for your kids. But Jesus laid His life down and rose again so that your kids may have eternal life.

Give each of your children completely and totally over to God. You will be glad you did.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

So the Next Generation will Know by J. Warner Wallace (Book and Participant’s Guide)

Fearless Faith by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace (Complete DVD Series)

Defending the Faith on Campus by Frank Turek (DVD Set, mp4 Download set, and Complete Package)

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Jason Jimenez is President of STAND STRONG Ministries and author of Challenging Conversations: A Practical Guide to Discuss Controversial Topics in the church. For more info, check out www.standstrongministries.org.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/vI4YKPm

 

By Natasha Crain

Last month, the CEO of video game maker Tripwire Interactive was made to step down from his job just 53 hours after he tweeted support for the new Texas abortion law (which banned abortion after the baby’s heartbeat can be detected). Here’s the offensive tweet that apparently warranted the loss of his job:

“Proud of #USSupremeCourt affirming the Texas law banning abortion for babies with a heartbeat. As an entertainer I don’t get political often. Yet with so many vocal peers on the other side of this issue, I felt it was important to go on the record as a pro-life game developer.”

That’s it.

That’s it.

He merely stated his view that he supports protecting unborn babies from being killed. But having a different view was too much for cancel culture to handle. The pressure came quickly. A co-developer, Shipwright Studios, tweeted a statement the next day in which they said they would be canceling any existing contracts with Tripwire Interactive because they could not in “good conscience continue to work with Tripwire under the current leadership structure”:

Almost unbelievably, Shipwright Studios’ About Us page has a section called “Moral Compass.” It states:

“STEM fields are notoriously unwelcoming for many demographics, but women and minorities are notably underrepresented in game industry as a whole, and game programming in particular. As a small business owned by three white men, we are not blind to the luxury of being able to keep our ‘politics’ separate from our work, as well as personal lives. But for many of our friends and colleagues, ‘politics’ are not some easily ignorable distraction.

As an industry, we can do better and we must.

While we don’t have the power to change the industry as a whole, we do have the power to change the way we conduct our business with it. We are ready to put our money where our mouth is and lend our voice to further causes that promote diversity and inclusion, preferring to work with clients working towards the same goals which only serve to enrich the industry to which we have devoted the entirety of our careers.”

I’m guessing you didn’t hear about this particular story, or if you did, you shook your head and moved on with your day. Maybe that’s what you’re doing right now.

But that’s the point of this article.

Similar actions are taking place every day across nearly every (if not every) industry. People are losing jobs for publicly sharing views that differ from what’s been deemed acceptable by secular culture.

This also happens in academia.

And Hollywood.

And in the press.

And even—if not especially—in personal relationships. Numerous people have been canceled by friends or family in the last couple of years simply because of what they believe (including myself).

You might collectively call all this “everyday cancel culture.”

Yes, there are still high profile cancel culture examples that grab sustained public attention, but it’s the everyday cancel culture that picks off person after person without national attention that’s far more insidious because the cumulative seriousness of what’s happening isn’t obvious to many people.

Meanwhile, everyday cancel culture rolls on with major implications that Christians need to understand. Here are three important things to know.

1. Cancel culture is deeply rooted in today’s pervasive secular social justice ideology, so it’s not going away any time soon.

It might be tempting to chalk all this up to mere social hysteria—a “this too shall pass” phenomenon. But that’s a really dangerous and incorrect assumption to have.

To see why, you have to understand that cancel culture’s major ideological roots grow several decades deep; this isn’t something freshly springing out of society’s top soil. And those roots are called Critical Theory.

Critical Theory as an academic subject is quite complex, but in its popular manifestations, here’s the basic idea (which is a worldview unto itself). The world is divided into two groups: those who are oppressed (the powerless) and those who are oppressors (the powerful). Those who are in the identity groups considered to be oppressed—for example, women, people of color, and the LGBT community—are victims of the social structure that has empowered the oppressors. You’ve probably heard quite a bit in the media, at least in passing, about Critical Race Theory in particular, but that’s just one Theory in the Critical Theory family—the one that deals with race-based oppression specifically. (For more on Critical Theory and its relationship to Christianity, see my article here.) The basic ideological structure of Critical Theory has become the de facto lens through which secularists view social justice, and it’s becoming entrenched in nearly every major cultural institution.

So what does that have to do with cancel culture?

In the context of Critical Theory, canceling is seen as a tool of the oppressed to deal with the sins of the oppressors.

That brings us to an important second point. But the bottom line in this one is that Critical Theory and cancel culture are integrally related concepts, and because Critical Theory is becoming firmly entrenched in society, cancel culture is likely here to stay as well.

2. Cancel culture sees itself as taking the moral high ground.

Those who aren’t steeped in the views of Critical Theory typically see cancel culture as a bad thing; it’s a dictatorial shutting down of opposing viewpoints. But if you understand it in the context of Critical Theory, it suddenly makes sense why proponents of cancel culture see it as a good thing:

The harsh actions involved with canceling people are assumed to be morally justified because they’re thought to be taken on behalf of the oppressed.

When everything is framed either implicitly or explicitly in terms of a fight against evil oppression, a lot of leeway will be given to what’s considered to be acceptable action.

The problem is how one defines oppression. Note that Shipwright Studios—the company that “canceled” Tripwire for having a pro-life CEO—said in their so-called “Moral Compass” statement that they want to lend their “voice to further causes that promote diversity and inclusion.” From a Christian perspective, it’s hard to imagine how they can’t see the irony in claiming they champion diversity and inclusion while canceling a relationship with a company whose CEO has a different view on the sanctity of life.

But once again, understanding cancel culture’s Critical Theory roots sheds light on why people like the Shipwright leadership don’t see it as ironic at all. They believe they have the moral high ground on this issue because they see it as a matter of reproductive justice. Within the framework of Feminist (Critical) Theory, it’s unjust for a woman to not have the choice to have an abortion.

In other words, the pro-life view is seen as oppressive to women.

Shipwright and others like them literally see themselves as the moral heroes and moral protectors of society, based on their own secular standard of justice (clearly, they don’t consider the injustice done to the preborn infant who is killed). When they say in their statement that they cannot “in good conscience” continue to work with Tripwire, they’re making it clear they believe they’re the good guys. And when they say would be doing the industry a disservice to “allow” a fellow industry CEO to have a public pro-life viewpoint, they’re making it clear they think canceling people for so-called oppressive views is actually a moral obligation.

3. Cancel culture will ultimately be at odds with Christianity because it has a different standard of justice.

Cancel culture proponents can make it sound like a good thing given the Critical Theory-based train of thought we just looked at. But Christians need to understand that it will continually be at odds with Christianity because secular culture has a different standard of justice (as we began to see in the last point).

Take, for example, these words from an article by progressive Vox writer Aja Romano: “The idea of canceling began as a tool for marginalized communities to assert their values against public figures who retained power and authority even after committing wrongdoing…In similar ways, both ‘wokeness’ and ‘canceling’ are tied to collectivized demands for more accountability from social systems that have long failed marginalized people and communities…Taken in good faith, the concept of ‘canceling’ a person is really about questions of accountability.”

Some people have tried to recast cancel culture as “consequence culture” to emphasize this idea of mere accountability. But accountability assumes a standard to be accountable to, and therein lies the problem.

As I explain in my upcoming book Faithfully Different (in which I have two chapters on social justice and cancel culture):

“One of the biggest problems with secular social justice from a biblical perspective is that it lacks an objective standard for defining justice in the first place. In secular social justice, oppression is often defined with respect to how people feel about dominant groups imposing their norms, values, and expectations on society as a whole, and that doesn’t necessarily correspond with what would be considered oppressive from a biblical perspective. As a result, people today are often being canceled for stating ideas that are wrong in the eyes of the world but not wrong in the eyes of God. When a person like Romano states that cancel culture is really just about accountability for when people ‘say or do bad things,’ it sounds reasonable on the surface, but it’s actually a very dangerous idea. It implies people are accountable to a mob that’s ready to take action as soon as someone’s words or actions stray from the mob’s own standard of justice.”

The mob’s standard will never be the same as God’s standard.

So where does all this leave Christians?

Given the factors discussed here, we can expect cancel culture to affect us personally and indefinitely. This mentality isn’t going away. We should just expect to be canceled in some way for stating what we believe because we’re seen as the bad guys now.

But that doesn’t mean we should be silent.

In fact, it means the opposite.

We need to be bolder than ever.

Bold enough to speak when people call us oppressors (by their own standard) and cut us off from relationships, positions, and opportunities.

Bold enough to act when people move to stop us in every way.

Bold enough to love according to what God wants for people rather than what they want for themselves.

It’s time for “salt and light” to really mean something. It’s not a cutesy phrase to put on the back of a t-shirt. It’s our calling to preserve truth in a decaying culture and shine light in a dark world. Let’s be sure we fear God more than we fear the temporal cancelation weapons of man.

For more on my upcoming book, Faithfully Different, check out pre-order details here! I wrote it to help Christians gain clarity about what it means to believe, think, and live differently as a worldview minority in a secular culture. Cancel culture and secular social justice are two of many subjects covered.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Letters to a Young Progressive by Mike Adams (Book)

Counter Culture Christian: Is There Truth in Religion? (DVD) by Frank Turek

The Case for Christian Activism (MP3 Set), (DVD Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek 

 

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Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3m6p4Xi

 

By Natasha Crain 

Black Lives Matter activists cornered a woman at a restaurant in Washington D.C. this week because she wouldn’t raise her fist in solidarity with their chants that “white silence is violence.” If you watch the clip of this happening, at about the 28 second mark you can hear the protester in front accusingly ask, “Are you a Christian?”

If you haven’t studied much of what’s going on ideologically behind recent protests, this question might seem strangely out of place. What does being a Christian have to do with whether this woman agreed to raise her fist or not? Why would these protesters single out Christianity as a potential cause of someone refusing to give in to what they see as a fight for social justice? After all, they didn’t ask, “Are you a Muslim?” or “Are you a Hindu?” They also didn’t ask any questions that weren’t religious in nature, such as, “Are you a racist?” (a question that would have seemingly been more relevant given the nature of the situation—not that they should have been harassing her in the first place).

Earlier this summer, protesters in Portland were burning Bibles. Again, one might ask, “Why so much anger toward the Bible? What does this have to do with protests? What does this have to do with racial injustice?”

Events like these that suddenly and explicitly pit Christianity against the cause of many Social Justice Warriors (“SJWs”)  are the tip of an ideological iceberg that many Christians are (to a large degree) unaware of. Black Lives Matter is just one of many social justice movements, and these movements often share a hostility to Christianity. If you don’t understand the underlying iceberg, these hostile tips that peak out can seem out of place. But when you understand the worldview that SJWs often have in common, it’s not surprising at all.  

Middle school and high school age kids—particularly those in public schools—are increasingly surrounded by this ideology that ultimately results in hostility toward Christians, even if they don’t yet see that that’s where it leads. Many Christian kids are getting caught up in it as well, and I’m increasingly receiving emails from parents who tell me that even their church’s youth group is promoting SJW thinking.

In this post, I want to shed light on why SJWs often not only disagree with Christians…but also hate us. We and our kids need to understand why.

The Worldview of the Social Justice Warrior

The term Social Justice Warrior gets thrown around a lot, and people can mean different things by it, so let me start by clarifying how I’m using it here (and how it’s typically used in culture).

An SJW is NOT just a term for anyone who cares about marginalized people, or for anyone who sees the importance of righting injustices in the world, or for anyone who believes that government should in some way be involved in achieving better outcomes for people.

The term SJW is typically used to describe someone fighting to right the perceived injustices experienced by specific identity groups, and they are fighting to right those injustices in a specific way. SJWs focus on issues like gender, race, immigration, and LGBT rights.

SJWs often root their ideas in what’s called Critical Theory (“CT”). According to CT, the world is divided into two groups: those who are oppressed (the powerless), and those who are oppressors (the powerful). Those who are in the identity groups considered to be oppressed—for example, women, people of color, and the LGBT community—are victims of the social structure that has empowered the oppressors. The ultimate oppressor is someone whose identity doesn’t fall into any of the oppressed groups: the straight, white male.

In this worldview, all relationships between people are understood to be functions of power dynamics. Those in power want to keep their power, so they will want to maintain societal structures that have always been in place because that is supposedly what gave them their power to begin with (and sustains their power still today). Because the historical structure of society is presumed to be the ultimate reason why anyone is currently marginalized, nothing less than a societal revolution is needed to fix the problems we see—a complete overturning of everything considered to be “normal” in America.

Read that last sentence again, as it’s very important.

SJWs who root their ideas in CT despise everything that has been “normal” for America because it’s all part of the “system” that resulted in the inequalities experienced today. The system is too broken to be fixed (goes the narrative), therefore the system must be done away with. Furthermore, those in power not only don’t want to see this, they can’t see this, because they can never see truth the way a member of an oppressed group can, given their “lived experience” of oppression.

Much more could be said, but this brief worldview summary actually gives us enough background to work with in order to understand how it logically works out to a hatred of Christians. (There’s a great video here that explains CT in more depth, which could be very helpful to watch with your kids. Note that this video shows why CT is NOT biblical, despite the title.)

I believe it boils down to three key reasons, as follows. Note that my purpose here is not to do a full compare and contrast between CT and Christianity (that would be a much longer post), but rather to highlight the elements of CT that specifically have led to outright hostility toward Christians.  

First, Christianity is part of the perceived “norm.”

When we’re talking about emotionally charged terms like “oppressed” and “oppressor,” no one should be surprised that those identifying themselves with the “oppressed” group have more than a passing feeling of disagreement with those considered to be oppressors. When a person feels they’ve been victimized, they’ll of course have resentment and anger toward those believed to be responsible. As I explained above, many SJWs blame everything related to the (perceived) “norms” of society for the injustices we see.

Christianity is considered to be part of these norms.

Let’s see an example of how this works out. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of History and Culture made headlines in July because of a graphic they placed on their website under the “Whiteness” section of their “Talking about Race” portal (it has since been removed). At the top, the graphic stated:

“White dominant culture, or whiteness, refers to the ways white people and their traditions, attitudes and ways of life have been normalized over time and are now considered standard practice in the United States. And since white people still hold most of the institutional power in America, we have all internalized aspects of white culture—including people of color.”

The graphic included a broad selection of allegedly “white” value examples, such as rational thinking, a family with a father and mother, hard work, planning for the future, and even the bland taste for “steak and potatoes” (who knew?). So much could be said about this, but for our current purpose, I want to specifically point you to the Religion section on “whiteness.” It says:

  • Christianity is the norm.
  • Anything other than Judeo-Christian tradition is foreign.
  • No tolerance for deviation from single god concept.

That first line says a lot. It would be easy to pass by if you didn’t realize just how much SJWs hate anything associated with the deadly “norm” today. There’s no point in even discussing the validity of the claim that Christianity is a norm, or that all norms are bad. Because SJWs believe norms of society are the evil source of all inequalities today, and have labeled Christianity as part of those norms, Christianity too is evil.

Not just wrong. Evil.

Second, Christians believe that objective truth exists, which bluntly challenges the SJW’s claim that authority can and should be based on “lived experience.”

Christians believe that truth exists outside of any one person’s opinion, because truth has been revealed to us by God himself. That means no human has special access to knowing truth just because of their status in a given society. This is a direct challenge to the claim that it is only those who have the lived experience of being in a specific identity group who can speak to what’s true about the world (along with what’s wrong with the world and what the solutions should be).

From an SJW perspective, asserting that there is truth that’s independent of power structures is just one more way of using power (through so-called “truth”) to oppress people. Remember how I mentioned that the “whiteness” chart from the Smithsonian listed rational thinking? That seems absurd until you realize this is why it made the list. People use rational thinking to show that truth and authority can’t be a simple function of a person’s lived experience. SJWs know that’s a threat to their whole paradigm.

Again, Christianity is not just wrong. It’s evil because it allegedly uses objective truth as a weapon to deny the authority of people’s lived experiences so Christians can allegedly remain in societal power.

Third, Christians believe the Bible is God’s Word, which repulses SJWs who see the Bible as a tool of oppression against marginalized groups.

SJWs believe that the Bible supports slavery, the oppression of women, and discrimination against the LGBT community. It’s far outside the scope of this post to defend the Bible against these claims. Again, for my current purpose, I just want to show that the belief that the Bible is guilty of these things drives hostility. If the Bible was simply a guidebook on what to eat or wear, it wouldn’t even be part of the hate equation. But because the Bible does speak about slavery, women, and homosexuality—and in a way that SJWs take to be in opposition to these groups—they are repulsed by the idea that any morally upstanding person would look to such a book as an authoritative guide. 

Here once more we see that SJWs believe Christianity is not just wrong. It’s evil.

With these points in mind, it’s not surprising at all that a BLM protester would scream accusingly in a woman’s face, “ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?” It actually makes complete sense. You just have to understand why.

The more we can help our kids understand that today’s secular social justice movements are in no way just about helping marginalized people, the more we can help them think critically about the chaos that will undoubtedly continue to unfold around them in the coming years. Rather than fear such conversations, we should embrace the chance to show them just how much a person’s worldview impacts everything they believe, think, and do in this life.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

American Apocalypse MP3, and DVD by Frank Turek

Correct, NOT Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone (Updated/Expanded) downloadable pdf, Book, DVD Set, Mp4 Download by Frank Turek

The Case for Christian Activism MP3 Set, DVD Set, mp4 Download Set by Frank Turek

You Can’t NOT Legislate Morality mp3 by Frank Turek

Fearless Generation – Complete DVD Series, Complete mp4 Series (download) by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/32TK8Xv

By Jason Jimenez

This article is adapted from Jason’s book Abandoned Faith.

Clayton, a sophomore in college, was influenced by a couple of classes taught by a professor from The Jesus Seminar. Clayton shocked his family by announcing, at his brother’s birthday party, that he was now an atheist. “Dad, I know you may not like this, but I don’t believe in the Bible anymore. I’ve come to learn that the Bible can’t be trusted. The church has doctored it up through the centuries. It’s all a lie.”

The family was shocked, and Clayton’s “coming out as an atheist” put a damper on the birthday party. “Don’t worry,” Clayton said, “I am still religious. I worship Richard Dawkins.”

I remember sitting with a (different) college student over a cup of coffee. He was pretty shaken up, but I didn’t know why. I sat back in my chair and asked him why he was so uneasy.

“I guess you can say that I’ve really been struggling a lot lately with what I’ve been raised to believe. I know it’s not entirely my parent’s fault, but thinking through a lot of different stuff, I gotta say, I don’t think they did a really good job teaching me the Bible and demonstrating how a Christian should live.”

Appreciating his candor, I said to him, “That may be the case. But rather than focus on the failures of your parents, are you open to figuring out what it is that you believe?”

Thankfully, he agreed.

After months of discipleship and meeting with the student’s parents—it warms my heart to say the family is reconnected and continues to live boldly for Christ.

I’ve seen a lot of similar situations. Despite the footprint of Christianity in America, its mark on Millennials is not as visible as it was with previous generations. LifeWay Research and Fuller Youth Institute estimated that over half of high school graduates will leave the church and become disengaged in their faith.

Without parents who know and teach the fundamentals of the Christian faith to their children—the hearts and minds of millions of Millennials have become less inclined to become authentic followers of Jesus Christ.

Image Problem

In their book UnChristian, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons write, “Our research shows that many of those, outside of Christianity, especially younger adults, have little trust in the Christian faith, and esteem for the lifestyle of Christ-followers is quickly fading among outsiders. They admit their emotional and intellectual barriers go up when they are around Christians, and they reject Jesus because they feel rejected by Christians.”

Millennials desire to live authentic lives marked with credibility. If you were to ask them, they will tell you they believe insignificance and yearn to make a difference. There’s just one problem: They don’t know how to do it.

We don’t believe we will win back the hearts and minds of this age of “nones” by overtly trying to make Christianity “attractive.”

But we have faith. We have faith that God will do a miracle in the lives of our young people. That a revival will break out in the midst of this generation. That the child who abandoned faith will once again stand strong for Christ.

The Scriptures make it clear; it is incumbent for every parent to teach and train their children in the timeless truths of the Bible (Deuteronomy 6Psalm 78). Paul writes, “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:13).

When parents strive to be a pattern of Christianity to their Millennials, they are far more likely to follow in their parents’ footsteps. If parents lack the passion and drive to live it and teach it, then the world will ultimately mold children. You don’t want that, and neither do I.

More Christian parents need to be armed and ready to wage war for the hearts and souls of their adult children. We are knee-deep in a culture war for the faith of our children, and also for the fate of Christianity in America.

What do you and your spouse do to sharpen your Millennial’s biblical worldview?

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Fearless Generation – Complete DVD Series, Complete mp4 Series (download) by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Jason Jimenez is the founder of STAND STRONG Ministries and faculty member at Summit Ministries. He is a pastor, apologist, and national speaker who has ministered to families for over twenty years. In his extensive ministry career, Jason has been a Children’s, Student, and College Pastor, and he has authored close to 10 books on topics related to apologetics, theology, and parenting.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/31dMArv

By Natasha Crain 

This is going to be a very long post, so I’ll cut to the chase:

My husband and I decided back in January that we were going to begin homeschooling our twins for middle school this fall…weeks before we had any idea that the coronavirus existed and that it would lead to everyone schooling at home this spring!

I guess we were unintentionally ahead of the “curve” on this. (Get it? Curve? Coronavirus? Hello?)

This decision was the product of a long period of consideration, during which I did a ton of research, thinking, and learning about educational choices. I came to the conclusion that far more Christian parents should consider homeschooling if they would be able to do it.

Note that I said consider. This is not a black and white subject, and there are many, many family-specific factors involved in an educational choice. I do not think homeschooling is the best for every family. I also realize many parents are not in a position to do it due to health, finances, or other issues. But if it’s at least a possibility, I think every Christian parent should give thought to it.

With the pandemic suddenly sending your kids home, there’s no time like the present to spend time thinking about your educational choices before the fall. Many families will decide to continue homeschooling, and if it’s a possibility for you, I hope this post will provide helpful points to ponder. (If you’re not interested in my personal decision, just skip the first two sections.)

My Family’s Educational Backstory

When it was time for my twins to attend preschool, I spent many hours researching all the programs in the area to find the one I thought sounded “best” based on a host of factors I had researched. It turned out to be a fine little program, but by the end of the year, I felt like there was so much more I wanted them to learn before they went to Kindergarten. I decided to homeschool them for pre-K in order to give them a better academic boost.

For a year, we had a wonderful time of flexible days filled with fun learning experiences and rapid learning. We finished Kindergarten, first grade, and second-grade reading curricula in just a few months—while schooling very minimally each day and leaving much more time for play than in traditional school.

I loved it.

They loved it.

Yet, it never occurred to me to consider homeschooling for their “real” learning years (I saw pre-K as totally different since it was optional). After all, traditional school was what I believed to be “normal.” It was what I knew. It was what I experienced growing up. Most importantly, it was what I expected their lives to look like.

We enrolled the twins in a local private Christian school that was warm and inviting, known for solid academics, and taught from a distinctly Christian worldview. They have now attended that school for six years, and we have genuinely cherished our experience there.

At the same time, as they entered 5th grade this year, I was struck by the realization that they would be starting middle school next year—and this milestone made me really reflect on our educational choices to date and for the future.

Looking back on their elementary years, which are quickly coming to a close, I felt a certain sadness. At first, I thought those feelings were the normal feelings of a mom seeing her kids close a sweet chapter in their lives.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I lamented a certain loss of time with them.

Every day, my kids have spent 6+ hours at school, where someone else was getting to see them bloom in their understanding of the world and who they were becoming as people. Sure, I had them in the morning briefly and then from 3 PM until bedtime (8:30 PM), but that amounted to about half of their weekday lives being spent somewhere else. Once they started sports, we were driving around in the evenings to baseball and soccer fields, and we had even less time together. I’m an extremely intentional parent, and I’ve always been cognizant of making the most of our togetherness, but when the opportunities for togetherness became the nooks and crannies of the average day rather than the focus, something in my thinking began to shift.

More specifically, I felt regret that I hadn’t given more consideration to homeschooling from the beginning.

Note that I didn’t say I regretted not homeschooling. There have been many wonderful things about my kids’ educational experience at their private school—some of which would not have been replicated if I had homeschooled. But I wondered if I would have chosen a different path had I not so simply seen traditional school as the default option when there wasn’t some kind of special reason to do something else.

This realization made me decide that I would give serious thought to both continued private school and homeschooling as my twins approached a natural transition point with middle school—I didn’t want the same kind of regret in 3 years. And after months of very deep consideration, I decided in January that I would become a homeschooler this fall.

Be Mindful of What You Default To

Perhaps my most important take away from months of research, talking with other parents, and thinking about educational choices is that many Christian parents—myself included until now—don’t give enough consideration to the decision of public school vs. private school vs. homeschool. We tend to have our “default” path in mind and go with it. But there are a lot of reasons why our default idea may not be what’s best for our kids.

For me personally, some of the top reasons I’m choosing homeschool over private Christian school (aside from regaining precious time with my kids) include:

  • I want to optimize my kids’ academic pace: One of my twins longs to move faster in school and is continually bored by the pace. The other gets things very quickly when I explain it but gets distracted easily in the classroom setting. I am confident both of them will flourish when I set the pace for their individual needs.
  • I want to pick the curricula best for my kids’ learning: There are SO MANY curriculum options for homeschoolers. It’s overwhelming, but at the same time, it’s a beautiful thing to have this kind of freedom to customize your child’s learning experience. Additionally, you can choose curricula produced from a Christian worldview where desired.
  • I want my son to regain a love of learning: My son, frankly, has come to hate school. At the same time, he loves to learn at home when it’s something he cares about. This is very common with boys, especially, from what I’ve read. With homeschool, we can tailor his projects to areas of his passion so he can love learning again (an outcome that’s hugely important to me) without the “baggage” of what he hated about school.
  • I want to reclaim my kids’ free time: Homeschooling takes less time than traditional schooling because so many of the classroom inefficiencies are removed (in middle school, that’s often 2+ hours per day less than in traditional school). If you reclaim 2 hours per day for your child to enjoy play and pursuits of passion, that’s 10 hours per week and 520 hours per year! That’s a meaningful difference in a child’s life.
  • I want to pour into my kids spiritually throughout the school day: With homeschool, you can easily integrate a Christian worldview throughout all of your child’s subjects, and at a far deeper level than happens in Christian schools. I’ve created my own subject that my twins and I have named BLAW: Bible, Logic, Apologetics, and Worldview. Each day we’ll focus on one letter from the acronym. (I’m super excited to use Talking with Your Kids about Jesus for our first apologetics curriculum!) Yes, our family has had these conversations for years before our homeschool decision. But the opportunity to make this part of their whole education delights me.

There are many other benefits of homeschooling that I’m not listing here. These are simply the ones that have driven my own decision. But it’s not just the benefits of homeschooling that lead me to say other Christian parents should at least give it great thought. It’s also concerns around both public and private schools. The following are four of the most significant ones I see for each.

4 Considerations for Public Schools Families

  1. Living in a “great school district” means little.

This is perhaps the most common reason I’ve seen Christian parents give for keeping kids in public school. I’ve heard it from friends who have left our private school (we live in one of those “great” school districts), and I’ve seen it in many online conversations between parents. But here’s the question we need to ask: What, exactly, makes a public school district “great”? And are those factors the ones that should drive our educational choices?

For most parents, the “great school district” factor means that there are strong academics, typically as measured by test scores, as well as abundant additional offerings (music, art, etc.). But this doesn’t take into account the daily impact of a secular curriculum.

Make no mistake: Curriculum is rarely worldview neutral.

Chances are, you’ll find the math curriculum to not have overtones of any particular worldview (though I’ve seen examples where a math book has questionable word problems).

But history? Here in California, the history books are literally being rewritten to frame the past in terms of the progressive agenda. This is happening across the country as well. Your child’s whole view of history will look different than what you might expect. Here’s a picture from a 1st grade history book in California. [Of course, there is no critical thinking about the definition of rights, where rights ultimately would come from, why we should celebrate these rights but not the rights of people to marry multiple partners, etc. It’s all just assumed.]

Science? The naturalistic assumptions of an undirected, purposeless universe flow through to every science subject (Earth science, astronomy, life sciences, and physical sciences).

Literature? Most schools are replacing the classics with reading material aimed at indoctrinating kids in a progressive agenda. The recommended reading lists are often filled with books you would never choose for your own kids if you had the opportunity to read them—profanity, adult themes, and progressive views are commonplace. Yes, you could see that as a teaching opportunity to some degree, but that requires you to read everything your kids read and set aside the time to have those conversations consistently. Most parents I know don’t do that. And if you don’t, your child will just hear whatever the teacher and other students say.

Health? I’ll talk about this in my next point.

I could write a whole book on all the ways the secular curriculum teaches a child every day to see the universe differently than you do as a Christian family. These are just a few quick points. If your child remains in public school, it is crucial to be HIGHLY involved in reading what your kids read so you can proactively have conversations about a Christian worldview relative to what they are learning.

  1. The problems are not just with sex ed, and therefore, you can’t just opt-out of subjects you don’t want your kids to hear about.

It’s a giant misconception that the only thing Christian parents really need to battle in a public school is the sex-ed program, as should be clear from my prior point. But let’s talk about the sex stuff specifically. Many parents think they can just opt out of the graphic sexual education happening at younger and younger ages in schools, and their kids won’t be exposed to it. While there may be parts you can opt-out of, schools have strategically moved much content into the “health” subject, which is required. It’s the ultimate switcheroo! If schools can’t force all they want into the optional subject, they’ll just move it into a related required one. And what they are teaching at each age is frankly shocking.

One parent shared the following in a group of concerned families I’m part of online (edited for typos):

My daughter is in 7th grade and she is attending a health class which is one of required classes at school. I expected that she could learn basic reproductive body system, symptoms, signs of adolescent, and important health issues thru the health class. However, I was so shocked after listening to my daughter regarding the health class. The health class includes sex education and several guest speakers were invited and teaching the students. The guest speakers are still visiting the health class. My daughter asked me, “Mom, what is oral sex?” I got shocked…the guest speaker explained that oral sex is mouth to penis, mouth to vagina, but my daughter could not imagine or understand why the words “mouth” and “penis” are connected. And, the guest speaker brought some strange stuff. It looks like rubber latex, and then the speaker explained that sex partners put the latex into their private parts and then they can kiss or lick it…and the latex has flavor and scent to make their sex more excited. One of male students asked the speaker, “If I am allergic to the flavor, what can I do?” The guest speaker replied, “You can get other flavors, such as at Target. There are many different kinds flavors there.

The guest speaker went on to say that there is no age limit to get an abortion, so if any students want one, they can get a pill to do it without a parent’s consent.

Again, there would be NO WAY to opt-out of this. The parents weren’t even informed in advance. Similar stories happen every day throughout the US.

  1. Making educational choices based on experiences with individual teachers or schools is not a good long term strategy.

When I’ve had conversations with people about the impact of the curriculum in public schools, one common reply is that they are lucky because the teachers at their school are Christians, or that their teachers would never teach this stuff, or that their school hasn’t gone off the deep end. This is not a good reason to stay where you are. Teachers and administrators turn over all the time, and you could easily end up with someone who won’t be the buffer you hoped would be there. Additionally, a Christian teacher teaching a secular curriculum with the types of issues I already outlined can only do so much to compensate.

  1. Chances are, your kids are not able to be the “salt and light” you would hope them to be.

Many families feel that if all Christians pull out of public schools, there won’t be anyone left to be “salt and light.” Given the breadth and depth of challenges, however, I personally think it’s unreasonable to think that any kid can publicly counter the secular thinking pervasive across subjects. Sure, they can invite friends to church, share the Gospel, and behave in a way that glorifies God, …and those things are all very important. But every family must weigh the reality and extent of those opportunities happening with the reality of how the curricula and peer influences are affecting them.

4 Considerations for Private Christian School Families

Given all that I just said about public school issues for Christians, it would be tempting to suggest that everyone should run to a Christian school if they can afford it. But I wouldn’t necessarily say that. Here are four things to consider.

  1. Christian schools vary greatly in quality, both academically and spiritually.

Just as two people who both call themselves Christians can have very different understandings of what that means, two schools that call themselves Christian can as well. There are Christian schools that are weak academically but strong in teaching the Christian worldview. There are others that are strong academically but could hardly be called Christian. Some are weak in both areas, and some are strong in both areas.

Never pick a Christian school just because it’s an alternative to public school.

It’s critical to really evaluate what the school offers to see if it’s strong both academically and spiritually. If you find a good one that you can afford, you may avoid some of the most serious issues around public schools, and that is absolutely worth doing. (Read on for why I say may avoid.)

  1. Many Christian schools use a secular curriculum.

In many Christian schools, the “Christian” part reflects the fact that teachers sign a statement of faith, there is a weekly chapel, teachers pray with the kids, and there’s a Bible class. Teachers also work to make “faith connections” to the subjects taught. These are all very wonderful things, and I’ve appreciated every aspect of them while having our kids at a Christian school. But parents should be aware of the curriculum choices a Christian school makes, especially for middle and high school. In many cases, they use secular textbooks and expect teachers to compensate in the class by talking about the subject from a Christian perspective. Many teachers are simply not equipped themselves with this kind of understanding in order to fully counter what secular curricula teaches. You end up with a tug of war between worldviews of the text and teacher. This could be beneficial to the student if done very well, but that completely depends on the teacher’s knowledge and motivation.

If you’re considering a Christian school, ask many questions about curriculum choices at the various grade levels.

  1. Teachers vary greatly in how they incorporate faith into the classroom.

We’ve had teachers who prayed multiple times with the kids throughout the day and teachers who didn’t at all. We’ve had teachers who naturally brought up great connections to the Bible across subjects and some who only talked about faith during Bible time. We’ve had teachers who explained the historical and literary context of monthly Bible verses and some who just asked the kids to come up with a skit for whatever they thought it meant. You get the idea. In most Christian schools, there is little standardization across the classrooms because the teachers all come from such different places in their own spiritual life (even if they’re all Christians, they’ve been Christians for different amounts of time and are at different places in their knowledge and walk).

In short, if you send your kids to a Christian school, don’t think for a minute that that education will replace what you should be doing for discipleship. It won’t, and it shouldn’t.

  1. Kids at Christian schools are often not that different from kids at public schools.  

Sometimes parents think that they’ll get rid of the worst peer influences from public school if they go private, and sometimes that is correct. But it’s important to know that people send their kids to a Christian school for all kinds of reasons, and it’s often not because they’re passionate about their kids having a Christian worldview. Sometimes they just want a smaller class size. Sometimes their kids had trouble socially in one school and needed an alternative. Sometimes it’s just the closest school. The kids in Christian schools won’t all be committed Christians because the families won’t all be. But even if the families were, kids will be kids. There will be plenty of mean kids, cliques, kids who watch stuff you wouldn’t allow, and so on. Don’t assume private school is a catch-all solution for negative peer influences.

While I think homeschool is a vastly under-considered choice for Christian parents, there are many families for whom public or Christian school will be the best decision. My purpose here was certainly not to convince everyone to homeschool. But whatever you decide for the fall, be thoughtful about it. Don’t default. Our kids’ education is too important to just do whatever we assumed we always would. The world has changed too much.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/2SO0iwa 

By Natasha Crain

I saw the following post in a Christian Facebook group:

My daughter is starting her second semester of college tomorrow. She got ahold of her syllabus and found the following quote from the professor.

“Except to one whose reason is blinded by unquestioning adherence to fundamentalist doctrine of creation, the evidence of the fossil record, with that of anatomy, embryology, biochemistry and genetics, compels a single conclusion: evolution is a fact.”

Any suggestions on how she should approach this?

If this is his daughter’s first time hearing about evolution (or at least secular views of it), it’s going to be a tough semester. Any suggestions on how she should “approach this” are at least a couple of years late.

I hear or see questions like this all the time. Unfortunately, in my experience, many (if not most) Christian parents aren’t tackling the topic of evolution at home. I know some would love to but are overwhelmed by the subject and don’t know where to start. I wrote 8 of 40 chapters in my book on the topics of creation and evolution views to help parents who feel this way (I also posted a giant resource page last week).

However, far more parents are simply disinterested in the topic and, consequently, have a limited understanding of why evolution is such a big deal. They have a general idea that evolution is a challenge to Christian faith, but don’t necessarily know the particulars of why. At one end of the spectrum, there are parents who don’t care to know because they think it’s enough to teach their kids that “evolution is wrong and the Bible is right.” At the other end of the spectrum, there are parents who don’t care to know because they think evolution and Christianity can seamlessly fit together.

Both of these approaches trivialize the impact that studying evolution can have on a child’s faith.    

Here’s why.

(Please note: There are many different uses of the term evolution. When I say evolution in this post, I’m talking about modern (“neo-Darwinian”) evolutionary theory in which all life descended from a single primitive species via natural selection acting on random DNA mutations. For more background on basics to understand about evolution, please see my post, 4 Key Points Christian Kids Need to Understand About Evolution.)

The Compelling Evidence for Evolution: Not Simple to Throw Out

When your kids first have the chance to hear the scientific case for evolution, it will likely be very convincing to them. Kids whose parents simply emphasize that evolution is wrong because it’s “not what the Bible says” (without further discussion) may well be left in a faith crisis when they eventually engage with the subject in depth. That’s exactly what happened to me. Here’s an excerpt from my chapter on the evidence for evolution, in which I share my own experience:

I didn’t learn about the evidence for evolution until I was in my 30s. When I did, it rocked my lifelong faith in a matter of hours.

When I was growing up, evolution wasn’t yet a subject taught in most public schools; I never encountered it academically. The only time I heard it mentioned was when my church youth group leader once laughed it off, saying, “Yeah, like we all really came from apes!”  I remember thinking that was a pretty far-fetched idea. In college, I studied economics, so I came no closer to evolutionary theory as a young adult. It was very much off my radar until I had kids and decided I should learn about it for their sake.

I started studying evolution by reading an online series of introductory articles published by Biologos.org.  After studying just eight lessons one day, I numbly shut down my computer, pulled a blanket over my head, and felt years of faith sheepishly slink into the shadows of my newfound knowledge. The evidence was shockingly vast—far more extensive than I had ever imagined. The details were fascinating and compelling. This wasn’t some half-baked idea about how fossils fit together, as I had previously imagined. This was… completely scientific. As scientific as any other science I had ever studied and assumed to be valid. It was hardly a leap to ask myself, Why shouldn’t I accept this science if I accept all other science I’ve been taught? I felt like I couldn’t breathe for hours as I lay pondering what life would look like without the God I had always believed in.

It’s important to know that this one night when evolution floored me came after I had attended church for 30-plus years, served as a youth group leader, taken numerous Sunday school classes, read the Bible regularly, and engaged in an active prayer life. None of those things prepared me to figure out what I should do with the evidence for evolution. If evolution was true, I had no idea how Christianity could be true at the same time. If evolution was not true, I had no idea how there could be so much evidence for it.

It was devastating.

How much more is learning about the evidence for evolution potentially devastating to young people with a relatively inexperienced faith? How much more will they “have no idea what to do with” compelling information that immediately seems to contradict the Bible? Recall from the introduction that we actually know that answer: At least 60 percent of young adults are turning away from Christianity today, and the evidence for evolution is one of the biggest reasons.

[End excerpt]

If your kids hear all this scientific evidence in school and say, “Meh. Unimpressive…” then their faith may not be challenged. But that’s an unlikely reaction for most. Clearly, kids need to engage with their parents on the complexity of these issues. Trivializing the subject is not the answer.

Five Ways Evolution Can Challenge Christian Faith

At the other end of the spectrum are parents who don’t care what their kids believe about evolution because they assume Christianity and evolution can fit seamlessly together. Indeed, the acceptance of evolution, in and of itself, does not necessitate atheism. God theoretically could have created the universe and planned for life to unfold via an evolutionary process (this idea is called theistic evolution).  However, that doesn’t mean Christianity and evolution go together without some significant challenges. There are several big reasons why many people end up rejecting their faith after accepting evolution (again, not a necessary outcome, but a very possible one given these questions):

First, if a deity did create the world via evolution, it raises the question of whether He would still be active in it.

Most theistic evolutionists believe that God acted directly in creating the universe, but in doing so ensured that nature would require no additional guidance from that point on. If God is so “passive” in our natural history, why should we believe he’s so engaged in salvation history as told by the Bible (making covenants with people and nations, performing miracles, entering history as Jesus, and so on)?

Of course, there’s no logical reason God couldn’t act differently in these histories, but the contrast does give many people pause.

Second, if evolution is true, it’s hard to see how humans are different from animals, as the Bible claims.

The Bible is very clear that humans were made in the image of God. Although there is considerable scholarly debate over what precisely that means, at the very least it means humans have the cognitive and moral faculties necessary to have a relationship with God…and that animals don’t. The Bible presents humans as very different creatures who are uniquely accountable to our Creator, with eternal implications. According to modern evolutionary theory, however, humans are just another kind of animal. We all descend from the same species.

Theistic evolutionists usually believe that, at some point in time, God chose certain creatures to receive His image and become fully human (there’s no consensus on when or how that happened). Again, while logically possible, evolution certainly raises significant questions about the supposedly special status of mankind.

Third, if naturalistic (atheistic) evolution is true, it’s easier to account for the problem of suffering in the world.

One of the most difficult theological questions is why there is so much suffering in the world if an all-powerful and all-good God exists. While many Christians have offered answers throughout history, naturalistic evolution (at first) seems to explain suffering more readily than theism. If there’s no God, and the history of life is just a giant snowball of continuous DNA mutations rolling through time, genetic errors leading to suffering and disease are to be expected.

Fourth, if evolution is true, it raises serious questions about the reliability of the Bible.

There are quite a few things Christians disagree on when it comes to interpreting parts of the Bible, often boiling down to the meaning of a few specific verses. But there are more than a few verses that are in question if one believes evolution is true. Most obvious is the creation account in Genesis. If the Bible really is God’s Word, why wouldn’t God have informed the biblical writers that He created life via evolution…or, at the very least, remained silent on the topic and not given them an account that at face value contradicts reality? Those were the immediate questions that came to my own mind when I first learned about the evidence for evolution.

Additionally, many verses reference the creation account throughout the Bible, and, importantly, treat Adam as a historical figure (see, for example, Luke 3:38; Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45; 1 Timothy 2:13, 14; Jude 1:14). However, evolutionists conclude that we do not descend from an original set of two parents; they believe we descend from a group of at least 10,000. If Adam is not a historical person, it clearly challenges several more verses in the Bible than the creation account itself. (Theistic evolutionists have addressed this challenge and the next in a variety of ways beyond the scope of this post).

Fifth, if evolution is true, it raises serious questions about Christian theology.

There are also a lot of theological implications if there wasn’t a historical Adam or a historical “fall.” In the traditional Christian view, salvation is the result of God working to restore a fallen mankind to a right relationship with Him through Jesus. If there wasn’t a real Adam and there wasn’t a historical fall, it naturally raises the question of why there had to be a savior. Theistic evolutionists have offered answers to this, but there’s no question that it’s far more difficult to reconcile Christian theology without a historical Adam.

As I wrap this up, I want to return to the father’s question at the beginning of this post. When you realize how many scientific and scriptural considerations there are on this topic, you can see how difficult it will be for a young adult to go into a class where naturalistic (atheistic) evolution is taught as fact. Don’t let your child’s eventual college professor have the first (and possibly final) word on what your child believes. Take accountability and engage with your kids long before then.

If you’re not sure how to talk about these issues with your children, please check out my book. I explain young-Earth creationism, old-Earth creationism, naturalistic evolution, and intelligent design for parents with no background in these topics (without advocating any one position).

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2VSTqzY

By Natasha Crain

My 5-year-old and I were playing the game Connect Four the other day and, for the first time ever, she was in a position to beat me. I absolutely won’t let my kids win a game for the sake of winning, but when I see that they’ve gotten into a position to win on their own, I’m willing to point it out (yes, I am that generous).

All my daughter had to do was put her checker in a specific spot and it would guarantee a win on her next turn.

I excitedly explained, “You’re going to win! You did it on your own! I didn’t let you win at all! Look. If you play right here, you are going to win on your next turn no matter where I play next.”

She looked at it a minute and realized I was right. A guaranteed win if she played where I showed her.

Then she played somewhere else.

I was flabbergasted that my little girl, who has long been desperate to beat me at Connect Four, didn’t take the guaranteed road to victory. I literally couldn’t understand it.

I blurted out, “What are you doing?! You FINALLY could have really beaten mommy! WHY didn’t you play where I showed you?”

She shrugged, then replied, “Because I wanted to play over here.”

Reminder: Our Kids Aren’t Purely Rational Creatures

My daughter’s response was positively maddening because it was so illogical. Why give up the win just because you “want” to play somewhere else? It didn’t make sense.

But it made me reflect on the fact that humans are not purely rational creatures. There are all kinds of reasons why we make the decisions we make, and that includes the decisions we make about our spiritual life.

This is precisely why, no matter what we do, our kids may become atheists.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m passionate about equipping Christian parents with an understanding of secular challenges and helping them address these with their kids. I strongly believe that if we aren’t intentional in how we disciple kids today, we are failing them in the most important area of their lives. So does it sound contradictory that I’m now saying no matter what we do, our kids may become atheists?

It shouldn’t.

It’s simply an acknowledgment that even when we line up the checkers of truth and point clearly to how our kids can “win” spiritually, they may choose to do something else.

Dr. Gary Habermas has offered a framework that further illuminates this reality. He suggests there are three kinds of spiritual doubt that people deal with in determining their faith:

  • Intellectual doubt is doubt about the facts of Christianity. It’s when you question the information you have and/or are presented with new information that makes you question it. The intellectual challenges to faith are everywhere today, having been brought to the public’s attention by vocal atheists like Richard Dawkins.
  • Emotional doubt is doubt created by subjective feelings that aren’t necessarily tied to the facts. For example, your child may understand 1 million important facts about the truth of Christianity, but after he or she loses a friend to a terrible disease, none of those facts may matter. The looming emotional question of why God could allow such a thing may be beyond the reach of all the intellectual reasoning in the world (at least for a period of time).
  • Volitional doubt is choosing to doubt even when one doesn’t have apparently reasonable cause to do so. It’s analogous to my daughter choosing to play in the wrong place just because that’s what she wanted to do. Pride is a significant factor here.

Research shows that the exodus of youth from Christianity today is primarily due to intellectual barriers to faith (see David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me, for example). Kids are leaving home unprepared with basic facts and information about why there is good reason to believe Christianity is true and are subsequently losing their faith when they are presented with compelling information that challenges what they previously believed.

There is no excuse for Christian parents allowing their kids to leave home subject to so many intellectual doubts.

First Peter 3:15 tells us that we should all be prepared to give a reason for the hope we have. Not just people who happen to have a Master’s degree in Theology or Apologetics. Not just people who happen to have some time and energy left over after taking their kids to their 13th extra-curricular activity for the week. All of us.

My book, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith, is written explicitly for that purpose: to give parents the critical information they need to equip their kids with so their kids can encounter intellectual challenges with confidence.

Does that mean our kids won’t become atheists, as long as we give them enough information? Of course not. Remember, there are still emotional and volitional doubts that are part of the picture (as well as intellectual doubts that some will continue to have). We can help them build a lasting faith, but ultimately their faith is not in our control.

That said, we should never be discouraged away from putting all we can into our kids’ spiritual development. Here’s why.

(The following is an excerpt from the final paragraphs of my book.)

The time and consideration we give to our kids’ faith development is an investment, not a purchase.

With a purchase, a person gives with the expectation of a certain and specific return.

With an investment, a person makes contributions, knowing that there is also a risk of that investment not resulting in the desired outcome.

Make no mistake: It’s an investment of our training efforts that God has asked us to make with our kids (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). There are no guaranteed outcomes, as with a purchase. For a long time, I didn’t fully grasp that difference. I envisioned certain outcomes for my children based on the effort I was putting into their spiritual development. When they didn’t live up to my expectations, it resulted in my frustration and even anger. It made me not want to do anything more because it didn’t seem worth it.

Then I realized one day that I was pursuing results as if I could purchase those outcomes with the currency of my efforts. I was immediately convicted of the error in that thinking and realized I needed to become an investor. I felt liberated—newly free to do the job God has given me without the burden and illusion of control.

So go be an investor. Put in all you’ve got. Then pray that God will take that and make it grow, all for His glory.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2SHzvls

By Natasha Crain

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak to four groups of parents during the Apologetics Canada conference (incidentally, if you live in the Long Branch, NJ, area, I’ll be speaking at the No Pat Answers conference on April 9). I ended up speaking with a lot of parents after these talks and heard some variant of one particular question repeatedly:

“I’d love to have deeper conversations about faith with my kids, but how do I get them more interested in sitting down and having those discussions?”

To answer that, I gave several of these parents a snippet of advice from my marketing background.

Every day you probably see or hear some kind of advertisement for buying a new car. If you aren’t currently interested in buying a new car, however, do you notice those ads? Can you even remember the most recent one you saw or heard? Probably not. But let’s say you’re suddenly in the market for a car. Do you pay attention to those ads now? Absolutely. You notice the cars around you on the road, you pay attention to the ads on the radio, and you start keeping an eye out for sales in your mail.

There are some people who just love cars and pay attention to car-related ads all the time. But for most people, car ads become relevant only when they’re in the market for a car. This is called situational relevance.

Similarly, there are some kids who are naturally interested in spiritual matters. But for many, we have to find ways of making faith situationally relevant based on whatever else is going on in their mental life at a given time.

So how do you do that? Here are ten ideas. Note that not all of these will work for all kids. Situational relevance is all about understanding where your kids are mentally right now and working with that. These are simply thought starters.

  1. Before doing anything else, be sure to untangle God-interest from church-interest.

It’s extremely important to keep in mind that increasing your kids’ interest in God is NOT the same as increasing their interest in church. Those are two separate issues. Theoretically, your kids could be very interested in matters of faith but not like going to church for one reason or another. They won’t necessarily have processed that fact themselves, so you need to ask the questions necessary to differentiate the two. You may well find that your kids would enjoy talking about God with YOU even if they fight the trip to church every week.

Alternatively, your kids could love the experience of church but not be all that interested in God. Beware of having a false sense of confidence that your kids are actively developing their faith just because they like church. Atheists have churches now too. The real question is whether or not your kids are interested in engaging with you on the subject of faith at home.

  1. If your kids are young, implement a scheduled family spiritual development time ASAP.

I strongly believe every family should be setting aside weekly, if not daily, time to engage together in spiritual development (studying the Bible, having conversations about faith, praying, etc.). That said, if your kids are at a certain age and you haven’t already set the precedent of doing this, it can be difficult to implement immediately. To drive their interest, you’ll probably have to work up to it using one of the other tips in this post.

For those with younger kids who are still happy to sit down with their parents at a given time, however, there’s nothing better you can do to develop their interest in faith from the very beginning; you can effectively create a natural interest by making faith an integral part of their lives from a young age. We’ve been doing this several times per week since our twins were 3. They now expect that discussions of faith are part of our everyday lives, and they (now 7) choose to read the Bible and their own devotionals without any prompting. The more they read, the more it leads to questions and conversations of interest to them. When you start early, you can create a snowball of interest.

  1. Ask them what they believe about God, Jesus, and the Bible.

Parents spend a lot of time either telling their kids about Christianity or having other adults (e.g., at church) tell their kids about Christianity. But how often do we stop and flat-out ask our kids what they believe? How often do we take inventory of how they are actually processing all this information? When you find out what they think about God, Jesus, and the Bible, you’ll quickly see what topics they may be most interested in discussing. For example, you might ask, “Do you believe in God? Why?” If they do, press on to ask, “On a scale of 1 to 100, how sure are you that He exists?” If you find that the number isn’t as high as you would have imagined, it’s a perfect opportunity to have relevant discussions in this area. Or, if they don’t have very good reasons for why they believe (even with strong certainty), you can pique their interest in that area.

  1. Consider what is of interest to them right now.

One parent, I spoke with at the conference told me how her teenage daughter lost all interest in her faith after something terrible happened to a friend of hers. She was wondering what she could do to get her daughter interested again. I asked if her daughter still believed in God, and she said yes, but that she’s mad at how His world works. The obvious subject of interest for this girl right now (the one most situationally relevant) is the problem of evil and suffering. It wouldn’t make sense to try to get her interested in some random study on the fruits of the Spirit at this particular time. Meet her where she is. Sit and listen to her talk about the questions this event raised for her. Express your own sadness and questions. Tell her you’d like to learn more about it too. Then get a book on the subject to read together or read one on your own and use your knowledge to facilitate relevant conversations.

  1. Find a quote from a favorite actor or musician about faith and discuss.

If your kids have a favorite actor or musician, it’s a situationally relevant opportunity to talk about that celebrity’s views on religion. You can Google the person’s name with the word “religion” to find quotes to discuss. If the celebrity you’re looking for doesn’t happen to have said something interesting about faith, Google “atheist celebrity quotes” or “atheist celebrity memes” and click on the image results. You’ll find many of them from people older kids will know, and it can make for a great discussion. Once you’ve opened some discussion that they find interesting, you can follow up with similar conversations.

Incidentally, here’s a great one from Natalie Portman (discuss what determines the best way to live).

Imagen1

  1. Print out and discuss song lyrics from your kids’ favorite artists.

Most kids give the lyrics of songs they listen to no thought. Yet, those lyrics can offer all kinds of opportunities for relevant discussion, given that so many conflicts with a Christian worldview. It shouldn’t be a time to preach at them about how bad the stuff is that they’re listening to (if that is indeed a problem). If you do that, you’ll be closing future doors of conversation with older kids. But it can be a time to objectively look at the lyrics and talk about the worldview presented.

  1. Pretend to be an atheist and have your kids try to convince you that Christianity is true.

If you really want to get your kids thinking, ask them if they want to take the “atheist challenge.” Tell them you’re going to pretend to be an atheist, and they’ll have to try to convince you that Christianity is true. The novelty of seeing parents take an opposing viewpoint can naturally drive interest in further discussion. Alternatively, the parents can take the “atheist challenge,” and the kids can pretend to not believe in God. You then have to convince your kids Christianity is true. You can bring up all kinds of interesting points they’ve never thought about (see how sneaky/brilliant that is?). (My book has 40 different subjects you could bring up in this context, with all kinds of quotes and examples from atheists!)

  1. Play “What would you say if…”.

Certain personality types love intellectual challenges. My daughter, for example, loves open-ended questions that she can try to answer in the best way possible. If you have a child like that, you can facilitate conversations in a game format by asking, “What would you say if…” Here are a few examples:

What would you say if your friend’s mom said God doesn’t exist? What would you say if someone told you the Bible is 2,000 years old, so it’s not relevant for our lives today? What would you say if someone told you Christians are hypocrites, so they never want to be a Christian? What would you say if someone told you they believe in science, not God? What would you say if someone said they believe in God because their parents do? What would you say if someone said they don’t believe Jesus came back to life because we know that dead people stay dead?

  1. Watch a video on space or biology from both atheist and Christian perspectives.

Older teens who are encountering issues of faith and science will appreciate your willingness to watch two different perspectives, particularly if they are struggling with faith doubts. They may not otherwise be willing to talk about faith matters, but would be interested to see your take when you watch an opposing viewpoint. That can then open the door for further discussion that wouldn’t have otherwise happened.

A great science DVD series from a Christian perspective is The Intelligent Design Collection – Darwin’s Dilemma, The Privileged Planet, Unlocking the Mystery of Life.

  1. Visit a church of another religion.

Kids are very experientially-oriented. While they may be bored to tears if you try to talk them through the differences between Buddhism and Christianity, many would take an interest in learning about Buddhism after actually visiting a Buddhist temple. Take them to see one, and you can bet there will be a lot of questions to talk about. If they develop an interest in learning more about other religions, it’s a perfect opportunity to point the conversations toward understanding how we know Christianity is true.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 


Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2tdB299