When kids are young they will believe just about anything mom and dad tell them because mom and dad are the authority on knowledge.  When they go to school they sit under new authorities called “teachers.”  When teachers claim something is true contrary to what mom and dad said was true, the child faces a problem: who are they going to believe?

By this time in their life they no longer believe whatever they are told.  They have developed rational faculties and intuitively understand the underpinnings of logical inquiry.  Whereas they used to blindly accept the answers given them, now those answers will be questioned.  The fact that various authorities differ on issues of ultimate truth demonstrates to them that authority cannot be trusted as the sole arbiter of truth.  So when it comes down to believing mom/dad or the teacher, who are they going to believe?  Chances are that they will believe the teacher over against their parents.  There are two reasons for this.

First, most kids see their teachers as smarter than their parents.  They reason that chances are the teacher is right and the parent(s) is wrong since teachers know more than parents.  Secondly, parents often fail to give any reasons to believe what they told their children to believe, whereas the teacher is giving reasons to believe the contrary belief.  People believe what they have (better) reason to believe.  So let’s look at the score here.  Who’s smarter?: teacher.  Who supplies reasons to believe?: teacher.  The score is 2-0 in favor of the teacher, and then we wonder why children lose their faith in the school system.

As Christian educators we must educate parents on the relevant intellectual issues their children will have to face so that when their child is old enough to question authority, and when their child encounters objections to the Christian faith, the parent(s) will be capable of helping their child sort through the competing claims with the ultimate goal that their child can rest assured that the Christian faith is objectively true.  This requires that they have knowledge of what ideas their child is being exposed to, why those ideas are flawed, and why the Christian worldview is true.  If parents and pastors do not possess this knowledge (or know where to direct their child to get it), how do we expect for our children to survive out there in the secular marketplace of what are often anti-god ideas?

We send our children to college without intellectually preparing them on these issues, and then we wonder why they come back all beat up.  How is graduating from a Search for Truth course going to prepare them for the university where their faith is the object of attack?  How will “juking and jiving” Sunday night prepare them to defend their belief in God against the attacks of their professors?  How will typical Pentecostal preaching prepare them to defend their belief in the historic resurrection of Jesus Christ?  Preaching, praise, and Bible studies are good and worthy endeavors, but these will not be enough to prepare our kids for the university (and public life for that matter).  Something more is needed.

Sending a child into the university without solid reasons to believe Christianity is true, and solid reasons to reject non-Christian ideas is like sending a soldier into battle with a spoon rather than a rifle.  Their chances of survival are minimal.  If they come out still believing in Christ chances are that their faith will be a sheer commitment of the will in the absence of reason (which isn’t really faith at all), or their faith in Christ will be relegated to the realm of personal values (while Christ is true for them, Christianity has nothing to do with reality).  Neither of these is acceptable.

I leave you with the words of Nancy Pearcey from her book, Total Truth: “As Christian parents, pastors, teachers, and youth group leaders, we constantly see young people pulled down by the undertow of powerful cultural trends.  If all we give them is a ‘heart’ religion, it will not be strong enough to counter the lure of attractive but dangerous ideas.  Young believers also need a ‘brain’ religion—training in worldview and apologetics—to equip them to analyze and critique the competing worldviews they will encounter when they leave home.  If forewarned and forearmed, young people at least will have a fighting chance when they find themselves a minority of one among their classmates or work colleagues.  Training young people to develop a Christian mind is no longer an option; it is part of their necessary survival equipment.”