15 April 2012

Risking our kids by failing to train them

Training in worldview, logic, and apologetics is sadly lacking from most Christian education in the church and the home. I know of very few young people, much less adults, who have invested themselves in knowing how to make a sound defense of the faith.  Christians have no need to bury their head in the sand on issues of life and culture, but too often we do because we don't know how strong our arguments really are.  The truth is on our side.  I found this quote by William Lane Craig to hit home, particularly the couple of sentences I highlighted.  
"Other students I met with at Princeton were enrolled in a class taught by the New Testament critic Elaine Pagels which they nicknamed the “Faithbusters Class” because of its destructive effect on the faith of many Christian students. They had no way of knowing how far out of mainstream scholarship Prof. Pagels’ views on the Gnostic gospels are. It was a privilege to share with them grounds for the credibility of the New Testament witness to Jesus.
"Their experience is not unusual. In high school and college Christian teenagers are intellectually assaulted with every manner of non-Christian worldview coupled with an overwhelming relativism. If parents are not intellectually engaged with their faith and do not have sound arguments for Christian theism and good answers to their children’s questions, then we are in real danger of losing our youth. It’s no longer enough to teach our children simply Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics. It’s hard to understand how people today can risk parenthood without having studied apologetics.
"Unfortunately, our churches have also largely dropped the ball in this area. It’s insufficient for youth groups and Sunday school classes to focus on entertainment and simpering devotional thoughts. We’ve got to train our kids for war. We dare not send them out to public high school and university armed with rubber swords and plastic armor. The time for playing games is past." William Lane Craig


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