Jesus never had kids, so we don’t typically think about him when we think about how God wants us to parent our children.

Then again, Jesus never ran a business or pastored a church, but we think about him in that context all the time. But that’s another story….

For today, imagine Jesus wrote a book about parenting. What do you think he would say? How would what he says about parenting differ from most of what we hear on the subject?

A little over a year ago I wrote the following post. Given what we’ve been talking about here lately, and the topic of my sermon this Sunday, I thought it might be appropriate to restate what I feel so passionately about.

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I believe (and there’s some research out there to back this up) that every parent knows that when it comes to shaping the morals, values and ethics of our kids, it should be the parents driving that bus. I also believe that most parents feel overwhelmed and undermined as to how to go about doing it. In the absence of a plan, they most often turn to the only experts they know and trust: the church.

Most of the people who read this blog will attend church somewhere this weekend. You are thoughtful Christian people for the most part; many of you are thoughtful Christian parents. You take your kids to church, to a youth group or to Sunday School, and you expect them to learn something there that will help shape their faith and character.

That’s fine insofar as it goes. But I want you to hear this: the church can’t raise your kids.

It’s not supposed to, and it has done a terribly ineffective job when it has tried.

I love the fact that churches are getting more and more intentional about providing good, quality programming for children. It ought to be innovative and inspiring. It ought to rival the best Disney and Nickelodeon and PBS have to offer in terms marrying creativity and educational content. Churches ought to increase the percentage of their budget that goes to children’s programming, even if it means cutting some long-standing programs that benefit adults.

But I’ll say it again: the church can’t raise your kids.

I repeat myself because something really tragic has happened over the course of the last several decades. While we were busy developing innovative programming for children, we somehow convinced parents that it would probably be in their best interests to leave the faith development of their kids to experts like us.

Somehow, though I don’t think we did this intentionally, the faith development of children has largely become church-centered and home-supported.

Church is where kids go to learn about God and faith and morals and all that stuff. Families support those churches financially and by making sure the kids are there as often as possible. As long as parents have their children at church frequently enough, they feel like they’re doing their part to shape the faith and character of those children.

There are lots of reasons why this has happened; none of them are good enough. It hasn’t worked. It won’t work. It can’t work.

God has not set it up to work. God established the family to be the primary unit of faith development. Families may come together to form a church, and that church can support what’s going on in those families. But the faith development of kids is supposed to be home-based and church-supported.

I have looked all through the Bible and have not found one verse that tells churches how to raise kids. God put those kids into a family — under your leadership — and he calls you to do the heavy lifting. Raise your own kids. Stop relying so much on the church to do something God hasn’t called or equipped it to do.

Now, in order to be the parent, you’re going to need a plan. I’m not going to give you a plan. I’ll give you suggestions, but this is something I would never presume to tell you how to do. You know your kids. Anyone who ever tells you that all children should be treated the same way is wrong. Anyone who offers you the false hope of “one-size-fits-all” parenting should be dismissed. Kids aren’t animals, and kids aren’t computers. They have minds of their own and the ability to make their own decisions and choices. You must tailor your parenting to suit the personalities of both you and your child. Failure to do this is failure to honor your child and failure to honor the God who creates us uniquely.

For now, here’s the thing I want you to remember: the church can’t raise your kids.

A number of you wrote in to say that you think parenting is probably harder now than it ever has been before. There are plenty of reasons why someone might say this.

There are certainly fewer “cultural allies”, as one social critic words it. There was a time when just about everyone in your neighborhood (if you lived in a neighborhood) shared the same values and morals. Even when you might have disagreed about certain beliefs (say, the neighbors were Jewish or something) there was still a general sense of morality in your community. Parents could even trust the local radio and television stations to run generally wholesome programming during prime-time hours. You sent kids to school, and teachers would back parents up, teaching kids the same set of principles taught at home.

Now, this was obviously a double-edged sword. Prejudices were passed on and backed up, too. Ignorance was often confirmed in these kinds of situations. But — on the whole — parents could count on many of the other leaders in a child’s world to be family-friendly. That’s not always the case anymore.

And there are more opportunities for “other voices” to begin speaking into your child’s life at an earlier age than ever before. More of us put our kids in daycare programs or plop them down in front of a video or the Disney Channel or on the Internet. There are a lot of different voices out there vying for your child’s attention, and with more and more families relying on two incomes, it’s easy to see how hard it can be to maintain your place as the primary shaper of your child’s values and morals and beliefs.

There’s also a sense in which parents’ already shaky confidence is constantly being undermined by the vast number of parenting “experts” on the scene. Every newspaper or television show, school or church seems to have someone who majored in Early Childhood Development or Child Psychology or Family Therapy. These people often give off the impression that they know your child better than you do. After all, can you understand your teenager daughter’s internalized angst-driven desire to seek homeostasis within your family system? I didn’t think so. That’s why you need an expert to tell you how it’s done.

Just go to a bookstore and peruse the magazine rack. Look at how many headlines scream out to you: YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING, AND YOU MIGHT BE DOING IRREPARABLE DAMAGE TO YOUR CHILD!!!

We spend less time with our children and, as a result, lose confidence in our ability to parent. Parents today feel guilty, worried and indecisive. We secretly think we’re not very good at parenting, and the experts probably do know our kids better than we do.

So, in one sense, parenting is much harder than it used to be.

And yet….

Last year for Christmas I bought my kids the first season of the television show Little House on the Prairie. My girls just love this show, and it’s provided a lot of “teachable moments” for us. One thing that continually amazes me, though, it just how difficult life was for those people. Your child might die from a common cold. They barely had antibiotics. You had to be careful about the water you drank. They lived on the verge of starvation. They didn’t have immunization against polio or chickenpox or the measles. Heck, your kid could wander off and get eaten by a bear.

You want to talk about parenting being hard? We don’t have to worry about half of the things they had.

And I’m not just talking about life as it was 150 years ago. If you want to talk about having it rough as a parent, talk to an African-American family who raised kids in the 40s and 50s. Imagine raising a child who didn’t have a guaranteed quality education or equal access to good jobs. That’s still a reality in some parts of of America, but a lot has changed in the past 50 years. The Ozzie and Harriet Show wasn’t a reality for much of our nation.

So, if we can agree that there are ways in which parentings is more difficult now than it used to be, what are some other ways in which parenting has become easier in recent years?

I’m starting a three-week sermon series this Sunday at The Bridge based on the material in my book Hearts and Minds: Raising Your Child with a Christian View of the World.

This week I’m going to try and answer a simple question, and I’d like your thoughts.

Is parenting today easier or more difficult than it was in previous generations?

Please explain your answer.

I’ve had a lot of really kind feedback from people who saw me on the Coral Ridge Hour last weekend. If you didn’t get to see the broadcast, you can watch my segment online here. I’ve gotten email from people all across the country, and I had a few folks show up at church Sunday because they saw the show and realized they live close to The Bridge — one was even an old friend from high school.

All of this has me thinking about the topic we dealt with on the show — “The New Atheism”. In the past, there have been people who did not believe in God, but things have recently changed in the way the conversation is discussed. There is a new group of atheists who behave more like fundamentalists than scientists. Their goal seems to be more than just proving or disproving a particular point of view. Their objective seems more bent on ridiculing those who disagree with them. They attack Christians with a level of vitriol that’s startling.

What’s even more startling is how few Christians feel equipped to handle this level of criticism — or even have a conversation on why we believe what we believe. I got an email this week from someone whose adult children (who were raised in a Christian, church-going home) have asked her to explain why she trusts the Bible. She asked me if I could recommend some good reading for her to forward on to her children.

I’m glad to do this, but I wonder why churches and parents have failed to equip our children with a basic understanding of apologetics. Further, I’m wondering what we could do about it.

Obviously, I feel strongly about this. Dr. Ken Boa and I wrote a book about how parents can help their children gain a Christian view of the world. We’ve just finished a study guide for small groups to use (if you’re interested, leave me a comment or shoot me an email). I’ve conducted seminars based on the material in the book all across the country (ditto). I’m doing a three-part sermon series at The Bridge starting on Oct. 28.

But I’m thinking about doing something a little different. I’m thinking about putting together a seminar that tackles the hard questions being asked by guys like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens head-on. If I were to put together such a thing, I have a few thoughts that you may be able to help me with.

First, do you think such a thing is necessary? Should a church invest in this kind of thing?

Second, would your church or group be interested in hosting such an event? It might be good for a retreat setting or a Saturday/Sunday weekend.

Third, what are the questions you’d like to see addressed?

Christians have always been pioneers in the fields of education and learning. For various reasons (some good and some bad), Christians have always started schools, teaching people not only Christian doctrine but to read and write well, to appreciate and understand science, medicine and mathematics. This has been true since the days of Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria (both of whom differed from other educators in that they admitted male and female students).

Contrary to what some would have us believe, real Christians have always championed the cause of education — from the middle of the second century to this day.

But why? Why has education always been so important to Christians?

Plantinga sums up the real reason why education and learning are so important for Christians (or at least why they should be):

The point of all this learning is to prepare to add one’s own contribution to the supreme reformation project, which is God’s restoration of all things that have been corrupted by evil (Engaging God’s World, xii).

How is this different or similar to the ways in which you see Christian institutions approach education and learning?

Okay, I’m far from being a star, but I am going to be on television this weekend. You might remember that I was asked to participate in a taping for Coral Ridge Ministries‘ weekly television broadcast. They interviewed me along with Paul Voss and Ravi Zacharias about the challenges presented to Christianity by what is often referred to as “The New Atheism”.

The show is broadcast all over the world on TBN (the Trinity Broadcast Network) — usually on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. There are other channels as well, and you can find them on Coral Ridge’s website.

I’m sure that by this time next week I will be much more famous than I currently am. I’ll probably have lots more money, too. This will change everything.

Of course, you know…I’m joking.

I must say it was distressing to read your comments about what makes “Christian” education “Christian.”

The sad truth is that many Christian schools were started at a particularly shocking time in American history — and sometimes for particularly shocking (though often unspoken) reasons. The 1960s saw a tremendous amount of societal change happening in America. The two most pertinent factors as it relates to the rise of Christian schools (and a lot of Christian schools were started from the mid-60s to the early-70s) are: (1) the banning of prayer in public schools and (2) desegregation.

Many Christian parents claimed they were righteously indignant over the first factor when, in reality, they were afraid of the second.

So, schools were started where little Johnny and Mary could ride the bus without rubbing shoulders with brown-skinned people — and, of course, they could pray. And…uh…attend chapel services where there would be…um…praying. And the Pledge of Allegiance with strong emphasis on the words “one nation under God”.

There. Does that make it feel “Christian” enough?

Let’s see…we’ve got chapel and praying and “one nation under God” and…oh…how about Bible classes?

Plantinga’s book has much to say about this topic. It is aimed at Christian colleges, but it applies to Christian elementary, middle and high schools as well. Here’s a great quote from the preface:

[N]o matter how a Christian college plans to integrate faith, learning, and service, it will never conduct education-as-usual — not if it is serious about Christian higher education. It won’t even do education-as-usual with Bible classes tacked on, or education-as-usual with prayers before class, or education-as-usual with a service-learning component and a ten o’clock chapel break (Engaging God’s World, p. xiv).

My question to you last week was, “How is ‘Christian’ education different from regular education?” Your response was, “Not much.”

My question this week is, “How should ‘Christian’ education be different from regular education?”

I recently saw a video clip of a Christian leader who was literally screaming because a Christian organization was advertising a series of seminars featuring a Jewish rabbi teaching on the Old Testament (as Christians refer to it). Admittedly, he was trying to be funny, and he may very well have had a point. But whatever point he may have had was lost on me when he started hopping up and down, red in the face, yelling at people because — in his opinion — Christians cannot learn anything about the Bible from a person who denies that Jesus is the Messiah.

His line of reason was this: the whole Bible is about Jesus; therefore, if you deny the centrality of the historical Jesus, your interpretation of the Bible will be wrong.

I thought of him when I read this paragraph from the preface to Plantinga’s book:

[John] Calvin understood that God created human beings to hunt and gather truth, and that, as a matter of fact, the capacity for doing so amounts to one feature of the image of God in them (Col. 3:10). So Calvin fed on knowledge as gladly as a deer on sweet corn. He absorbed not only the teachings of Scripture and of its great interpreters, such as St. Augustine, but also whatever knowledge he could gather from such famous pagans as the Roman philosopher Seneca. And why not? The Holy Spirit authors all truth, as Calvin wrote, and we should therefore embrace it no matter where it shows up. But we will need solid instruction in Scripture and Christian wisdom in order to recognize truth and in order to disentangle it from error and fraud. Well-instructed Christians try not to offend the Holy Spirit by scorning truth in non-Christian authors over whom the Spirit has been brooding, but this does not mean that Christians can afford to read these authors uncritically. After all, a person’s faith, even in idols, shapes most of what a person thinks and writes, and the Christian faith is in competition with other faiths for human hearts and minds. (Engaging God’s World, p. x)

Plantinga is saying (and here he is in good company with folks like John Calvin and C.S. Lewis) that Christians need not avoid listening to the wisdom of people who aren’t Christians. There are those — apparently like the hopping mad Christian leader in the video — who think Christians can only learn from other Christians. After all, one could apply his premise to almost any field of study. I believe that Jesus is not only central to the Bible but to all of life. Therefore, if a person denies the centrality of Jesus, what can they teach us about any field of study? Psychology? Biology? Chemistry? History? Literature?

If taken to its logical conclusion, this line of reasoning leads us to only listen to other Christians and believe that we — and only we — have cornered the market on truth.

Plantinga seems to be saying that there’s truth to be found in our world. Christians ought to be on a search for truth, but they must know that some of it lies beyond the boundaries of Christendom. And then he hints at what is perhaps the single biggest missing ingredient in the lives of many Christians. He says, basically, this search for truth among the wisdom of non-Christian people will require discernment on the part of Christians.

Ah, discernment. We’re not very good at that. And we’ve managed to arrange our world so we don’t have to be. I can listen to a Christian radio station — where I know they’ll never say or play anything objectionable. I can read only Christian books and only associate with Christian people. Our local church will distribute literature telling me where all the boundary lines are and what constitutes acceptable Christian behavior for those who aspire to leadership positions in the church (no smoking, drinking or going to R-rated movies). Heck, they’ll even print up an easy-to-read voter guide telling me which candidates stand for the official Christian position. Christian leaders will tell me which issues I should be outraged over and which movies are Evangelically acceptable (Evan Almighty, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc.).

The average Christian sitting in the average church isn’t brimming with discernment. And I have to wonder if that’s not a problem we created and are perpetuating.

A new friend from Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company found my blog and graciously sent me several new books. Anyone who knows me knows that the way to my heart is through my bookshelf!

One of the books he sent is called Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning and Living by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. It is, in a word, fantastic.

Plantinga is now the President of Calvin Theological Seminary, but when he wrote this book he was the Dean of Chapel at Calvin College. In that capacity, he found that many students were coming to college unprepared to integrate their academic pursuits with their intellectual pursuits. They had fallen prey to what we’ve been talking about here on the blog in recent days about having life stuffed into various categories. School was one wedge of the game piece. Church was another. There was no overlap.

His intent is to knock down the dividing walls for students on their way into the school. In fact, this book is required reading for incoming freshmen at Calvin College.

Now, I logged plenty of time in Christian Education. I went to a Christian Elementary School. I graduated from a Christian High School. I went to a Christian University. Heck, I went to two Christian Universities and a seminary. I know that world pretty well, and I know that many of you do, too.

Many of you attended Christian schools and/or send your children to Christian schools. There are a variety of reasons for doing so, but here’s what I’m interested in today:

How is “Christian” education different from regular education?