We Have To Arm Our Children With Christian Knowledge

For decades and even centuries, our Western civilization was based on Christianity.

For me personally, there was never another religion but Christianity when I grew up. My friends went to a Bible-based school or a public school.

What Changed In The Last 8 Decades

If I have to guess, I think it all started after World War II, and in the late 50s. The hippie movement brought other types of religious thinking from, mostly, India and that area.

Meditation and transcendental ways of looking at life slowly started to make a shift in our lives.

The second thing was the immigration from Middle Eastern countries to the Western world. This brought the islamic belief into our society.

What Happened To Our Schools

All these things brought more alternative-thinking people to our school systems. Religion became something that was questioned more and not seen as the basis of our existence anymore.

Alternative lifestyles became more accepted, and the traditional ways slowly became something seen less and less.

In all honesty. If you read my story about how I lost my religion, I think I was also affected by that.

The Problem For Our Children

The problem that our Christian-raised children face now is, in my opinion, that they don’t have the knowledge to defend the bible.

What I noticed is that children who go to college after high school get influenced by college professors about their alternative life, and in discussions about religion, they are not able to show them that they are wrong.

They might know Scripture and the stories in the Bible, and that is great. But in most cases, they can’t answer critical questions from non-believers.

They face questions such as: How do you know God exists? How do you know Jesus rose from the dead? If god is good, why are there wars?

They will also get questions about other religions and why they think Christianity is the only right religion.

Just to name a few subjects. They should be able to explain with facts.

What We As Parents And Church Did Wrong

The thing is that we can’t blame our children. We, as parents and as a Church, should have seen this coming and anticipated it.

We thought that all we had to do was read the Bible with our children and raise them the right way. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is the basis of our Christian Life.

However, we never armed them with the right knowledge to answer critical questions from fellow students, teachers, or professors.

The reason that we did not do that is probably that we don’t have that knowledge ourselves.

What We Can Do

We can change our conversations with our children and give them the ammunition to fire back when they are asked questions.

I believe that all we have to be able to answer are these questions

• How do you know that God made this world
• How do you know that Jesus was crucified and resurrected from the dead?
• How do you know that Jesus is the Son of God?

If you can answer these 3 questions and prove it, you will have 3 powerful weapons in your arsenal.

What Do I Do?

After I realized that I also missed the knowledge to answer most of the questions, I decided to buy some books that could help me.

I found that there are many books to choose from that will explain things such as that creation is not a matter of evolution, that Jesus died on the cross, and proof of the resurrection.

Most of these books are written from a scientific point of view, and that is what we have to arm ourselves and our children with.

Here are the books I started reading.

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

In this book, Lee Strobel, who was a hardcore atheist and investigative reporter, tries to prove to his wife that Christianity and the whole story are fiction and not supported by science.

Follow his journey, and if you don’t like reading, watch the movie with the same title.

I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist

Norman Geisler and Frank Turek do a great job of showing and finding proof for many things in the Bible.

The Case For A Creator

Another book by Lee Strobel, where he interviews many leading scientists to prove that the world couldn’t come into existence without an intelligent being, God.

I have many more books on my list to read that will help me to arm myself and others to conquer the questions that people throw at us.

Eddie van Aken