Are We Scaring Our Kids into Leaving the Faith?

A troubling reality that the church faces today is the alarming number of young adults who forsake the Christian faith, despite their upbringing. If you were raised in church or attended a Christian school, I’m sure you can think of some examples (I know I can).

As a parent you may have this concern: “what if my kids reject the faith they have always known?”

We could spend a lot of time considering all the contributing factors for this troubling trend, but I want to focus on one factor specifically: The way we describe the world to our youth.

I think we paint a picture of the world that is way too “evil.” I say this as someone who firmly believes that those without Christ are “foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures” (Titus 3:3).

This world is depraved - there’s no doubt about it. However, in our attempts to expose the wickedness of the heart and promote righteous living in our children, we have left them ill-suited to function as believers in this lost world.

Perhaps this is a silly illustration, but do you remember that song from the Disney movie, Tangled, called “Mother Knows Best”? Rapunzel is locked away in a tower, isolated from the outside world, and her adopted mother tries to intimidate her from leaving the tower by singing to Rapunzel,

Mother knows best Listen to your mother It’s a scary world out there Mother knows best One way or another Something will go wrong, I swear Ruffians and thugs, poison ivy, quicksand Cannibals and snakes, the plague Also large bugs Men with pointy teeth, and…

You get the idea.

But, when Rapunzel finally leaves the tower and ventures into the “big, bad world,” she doesn’t meet “men with pointy teeth,” she meets Flynn Rider, smolder and all. The world was nothing like the way her mother described.

Here’s my point: We often teach our youth that the “outside world” is full of reprobate, evil monsters, and that the moment you graduate from Christian school and step onto a college campus or into a workplace, you’re going to be attacked from all sides - persecuted, mocked and ostracized.

And although that might be the experience for some, here is what the experience will be for most: They will step out into the world for the first time and realize, these are a bunch of really nice people! Where are all the evil, godless monsters? They aren’t out to get me—they’re normal, nice, polite, moral people. What was I so scared about?

In fact, they may even discover that their new unsaved friends are more kind than many of their Christian friends they grew up with. Suddenly, there is seemingly no reason to cling onto the Christian faith in the face of intense opposition.

In order to correct this problem, parents and pastors need to be sure they are presenting a correct understanding of depravity and a correct understanding of Christian devotion.

Understanding Depravity

Scripture teaches that those without Christ are depraved. But does this mean that every human being is as debauched and perverted as possible? No. The Scriptural understanding of “depravity” is one of “inability.” That is, the unredeemed heart is unable to receive and accept God’s Word (John 14:17; 1 Cor 12:3; Eph 4:17-18) and unable to please God (Rom 8:6-8). The heart of the depraved is a heart that has no room for God (Psalm 10:4; Rom 3:11).

This does not mean, however, that an unsaved person cannot act morally. On the contrary, unsaved people feed the poor, sacrifice for others, adopt orphans, and donate to charity. As human beings made in the image of God, they are capable of kindness and respect, even while they are rebelling against their Creator. They have “the appearance of godliness, but deny its power” (2 Tim 3:5).

What makes the world a wicked place is not fundamentally their immorality—it is their unbelief. They are seeking happiness and purpose apart from the Almighty. They are depending on their own works—their own morality. Sometimes depravity looks like “Hitler.” Sometimes depravity looks like Ghandi or Mother Theresa.

Don’t give your kids the impression that all the ‘good’ people are the ones in church and all the ‘bad’ people are in the world; teach your kids that the church is filled with formerly dead sinners who have been redeemed, regenerated and reconciled to their Creator, and the world is filled with people who are hopeless without that redemption.

If we instruct our youths properly, they won’t be shocked when they meet unsaved people who are nice. They will understand that no matter how moral a person may appear, their fundamental problem is their rejection of Jesus Christ.

Instilling Devotion

If we teach our children that the key distinction between saved people and lost people is morality, how will your child respond when he meets an atheist who is more moral than many Christians? How will your child respond when it seems like other belief systems are doing a better job at producing moral people than Christianity is?

The key distinction between the saved and the lost is not morality—it’s devotion. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, saved people have a love for Jesus Christ and the Word of God and the world does not. Yes, devotion results in morality, but that morality is the fruit, not the foundation.

If we do not teach this distinction clearly, the “good” kids in our church will see no need to hold fast to the faith when they enter a world full of “good” people. I fear that the church often assumes that young people in our church love Jesus.

We assume that the kids who pray the sinner’s prayer, do well in Awana, say their memory verses, obey their parents and teachers, and don’t doodle in church clearly love Jesus. Instead, we focus our attention on the “problem kids” who goof off in Sunday School and mouth off to their parents, and completely fail to instill in the hearts of the “good kids” a heartfelt love and devotion for their Savior.

We have a lot of kids, teens, and young adults in our churches who have figured out how to receive the approval of their church but have never personalized their faith. They have never made their parents’ faith their faith. The seed of God’s Word has fallen on stony ground and they have “no root in themselves” (Mark 4:16-17). And while this rootless Christianity will most certainly succumb to “affliction and persecution” (v. 17), it will also succumb to the kindness of the world.

Charles Bridges once wrote, “The kindness of the world is far more formidable than its enmity. Many, who were prepared to stem the torrent of its opposition, have yielded with compromising indulgence to its paralyzing kindness.”

May we carefully teach our kids what true Christianity is and is not, as we humbly pray for God to take the seed of His Word and plant it deep in their hearts.