A Deadly Vaccine

I think many couples at my church pride themselves on how well they've raised their children. I remained confused, however, when it comes to seeing what makes their kids better than others. Okay, so they know a few Bible verses. They've been trained in the art of repeating arguments for Biblical creation. They claim to be Christians. The problem is this: these kids have been  drowned in Christian propaganda and not given much of a chance to think for themselves. I believe this inundation with Christian material is the primary reason so many kids are leaving the church when they get to college. At some point they realize that what they've been told their whole lives doesn't make sense. They realize this because they never really had to think about it; they were simply told what to believe. This form of teaching kids is counterproductive for several reasons.

My question to parents who do this to their children is this: why do you primarily present only one view, the view of Christianity, to your children? It makes no sense to bolster only one side of an argument. Children should be very familiar with the major religions in the world in addition to atheism and agnosticism. The value of knowing both sides of an argument is that you can better defend your position and better understand those who disagree with you.

If these parents are afraid of making their children unbelievers, they shouldn't be. If they truly believe their position is the strongest, they shouldn't have to worry about there kids exploring the different sides of an argument. If they believe the Bible holds together under careful scrutiny, they shouldn't have to worry about their kids trying to poke holes in the logic of the Bible.

When children are given a comfortable environment to learn the Bible, they don't feel as great a need for salvation. They've had such great exposure to the Bible that it doesn't hold as much interest for them. They may have ingrained habits of reading it and studying it, but they can't always look at it from the prospective of someone who feels the true need to repent. They are already living like Christians, to all appearance. They don't drink, smoke, do drugs, or engage in promiscuity. In some ways, this is worse than if they had done those things.

When Jesus' disciples were complaining that he let a whore near Him, he explained things to them. They disdained her, no doubt. They viewed her as the scum of society, but Jesus viewed her as someone who had repented of her sin with a full realization of her guilt. He explained to His disciples that she loved Him more because she was forgiven more. Thus, it would almost be better for everyone to go through a time in their lives when they engage in things they believe are wrong so that they can feel like they have something they need to repent of.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not recommending that people sin so that they can be forgiven more. Ideally, each person should realize the magnitude of his sins without having to add on to them. It is just easier for people to see their sin if they sin more or engage in worse sins.

By creating artificial Christians, these parents are really inoculating their kids against Christianity. The thing is (for the purposes of this metaphor), Christianity is the disease and constant inundation with Christian propaganda is the vaccine. In effect, parents are exposing their kids to enough of the gospel that they are becoming immune to it. 

This is worse than atheism. At least with atheism the atheist acknowledges that there is no God, and thus, arguably, he can be convinced that there is one. With fake Christians, one can't know to try to convince them and they can't know how badly off they are.

Like I said above, parents should really expose their children to all kinds of teaching, with, of course, a healthy dose of Christianity. They should even ask their children why they believe what they believe, not simply tell them the reasons to believe something.

Now, I realize that this doesn't apply to all parents or all children. I have no doubt that there are true believers who were raised with a one sided view of Christianity. I also have no doubt that there are many bad people who stay bad throughout their lives and are never converted to Christianity. All I'm doing is promoting thought and a thorough investigation of all aspects of an argument.