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Apologetics for kids

The Most Important Thing to Tell Your Child When They Doubt Their Faith

October 31, 2018

Doubt is feeling the pull of an objection. We doubt when we encounter a claim that challenges one of our beliefs and we find the claim at least somewhat plausible.

Doubts can come from anywhere. Sometimes there’s someone in our lives who is pressing us on a belief or it may be something we think of all on our own.

Our kids are almost certain to come across challenges to their Christian beliefs. Our culture has become steadily post-Christian and so, at some point, our kids will be pressed by someone or themselves simply have a challenge in their own thoughts. Sometimes these challenges will be easily addressed, but other times they will cause them to struggle.

Facing Down Doubt

All too often kids face down their doubts alone. This is in part because a pastor or parent’s advice for their doubt has amounted to telling them “knock it off.” Or they have been told to pray these doubts away. We should of course pray about these things, but, for most of us, this doesn’t work.

So the most important thing to tell your child when they face doubts is…

You are normal.

Doubt is a normal part of the process as we move along this journey of living the Christian life. It is not necessarily evidence of weak faith or that one is not genuinely saved or that they are doing something wrong when it comes to their Christian walk. All it means is there is some objection that is striking them as somewhat plausible. And this is just a normal part of the process of growing in faith.

Doubt is normal

Here’s the reality: we should ALL find some objections to our views somewhat plausible, at least from time to time.

Consider your political views. If you think ALL of your political views are just obvious and ANYONE who disagrees must be deluded or morally deranged, then you are probably not thoughtfully engaging. There are a wide range of political views out there and it’s likely some really well-meaning and intelligent people hold the exact opposite view of yours. And when we take the time to understand why well-meaning and intelligent people hold different views from us, we often see that a view is far more plausible than what we initially thought. Keep in mind, we can find claims plausible even if we don’t believe them. This is what happens in sales– things we don’t believe are made plausible.

There are objections to Christianity that I, as a seminary professor, can find somewhat plausible. Now I am not in a situation where I’m wavering in my Christian commitments, given these objections, as I once did. But this is because I dug in and investigated and am now confident in addressing these objections. But I can still, in a way, feel the tug these objections otherwise have.

I want my kids to doubt their faith

I often say that I want my kids to doubt their faith. I realize this is fairly provocative. Why would I say such a thing?

It’s because I think there are really good answers to the objections of Christianity!! I think Christianity stands on robust evidence and its a really, really good story. It’s what C.S. Lewis would call a True Myth. I want my kids to feel the pull of an objection and then have the experience of finding answers that address those objections. This is powerful! And its powerful precisely because it brings confident faith.

I also want my kids to doubt when they are in my care and under my roof, rather than when they are out there in the world, say, in a biology class or getting bombarded by some hostile unbeliever. I want to be right there guiding them through this process.

Investigate!

The only way I know to address doubt is to investigate and find answers to our questions. We are often very slow to investigate because doubt has a way of making us feel like we’ve stumbled on the as-of-yet-undiscovered-smoking-gun-objection to Christianity. That is, we think we have found the envelope that contains the missing evidence that falsifies the whole thing and we are afraid to look inside.

However, I say look inside.

Whenever I have investigated an objection with which I’m struggling, I have found that, first, it’s not the smoking gun of which I was afraid. Second, there are thoughtful Christian answers indeed. I don’t have everything solved, but there are good answers that go a long way to addressing our doubts.

The informed parent

Here’s where you, as a parent, need to be informed and ready to guide your child. I’m guessing your child may not be ready to read through all 880 pages of Evidence that Demands a Verdict or Bill Craig’s graduate level Reasonable Faith. But you should.

I, and a couple of coauthors, recently wrote Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel as an accessible guide to apologetics that emphasizes the reasonability and the attractiveness of Christianity. In short, we think the Christian gospel is brilliant.

Here are a few other accessible resources:

Natasha Crain’s books and blog.

J. Warner Wallace’s books and website. Each of Jim’s books have a kid’s version that they can read.

Sean McDowell’s book Apologetics for a New Generation.

What are some other resources you have found helpful on your journey?

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Apologetics, Apologetics for kids

A Guide for Talking with Your Kids about God

June 8, 2018

I have been frequently asked, over the years, about apologetics resources for kids. Parents and children’s ministers are sometimes desperate to find resources that take these important concepts that are often extremely complex and translate them in a way they can be presented and taught to kids. For a long time, there honestly wasn’t much that did this. We are thankfully beginning to see this situation change. One of the best writing in this area is Natasha Crain (her blog is christianmomthoughts.com) . I recently read her Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have and thought it was terrific.

Talking with Your Kids

To be clear, Crain’s is not a book for your kids to read. It is a book for parents (or grandparents or anyone who interacts with kids) to help their kids better understand God. There’s of course a place for books that are written for kids to read. However, those books should never take the place of a parent taking the time to be intentional in leading, guiding and preparing their children for the challenges they will face. The aim of Crain’s book is to provide content and strategies that will equip parents to have meaningful conversations specifically about God (30, in total) with their kids.

Each chapter is devoted to setting up a substantive conversation between a parent and child on a variety of topics about God. The chapters are relatively brief (around 8 pages). They first lay out the case for a Christian perspective on a particular topic. This serves as the meat and potatoes of what will be discussed. The parent gets good and hard-hitting content that he or she will need to confidently discuss the particular issue on his or her child’s level. After this case is developed, the details are helpfully summarized under a heading of “Key Points” for easy reference. Each chapter concludes with a “Conversation Guide.” The conversation guide has suggestions to start the conversation, suggestions to advance the conversation, and suggestions to apply the conversation.

So imagine you would like to help your kids think about and have reasons for believing in the existence of God. Crain provides 6 chapters for having 6 different conversations on this topic! What, for example, can we learn about God and his existence from nature? In this particular chapter, Crain gives a biblical basis for how God has revealed himself in nature and then offers a very substantive run through of what we see in nature that points us to God (which is further elaborated in subsequent chapters). The chapter concludes with suggestions for your conversation with your kid and this is of course what it is all about. A parent is given a framework and very helpful suggestions to have a meaningful conversation about seeing God in the world around us.

Highlights

Some highlights for me in reading the book were the fact that the content of the book is not simply to have apologetics-style conversations with your child, but also theological ones. You can’t talk about God without doing some theology, or so it seems to me. One of the five major sections focuses on the nature of God and even takes on such issues as the doctrine of the Trinity. Each of my kids have, at a relatively young age, wondered about how to understand this difficult concept. I quickly realized that having this conversation haphazardly had the tendency to create frustration. But it is, of course, an absolutely crucial conversation to have. Crain’s helpful suggestion in having this conversation is to walk your child through the provided passages of the Bible that describe the oneness of God, the distinctness of each of the persons of the Trinity, and that each person of the Trinity is fully God. What’s nice about this is that before jumping into the concepts such as essence and personal identity (as some of us may be a bit apt to do), a kid can see the Trinity on display in the pages of Scripture. There’s going to be some mystery here and that’s okay, but a child is building a foundation for doing good systematic theology (probably) without even knowing it.

Beyond covering the fundamental issues such as the existence and nature of God, Crain also focuses on relevant issues as well. This is helpful since if you are not up on the current topics you may not know how a flying spaghetti monster serves as an objection to the belief in God. But there’s a good chance your kid will eventually run into this sort of objection. Crain has a whole chapter devoted to it. Or for many of us, we haven’t exactly stayed current on trends in science as it relates to Christian faith. This is a real problem since, especially on college campuses, science reigns supreme. Crain spends 6 chapters covering issues related to God and science with very interesting and insightful suggestions for discussing these issues with your kids.

Hard-hitting Accessibility

I think Crain strikes a really good balance between having hard hitting content and making it accessible throughout the book. This is one of the most difficult challenges in writing on these sorts of topics for a general audience. On my view, not everything can be made perfectly accessible without sacrificing some accuracy. Some concepts, I think, are irreducibly complex. Crain’s target is a very general one: parents. So her task was to take these very difficult concepts and translate them in understandable ways without sacrificing accuracy. The result is a good blend of challenging material with helpful and relatable illustrations. But the reader should be forewarned. Some of this will strike as difficult material and Crain’s chapters are intentionally brief. She does a terrific job of making it as accessible as it can be, but I suspect many will want and need to look to other resources for some further help understanding all of what is going on.

This leads me to the only real criticism I have with the book. What would have been helpful is to have listed resources for further study right there when a parent needs more. This is of course a rather minor criticism since it is not difficult to find resources these days. But for a person who is very new to these topics and may not be familiar with the authors who do good work in these areas, it can be difficult to go further without a guide.

3000 Conversations!

The reality is that there are 3000 conversations (and probably lots more!) that you need to have with your child about God, but Crain gives a terrific guide to get into some of the most fundamental and relevant. There are countless number of insights, anecdotes, and analogies that I plan to use with my own children as I talk with them about God.

 

 

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Apologetics, Apologetics for kids, Christian Faith, Doubt

4 Steps to Help Kids Ask Questions Stuck in their Heads

November 2, 2017

Every survey and researcher says that students have a lot of questions about their faith. This seems to essentially define Millennials and Gen Y from older generations. Whereas older generations were content with certain presuppositions about faith, youth today are suspicious and often doubtful of these things. But here’s a funny thing. I get the privilege to speak regularly to students about faith and apologetics. At these events, there will occasionally be a Q and A time. When it is thrown open for questions, it’s very often the case that there is…awkward silence (crickets in the background). (whispering) Psst, where’s all the questions? What’s going on?

What is going on here? Well I don’t think the researchers have it wrong. I do think students have questions and they can, often times, be burdened by these. I think it is that the questions haven’t always coalesced in their minds into English language yet.

This can be a really rough place to be. One has a question that’s bothering them and creating cognitive dissonance, but they cannot even ask the question that’s there. It can be especially rough since that question may continue to nag them and even create further doubts. If they could just ask the question, it may be there’s a really good answer waiting in the wings. But it’s currently stuck and, thus, they are currently stuck.

We must get our kids asking their questions and seeing the resources of the Christian faith. An important role for youth leaders and parents to play is to help their kids articulate the questions they in fact have. To be clear, this isn’t telling your kids what to think. It is not telling them what questions they should have. It is helping them surface and articulate their questions.

Here are 4 steps to help kids ask the questions stuck in their heads.

  1. Enter into their world.

The first thing is to enter their world. This is perhaps the most difficult step, especially if you haven’t done this much to date. But we’ve got to meet them where they are at. We need to notice what they like, what bothers them, what repulses them, what do they tend to emphasize, what sorts of things change their mind on issues, etc. Every generation is different. There is said to be one of the greatest generation gaps that has ever existed today. I’m not sure if that’s right or even how that is measured, but it seems clear the world they move in is substantively different and you need to get to know it to help the ask their questions.

  1. Listen and affirm them in the questions they ask.

I want to also suggest you create a safe space for them to ask any question at all. This is perhaps the scariest part. My wife and I have always told our kids they can ask us any question in the world and we’ll do our best to answer it (always in age appropriate ways) without any condemnation. There is, for us, no question that is off limits.

Now you have to cultivate the art of listening in these situations. Listen to them. Listen to what they are saying on their terms. Listen especially to what they are not saying. It’s often that the good stuff hangs just behind what they say.

Now it’s not my view that every question is a good one. There are dumb questions. But any question, insofar as it is a genuine question, is good to ask. And again, ill-formed questions will often stand just on the outside of a great question. Thus I think we should always affirm our kids in the questions they ask. If it is interesting to my kids, it is thereby interesting to me. If you make them feel bad in asking a question, they will start going elsewhere for answers.

  1. Ask clarifying questions and push them to dig deeper.

If they’ve begun to ask some questions, great. But it may not be the question that’s bothering them. Clarify what they are saying. State their question back to them in different words to make sure you’ve got it. “I hear you asking…” and be ready to have missed their point.

If they still don’t know what to ask, give them some prompts. I find that I can typically start in talking about God or the Bible and the questions often come. By pushing them to dig deeper, they’ll find things that don’t make sense to them.

  1. Walk together in dialogue as you search for answers together.

Chances are you will get thrown for a loop. I know I do all the time with students. I often have to give my best stab at something and then apologize and promise to get back to them. But I make it a point to get back to them. And this is the good stuff. Walking together in a dialogue (rather than preaching at them in monologue form) will draw you closer together and help both of you to clarify your thoughts and believe in more rational ways.

 

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