10/2020 Noe (see HERE)
Parents, you love your children and want the best for
them. If you are Christians, of course
you would want them to live in the wonder and joy of the right relationship
with God and the hope of heaven that you experience. Yet, God has no grandchildren, and you also
know that they need to enter into this faith relationship with God on their
own, that you can’t force them into it.
You are tempted to do what most non-Christian parents do, just keep your
beliefs to yourself and hope they land somewhere near the same place you did on
their own.
I think there is a lesson to be learned about parenting from
our current differences on news reporting.
Increasingly, popular culture frowns on any sort of proselytizing or
attempts to influence others toward one’s own beliefs. They view this as somehow dishonest, that we
can’t be open-minded or fair because of our bias toward our own belief
system. I often hear this criticism
directed toward conservative news media, that simply becau
se they label
themselves as “conservative” they are abandoning fair and non-biased reporting. On the other hand, mainstream news media is
seen as more reliable because they claim to be non-biased and that they present
both sides of the story in an evenhanded and non-judgmental way.
For years, however, I have observed the mainstream, liberal
bias against Christian beliefs, not just in the news but from entertainment and
in social media as well. Now, our
current political divide has finally exposed this bias on a massive scale
toward all conservative perspectives in general.
So a good question to ask is – who is more biased? – those who
let us know of their perspective right up front, or those who try to hide their
bias with the false claim that they are impartial and fair-minded? Put simply, one side says “I tend to be
optimistic, and I say the glass is half full” and the other side says “I always
impartially report only the facts – that glass is half empty, and anyone who
says otherwise is biased and unreliable.”
And this, I think, is a key to Christian parenting, and a
recent outreach conversation with a young man named Noe helps illustrate it for
me. Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child
in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” In the first few minutes of our conversation,
Noe showed me he has considered many of the popular notions about eternity that
are out there, but then, suddenly, he indicated that he has returned to the
faith and beliefs he was raised in. He
was “trained in the way he should go”, and there were no indications that he
was forced into it by anyone but rather that he had returned to it on his own.
Good Christian parenting – and good news reporting –
indicates ones biases up front and then proceeds to convey that perspective on
truth. I believe the key is to take it a
step further and honestly compare that perspective to other perspectives out
there. This, I believe, is what good
Christian parenting does – it doesn’t give children over to the default teachings
of popular culture but it takes a stand for Christian truths and values and
compares them to others. It teaches
critical thinking skills in the process, so that young people will think for
themselves and, very likely, choose truth for themselves.
I say “very likely” here because Proverbs is never described
as a book of promises, but rather a book of advice for godly living. In the context of the entire Bible parents
also need much prayer and the influence of a godly local church family, and
even then must often patiently wait for their children to return on their own
to the faith they were raised in, and to accept whatever timeline and outcome
God gives in answer.
So, lets be honest about our biased perspective toward the
things of God, honestly compare them to the perspective of others, and let the
truth shine on its own!
Thanks, Noe, for allowing me to record our
conversation! It can be viewed on my
YouTube channel. Watch it HERE at https://youtu.be/xlxrk4Xx5RY
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