Change is coming for your children. They will live in a different world than the one that greeted you when you left home. It is a world that views social media as a moral compass. Constantly changing public opinion pools drive online and cable news. Personal fulfillment has become life’s most important focus. Morality is measured by individual desires and lusts. This is the climate that shapes the culture you children will inhabit. It is true that these themes have been emerging for the last couple of decades. However, what will strongly impact your children is that now there is no biblical, social counter-balance to this trend. Biblical Christianity is equated with hatred in this emergent world. Christianity has become a social curse.
The ideas of God, the Holy Spirit, and church are tolerated as long as they remain generic. These concepts by themselves are welcomed as part of the “new spiritual awakening”. But Jesus Christ as the Savior of sinful people and the Bible as the standard for how to live pose significant issues for this desire-driven world..The person of Christ means that people are in need of redemption. It is this thought that is repugnant.
Redemption, if it is needed at all, is said to come from within, from a personal make-over. Thus, your children are entering a world that has no room for the Christ and the book that is the absolute standard for morality. It is fine for Jesus to be a baby as long as he doesn’t grow up. It is fine for Jesus to be a man as long as he is not God. It is fine for Jesus to die as long as he remains only an example. This new world is okay with what does not condemn. But as Jesus said, “Don’t think I come to bring peace but a sword.” This is not the savior that this culture will tolerate.
Help your children see the significance of Christ. Teach them not to be intimidated by those who have contempt for Jesus. For several decades, Religion 101 classes have been effective in portraying Christ as a noble, yet pathetic man with delusions grandeur who is the product of a deeply flawed set of writings called the New Testament.
But the truth is that man does need a Savior and he can’t redeem himself. The reality is that when Christ the Savior is rejected, all hope is lost as well. Spend the time to help your children confidently respond to attacks on Christ and Christianity.
When your children hear the person of Jesus challenged they can and should respond with a question: “Why is it that you insist on forcing me to believe as you believe?” You see the Christians are not the ones who lack tolerance. This world that your children will inhabit will tolerate anything but Christ.
Help your children to be able to ask questions that will expose intolerance for what it is. Help them to reach out to those who are blinded and weak from trusting the pulse of a culture driven by desires and changing standards. Give them eyes of compassion that will help to rescue and restore a world that thinks it has moved beyond the need of a Savior.