Thinking Christian

When Teachers Contradict Christianity: What To Say To Your Child

Tom Gilson — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:14:12 +0000

Friday Parent Focus

Last Friday I spoke on dealing with the schools when they undermine the faith. There’s one more person involved that I didn’t mention: your child. What do you tell your child when teachers contradict Christianity?

Suppose your child were in a classroom where the teacher said the Bible is a book of fables. Suppose also the teacher retracted that statement, strictly on the grounds that it’s illegally discriminatory for him to say that in class. Your child would still wonder whether the Bible is a book of fables, wouldn’t she?

So far in this series I’ve dealt with relational aspects of dealing with your children and with schools. I trust you’ll keep that in the back of your mind and the forefront of your relationships. From this point on, though, I’m going to transition this series to the point of discussing specific questions.

Is the Bible a book of fables?

The Bible is a collection of books of varying genres, from poetry to wisdom literature, from laws to history and biography, from instruction on life to apocalyptic prophecy. There are some elements of fable in there: stories that are meant to serve as illustrations rather than as instruction in what really happened. But they are few.

What causes people to think the Bible is a book of fables, anyway? Its antiquity? Many documents from antiquity are considered reliable history. Lack of corroboration? The Bible is the most massively corroborated set of documents in all ancient history, through archaeology, other written sources, and the flow of history. Genre? Those who know literature know that the Bible doesn’t read like a fable; it reads like it’s intending to tell truth. Those who know ancient myths know that the Bible is not one of them.

Misconceptions

There are some severe misconceptions out there, such as, “the Bible has been through so many versions and translations, you can’t know what it really started out to be.” This is simply false. We have so many early copies of the New Testament that scholars have no doubt at all about what it said, except in limited ways that make no difference to the meaning of the text, and which are footnoted in most good Bibles anyway.

Some people think the Bible is just one book among many; that there are lots and lots of conflicting books like it, and that they all contradict and undermine each other. Not so. The Bible is unique for placing its major claims squarely in history where they can be examined along with all other history. Take all the other religious books in the world and call them fables if you will; you still have to recognize that the Bible is very significantly different from them, in that it places its claims squarely in history. It’s not just philosophy or wisdom, it’s an historical account.

Frankly I think there are two things that drive most people’s conclusion that the Bible is a book of fables. The first is misinformation. Lots of people, teachers included, believe what they’ve been told without checking the facts. They’re stuck in the kinds of misconceptions I just mentioned.

Circular Reasoning

And then there are those who jump to the “fable” conclusion because it’s a religious book that contains stories of miracles. Miracles are impossible, they think, therefore any book that tells about them must not be telling the truth. How do we know miracles are impossible? Because they never happen. How do we know they didn’t happen in the Bible as it claims? Because miracles are impossible, therefore any book that tells about them must not be telling the truth….

Parents, you could illustrate the circularity of this by handing your child a piece of paper that says “see other side,” on both sides.

To Respond in Class?

Chances are your child won’t have a chance to share any of this in class. I don’t recommend they try it unless they study it first, and study it deeply enough to hold their own in discussion with a teacher. Even then, that kind of debate probably wouldn’t be welcome, and students should respect that. It’s usually not their place to correct their teachers, and it’s very difficult to win.

There is a way, though, for students to help show that teachers’ claims about Christianity aren’t always based in fact. It just takes one simple question. I’ll share that next time.

Purpose In Life: Nothing But Illusion?

Tom Gilson — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:35:21 +0000

Update 5 pm May 16: Several commenters here and on Twitter are making the mistake of reading this as the usual meaning-and-purpose discussion. The apologists’ usual approach has to do with the adequacy of meaning and purpose for atheists. I’m not talking about that at all. Read on, and as you do, be careful not to confuse this discussion with that other one….

*****

There’s a running Internet debate between theists and atheists over the question of purpose. Atheists typically insist they can find purpose without God; theists typically answer that this is something less than real purpose, because it’s so ephemeral and temporary. I see a deeper problem with purpose than that, however, if naturalism is true.

Naturalism and the Illusions of Life

Naturalistic thinkers commonly tell us that human consciousness and free will are illusions. Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne deny free will completely; Daniel Dennett denies agent freedom. Susan Blackmore calls consciousness an illusion. Alex Rosenberg denies consciousness, identity, and even thought.

They have good reason to conclude these things, if naturalism is true.* The laws of nature do not permit humans to make free will decisions. The stuff of which reality is made — matter and energy, interacting according to law (or law-like regularity) and chance — doesn’t have what it takes to be conscious of itself.** Therefore no matter how persistently our brains tell us we are conscious and making decisions, we aren’t. It’s an illusion. It’s a strong illusion, apparently inserted into the human experience for evolutionary adaptive reasons. We can’t shake it. But it’s false.

But I can’t help wondering, why don’t naturalists say the same about humans’ sense of purpose in life?

The Natural Impossibility of Purpose

It seems to me there are multiple reasons that they should. The first one flows from the illusoriness of consciousness and decision-making. To be conscious of one’s sense of purpose is to take part in an illusion, and to choose one’s purpose is, too. It must be so: for consciousness and choice are both illusory, on naturalism.

Then there is the question of where our sense of purpose could have come from. On one level of analysis, humans are the product of physical reactions of particles doing what particles must do as they interact. There’s no purpose in the laws of nature. There’s no purpose in chance, either, which quantum physics (on at least one interpretation) tells us is part of the causal flow that brought us where we are. There’s no place for purpose to have come from.

On another level of analysis, humans are the product of evolutionary effects; and again, evolution has no purpose within it. Evolution is a matter of chance (thus purposeless) variation in genes, interacting with environmental variations (purposeless, of course), to produce variations in organisms’ survival and reproduction rates. Natural selection (NS) takes it from there to produce new species, but NS isn’t the kind of thing that could introduce purpose into human existence. It is utterly and completely uncreative. It is the survival of that which survives, and the death of that which dies. It is the reproduction of that which reproduces and the end of the line for that which does not. It is nothing but that.

So NS cannot make anything new, except for statistical distributions of phenotypes. Everything else new that comes into biological existence comes by way of chance variation at the genetic level. Even if NS were really creative, however, it would still be purposeless. It doesn’t care what it produces. It can’t.

Could Humanness Lift Us Out of Natural Impossibilities?

But perhaps things change when humans develop language and culture, for this provides a new route to innovation in the world. Maybe we really could be the creators and developers of purpose. But this would be quite an amazing innovation, a completely new feature of reality: suddenly one bit of matter and energy in the world is for something. Maybe it’s for some other bit of matter. Maybe it’s for some abstraction, like love or beauty or honor or discovery.

The question remains, how? How did early humans escape purposelessness? Recall our two levels of causal analysis: the minute physical level, and the much larger evolutionary level. On the micro level, causation is closed: there is nothing that can bring about any effect in all of reality except for what the laws of physics require, and/or chance produces. These are purposeless and they cannot cause purpose to come about. There is no room for any other causal force or activity alongside these purposeless causes. So if purpose came about, it came from absolutely nowhere; it came about impossibly; or in other words, it just didn’t come about at all, if naturalism is true.

Again, on the macro level of evolutionary biology, causation is also closed. There is purposeless genetic variation and there is purposeless natural selection. If you want, you could also throw in genetic drift: also purposeless. And there is no other causal force or activity that can bring about any physical or behavioral feature in any organism. So on this level, too, we see that if there came to be any human purpose, it came from nowhere; it came about impossibly; or in fact it never came about at all

The Illusion of Purpose In Life

Therefore I conclude that (on naturalism), humans’ sense of purpose is just as illusory as our sense of free will and consciousness. We think we have purpose: we feel it, we sense it, we choose it, we direct our activities toward it in all its multiple forms and manifestations — indeed, it’s an incorrigible feature of being human. But so is our false sense of free will. So is our false (illusory) sense of consciousness. The parallel with free will and consciousness is clear and decisive in this case: Just because you sense purpose to your life doesn’t mean you have it. In a naturalistic universe you couldn’t.

The Error of Naturalism

Now, I take this as one more reason to conclude that naturalism is false, for I know, and you do too, that there is purpose to life. When an atheist says to me, “I can find purpose in loving my family, in creating or enjoying art, in the beauty of nature, in my work … ,” I can only agree with him or her. I don’t doubt that for a moment. I wonder at times how those purposes could be fully adequate, since they are indeed passing away with the wind, but I do not deny that they are real. And since they are real, then there is purpose in the universe. Purpose really exists for humans — all humans, whether they believe in God or not.

I could summarize what I’ve written here in this way:

If naturalism is true, then real purpose could not possibly exist
Real purpose exists
Therefore naturalism is not true

*To have reasons to conclude what they do would of course be impossible if naturalism were true, for rational conclusions are ruled if when free will, consciousness, and especially thinking itself are impossible. But that’s a topic for another day.

** Something similar is quite arguably true for identity and for rationality, but fewer atheistic thinkers stand on that opinion, so I will set those aside for now.

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Five Reasons Churches Need More Unanswered Questions

Tom Gilson — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:00:16 +0000

This has the potential to get pastors fired for following Jesus’ example. It will confuse anyone who sees me as a Christian apologist, and apologetics as being in the business of giving answers. The fact is I believe we need more unanswered questions. Pastors in particular need to leave more questions unanswered.

There are (at least) five reasons this is true. Jesus set the example, as seen best in the book of John.

1. To Follow Jesus’ Example

Jesus’ first words in that gospel are a question: “What are you seeking?” His introductory statement to Nathaniel provokes sheer confusion. His mother asks him to help with the wine in Cana, and he asks her a most surprising question. He bewilders the Jews in Jerusalem by telling them he will raise up “this temple” in three days. Nicodemus offers him the honor of recognizing he came from God, and Jesus says, “You must be born again.” What?

He puzzles the woman at the well with an offer of living water. He asks Philip (a native of that region) where they can buy bread to feed thousands (again, What?). He drives off the multitude with truly incomprehensible teachings about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and then he asks his close followers, “Will you leave, too?” He confuses the Jews by telling them where he is going they cannot come.

And so it continues. I could point to similar tactics of our Lord in the Synoptics. His Beatitudes leave at least as many questions open as they answer. He explains his parables only to a few (Matthew 13). When the Jews ask him where he gets his authority, he asks them whether John’s baptism is from heaven or from men.

2. To Prepare Ears To Hear

Of course I do not mean to say that Jesus never answered anyone’s questions, or never followed through to satisfy hearers concerning the questions he raised. It was always a matter of timing and and of sensitivity to the Spirit and his audience. The unifying principle is this: he gave answers to those who were ready to hear. (“Let him who has ears to hear…”) The rest he goaded toward readiness by stimulating their curiosity, provoking dissatisfaction with where they were, and refusing to inoculate them with half-received truths.

Even the Sermon on the Mount, for all its simple clarity, must have provoked considerable consternation when he gave it. It certainly does that for me. There are places in it where I have trouble understanding just what he meant, and I have to dig in hard to figure it out; and there are even more places where I have more trouble yet understanding how I can live up to it. It is not a sermon meant to satisfy on the surface.

3. To Accomplish Your Real Purpose

Of course this is a problematical model to follow. I can’t remember the last sermon that left me wondering what?, the way Jesus’ messages so often did. I don’t know how any pastor could keep his job doing what Jesus did, for it is the pastor’s job to provide answers, isn’t it?

No, it is the pastor’s job to lead the flock toward richness of life and service in Christ.

Often this means turning us, their listeners, away from habits or beliefs that lead toward death. The difficulty there is that it means leading us to change, which few of us will do as long as our current ways seem to be working for us.

Answers soothe. Unanswered questions rankle. They throw us off balance. The right questions may just jostle us out of our conditions of comfort so that we can see what’s not really working for us after all. Some questions can help us see the distance between who we think we are (Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, for example) and who we really are (spiritually ignorant and confused, in his case).

4. To Do the Questions Justice

One reason to leave some questions open is because even a sermon-length answer may be too short to do them justice. Some questions are hard. Compressing answers into thirty minutes, intro and illustrations included, may well be misleading; and the more serious thinkers in the congregation will know it. Some of them may even start to wonder whether all of Christianity is equally superficial. This applies equally to questions of intellect and of application, by the way.

5. To Answer the Questions They’re Really Asking

I am of course an apologist, one whose business it is to understand and to communicate answers. I could dream (if I dared) of the day when my wisdom was so manifest that every answer I gave was unquestioned. Alas, that won’t happen: it didn’t happen even to Jesus!

There is another sort of unquestioned answer, though, that happens in thousands of churches every Sunday: it is the answer given by preachers to un-questions. Teachers explain how to be more like Christ when congregations are not asking. Pastors teach how to show God’s Kingdom love in their communities, when no one is wondering. And the people walk away with answers, never having felt any urgency to know, or any deep need to practice.

This may have happened to Jesus, too, but by his teaching technique he always strove to prevent it.

When To Answer After All

A leader’s questions can also encourage followers to ask questions, which is often the very best thing for us. How can we understand better without probing deeper?

Which leads to the point at which the pastor/teacher really must be prepared to supply answers: when the people are finally asking — when they desperately need to know.

Too often this happens only when life causes pain. “Why, oh God?” is the most frequently articulated question of them all, followed by, “How will I make it through this?” These are fine questions; the Psalms are replete with them. But they are not the only ones, and not always the most important. They do tend quite reliably to be expressed when they need to be.

Not all questions are. There are many that we should be asking but usually are not. “How can I truly be more like Christ?” or “What would God have us do to show his Kingdom love in this community?”

Summer Reading for Students

Tom Gilson — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:15:48 +0000

Monday Student Focus

Is your school out yet? Some keep going until mid-June; most that I know of start their summer break right around now. I want to recommend a great book for your summer reading. I’ve already reviewed it, so I’ll keep this short. It’s Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace. Jim is a former LAPD cold-case homicide detective, and he has lots of stories from those days in this book. He also knows how to read evidence. Check out my review, and then get yourself a copy: you’ll be glad you did!

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Getting the Moral Argument Wrong — Again

Tom Gilson — Sun, 12 May 2013 16:43:48 +0000

Atheists are forever getting the moral argument wrong. A.C. Grayling, in The God Argument, says,

The argument that there can be no morality unless policed by a deity is refuted by the existence of good atheists. Arguably, non-theists count themselves among the most careful moral thinkers, because in the absence of an externally imposed morality they recognize the duty to examine their views, choices, and actions, and how they should behave towards others.

Begging a Question

There are multiple problems here. I'll note briefly that Grayling begs an important question. Atheists can indeed be very moral among other human beings, and I'm sure examples of this could be multiplied. But if there is a God, whom to love is the highest good, then there is no morally good atheist. This is the teaching of Scripture: see Romans 3, which also emphasizes that Christian theists' goodness is granted only by the grace of God.

“We're Right: Just Ask Us”

Second, there's something odd about appealing to the way atheists think about themselves in support of the idea that their thinking is right. It sounds oddly like, “we're right: just ask us!” And the reasoning he offers for it fails to rescue it from that silliness. His “because” clause fails completely, for theists (a) do not believe in an externally imposed morality (that's a straw man), (b) theists also recognize their duty to examine their views, choices, actions, and behavior toward others, and (c) theists do so in view of a standard that is pure love, holiness, justice, and goodness.

I recognize that Grayling tempered that statement with “arguably,” so I'll grant that he didn't stake everything on it. That's the counter-argument, or at least a brief beginning to it. It seems to me it undermines his “arguably” quite severely.

Getting the Whole Point Of It Wrong

But where I really want to focus is on his misunderstanding of the moral argument: “there can be no morality unless policed by a deity.” I wonder where he got that from. Theists (many of us) actually believe that without God there can be no objective morality — not because morality requires a police function, but because:

Without something in the fundamental nature of the universe to make actions and attitudes objectively right or wrong, there is nothing in the universe to make actions and attitudes objectively right or wrong. If right and wrong are not essential features of reality, then they are accidental and contingent at best: contingent on fickle human opinion, on most accounts.
As Mackie has perceptively pointed out, there is something strange (“queer,” he put it) about the nature of moral duties and values in a non-theistic universe.
Humans may have the ability to develop a form of morality, but only of a subjective nature: contingent and non-essential as already stated.

Further, no theist would say that the moral argument requires that theists be better than atheists in human-to-human or human-to-world moral attitudes and actions. That's just not what the argument is about. It's about whether the word “better” has objective meaning in moral contexts. Without an objective standard to compare them to, self-sacrificial love is no better than murder.

Finally, no theist would say that knowledge of such a standard depends on whether one believes in God as its source. That standard exists in God's character, and it is in his nature to follow his standard. When he created humans in his image he imparted knowledge of his standard. Though we are impaired in that knowledge through rebellion from God, we have not lost it altogether.

Therefore:

1) There is no force in Grayling's appeal to the way atheists think of their ethics.

2) The existence of “good” atheists is

a) Question-begging, in terms of goodness with respect to God, and

b) Other than that, fully predicted by theism

3) It is the objective reality of good and evil, right and wrong, that is in question, not whether one group is more able than another to approach the good and the right, which means that what Grayling calls a refutation doesn't even address the question.

Grayling got the argument wrong, and his refutation misses by a mile.

Of course I’ve only responded to one paragraph on this from his book. If you’re interested I’ll follow through with more. The rest of it yields the same ultimate outcome.

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Comment Subscriptions Interrupted

Tom Gilson — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:37:38 +0000

If you’ve subscribed to comments on any post, those subscriptions have been interrupted and you won’t receive emails for new comments. I’ve had to change that subscription system. You can re-subscribe below the combox on any post. Thank you.

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When Your Child’s School Undermines Christian Faith

Tom Gilson — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:00:08 +0000

My daughter came home from school one day in eighth grade and said, “My history teacher told us Christianity is a myth like all the other religions.”

It’s a common enough thing to hear in the public schools. What does a parent do when their child’s school undermines Christian faith?

Too Much Experience

We had a lot of experience dealing with teachers and administrators. Some might say we had too much experience. One of our children was bullied repeatedly. Though the worst of it wasn’t in fourth grade, the story of that year tells well, and sadly it’s true. The classroom was out of control, and our child was suffering from it. We exchanged a long series of meetings and emails with the teacher and principal. The pile of email printouts was about an inch thick.

Finally the teacher decided to put a tally mark on the blackboard for every student’s misbehavior, and take away five minutes of recess time from that student for each mark. The first day one student got twenty-six marks. Another one got more than twenty. Finally the principal transferred our child to another classroom. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the class, but our child was greatly relieved.

Building Good Relationships

And through it all we maintained a good relationship with the principal. We offered to donate Bible modules to the school’s Accelerated Reader program, and after extensive attorney consultation (you can’t be too careful!), the school accepted the donation, with the principal’s support all along the way — though he never indicated he was a believer.

We didn’t do everything right when our kids were in public schools, but this I think we did well: we kept in close touch with teachers and administrators. One principal was a close friend of the family; others knew from our actions that we cared about the schools, our children, and even the teachers.

When School Undermines Christian Faith

So when our daughter came home that day telling us what her history teacher had said about Christianity, we were in a good position to respond. We contacted the teacher and asked if we could talk with him about it. We met a couple days later in the principal’s office. A school division official sat with us, which I think was just in case we turned out to be crazy people who would go whacko. (Apparently our good relationship with the principal only went so far.)

We asked the teacher to explain what he had taught. He said he realized he had stepped over a line, based on educational law and parents’ rights. He apologized and said he would correct what he had said in class. We departed with smiles and warm handshakes. That was all it took.

If Going to Battle Is Necessary

There may be times when parents really need to go to battle for their kids. We had some of those experiences. I told the school superintendent once, “You will find that as we work toward resolving this situation, we will be consistently courteous, respectful, and professional with you — and also very persistent.”

I can’t explain anything further about that situation, except to say that it related to a very serious school administrator’s error that required the superintendent’s intervention — there were unfortunately lawyers involved on both sides of this case — and that we maintained a solid, warm relationship with all in spite of it, including the administrator in question and the superintendent.

I saw that administrator a couple years later in a restaurant. He had retired to a university teaching position by then. We greeted each other with very warm smiles, and we introduced each other to our friends there. That was when I knew we had kept the relationship strong in spite of all.

My point is that even “going to battle” need not be battle-some.

Relational, Relational …

Parents must be involved in their children’s schools — relationally involved, volunteering (we did that, too), and demonstrating real care and Christian love. Then if there’s a problem, you can be well situated to deal with it — relationally.

What if that doesn’t settle the matter? Then, if it’s related to religious freedom, I’d suggest contacting the Alliance Defending Freedom. I’m very certain, though, that they would recommend starting where I’ve suggested you start: relationally, non-confrontationally, and with the expectation of a positive response. You can also find helpful background information and ideas at Gateways to Better Education.

If You Have Questions

It occurs to me that this topic in particular might touch a chord with some parents. We’d like to hear from you; my wife and I have more that we could share. Please feel free to get in direct contact with us.

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Dallas Willard Goes Home

Tom Gilson — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:40:46 +0000

Sad news for the rest of us:

Dallas Willard, a prominent philosopher on a “quiet quest to subvert nominal Christianity” (according to a 2006 CT profile), died today after losing a battle with cancer. He was 77. . . .

According to Gary Moon, executive director of the Dallas Willard Center at Westmont College, Willard died early Wednesday morning, but “awakened to a full experience of the reality of the Kingdom of the Heavens he described so beautifully. Fittingly, his last two words were, “‘Thank you.’”

[From Dallas Willard, author of The Divine Conspiracy, dies at 77 » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog]

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Quick Note for Regular Blog Followers

Tom Gilson — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:39:07 +0000

In case you’re a regular blog follower and you don’t want to follow an RSS feed or subscribe by email, you can bookmark the blog page at http://www.thinkingchristian.net/blog. It’s virtually the same as the former home page.

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The Worldview Clash in the Marriage Debate

Tom Gilson — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:30:49 +0000

Continuing my series on Biblical and Secular Reasons for Man-Woman Marriage, I want to put it in context of the underlying worldview clash in the marriage debate. It is a background issue, rarely brought to the surface, hardly ever discussed, yet with intensely practical applications.

Marriage Is …

This debate runs deep. It goes straight to the core of worldview. I’ll illustrate that with an example. The position most advocates for man-woman marriage take is that there is something that marriage is, and that something is stable and enduring. In more technical language, marriage is what marriage is by its very nature or essence. To propose same-sex “marriage” (SSM) is to propose that we call something “marriage” that just isn’t marriage at all — because that’s not what marriage is.

So for most SSM opponents, there is an is-ness, or essence or nature, that defines marriage.

That is-ness is defined or understood in one or both of two ways. The first that comes to most Christians’ minds is that God created marriage at the very beginning, he made it to be for man and woman, and he hasn’t changed it since then. Its nature was and continues to be defined by the God who made it what it is.

But it’s not necessary to believe in the Bible to come to the conclusion that marriage has an enduring man-woman essence. Human nature itself tells us that men and women were made for each other, and yet not only for each other but also for the production, nurturing, care, and instruction of the next generation.

… vs. Marriage Is Becoming …

For many if not most SSM advocates, all this is nonsense. And it’s nonsense at a deeper level than most of us recognize.

It’s not just that we have the essence of marriage wrong, it’s that it’s wrong to suppose marriage essentially is anything at all. And just as our reasons are grounded in the very basis of our thinking, so do their reasons go all the way into the foundation of theirs.

It goes all the way back to where they believe we came from. The story of evolution is not one of is-ness but of perpetual becoming. No species is fixed, except for such a time as its environment encourages it to remain as it is. We live in a snapshot. Earlier snapshots would exhibit different species. Later snapshots will, too. Nothing is what it is for long, except as circumstances permit its staying that way.

Of course that rules out any reference to God’s view of marriage right from the start. It also undermines any stable, is-ness view of marriage based in human nature. What is human nature, after all? What, you’re giving yesterday’s answer? What relevance does that have to human nature today? Why think human nature is stuck where it was before? We’re all perpetually becoming something else!

Further: at this snapshot moment in a world of perpetual becoming, humans rule themselves and their institutions completely, with no transcendent reality to answer to. That makes our institutions almost infinitely malleable: and since the world is about perpetual becoming, there’s no reason not to let marriage become something new.

The Worldview Clash in the Marriage Debate

Do you see the worldview clash here? One reason we can’t agree on what marriage is, is because deep in our hearts we don’t agree on whether that’s the right question to start with.

Few people would verbalize it that way. I think few of us realize the strength with which these worldview currents carry us along toward our conclusions.

This helps explain why one side can view the other not just as wrong but as “bizarre.” It’s really, really hard to get into the opposing side’s mindset. It’s not just about the other persons’ view of marriage, it’s about their entire view of reality.

We hardly ever talk about it on this level. Until we do, not only will we fail to agree, we’ll fail to understand. We’ll even fail to understand why we fail to understand.

The Pastor/Teacher Perspective

Usually in these Tuesday Pastor/Teacher posts my goal is to give you something that’s really practical for you to use in your teaching ministry. This may not seem to be that way; it’s more in the nature of behind-the-scenes philosophical thinking. But it’s actually very practical. One immediate application is in helping the people we teach be more able to understand what’s going on where others disagree. Rather than labeling it bizarre, we can get a sense of how it really does make sense from their perspective. (This is where it’s really helpful to listen before jumping in with our answers.)

Following this, we can try to get to the heart of the question rather than deal with it on the surface. For those of us who believe in God, we can see the marriage debate as just one more outworking of the great question of the ages: is there a God, and if so, what does he have to do with me?

And even though it may look like this makes our side in the marriage debate purely “religious,” and therefore off-limits for public discussion (as some view it), it can actually open up new opportunities to discuss our position in public. I’ll come back to that next time.

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Monday Student Question: Why Pray?

Tom Gilson — Mon, 06 May 2013 23:56:51 +0000

Tony asked a while back, why pray? There was more to his question, of course. Here’s the meat of it.

He sees and knows all, including what is in our hearts. Given this fact that “you can’t fool God”, I wonder why Christians find it necessary to pray in the first place. Does not God already know what you are praying for, as well as your earnest sincerity concerning the matter? If that is true, has he not already decided how he will respond to the prayer before it is even said? Thus, could not the entire controversy be eliminated by recognizing that prayer is NOT really necessary any more than posting question in this forum is necessary if you already KNEW what the questions were (all that would be required here would be the answers)?

C.S. Lewis wondered the same thing, so you’re in good company, Tony. Here’s some of what I understand about it.

First, God wants us to pray, and it’s not just so we can ask for things. There are other purposes for prayer. The first is God’s glory, as Jesus says in John 14:12-14:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

God’s goodness and power are made known when he answers prayer. In the prayer journal I’m using these days I have a record of 169 answered prayers. God shows himself in the world through these things.

He shows himself in a different way through unanswered prayer, which is more complicated to explain but just as real. Sometimes what he’s revealing is that we’re not understanding his will correctly, for his promise is to answer when we pray according to his will (1 John 5:14-15). Sometimes he shows that we’re not in line with his character, for if we ask with ungodly motives (in his will), he will not answer (James 4:3). I could give other examples like these, where God uses unanswered prayer to shape us into people more like him, but I think maybe you get the point.

There’s a great author, Richard Foster, who wrote in Celebration of Discipline that prayer is like original research: it’s where we go into untested, new ground, and discover new things about God; and whether prayers go answered or unanswered, we’re learning about God.

I’m not saying that every unanswered prayer leads to some definite learning experience. I chose that word “shape” carefully: God uses big things and small things, very gradually, to make us what he wants us to be; and prayer is one of those things he uses even when we don’t see that it is.

Looking at your question again, I think there’s a sense in which answered prayer is even more mysterious than unanswered prayer, because it brings us to the question, why does God need us to pray in order to do things? He doesn’t, of course. It’s just that if we didn’t pray, we probably wouldn’t recognize that it was him at work when he did it.

But so far I’ve been passing by the most important reasons to pray: for fellowship with God. It’s for being with him. It’s communicating with God. Take a look through the Psalms and you’ll see it in action. The writers of the Psalms talk to God about how they’re doing, good and bad, hopeful or despairing, in trouble or in victory. Sometimes they ask God what’s taking him so long to come through for them. All of this is about being real, and being personal, with God. He loves us, and being with someone who loves us is a good thing, even when it’s an invisible, spiritual relationship.

I’ve even written about how we can be real with God by praying the “dangerous prayer:” praying while sinning. You’ll need to read that post to see what I mean by that.

There are whole books written on this, and I haven’t even scratched the surface on it. Here’s my request: ask follow-up questions, and we’ll take this wherever it leads. And here’s my advice to go with it: pray, and learn from your own original research.

Have a question? Leave a comment with it here!

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When You Don’t Know the Answers

Tom Gilson — Sun, 05 May 2013 14:18:59 +0000

Friday Parent Focus*

Last time in this series I encouraged you to talk with your kids about faith, and especially to help them to open up with their questions. But what do you do when you don't know the answers?

It's not so bad. Really: if your son or daughter asks a tough question and you don't have an answer right on the tip of your tongue, how surprised do you think they'll be? The only big surprise might be that you're willing to hear them out on it!

And I want to be as clear on this as I can be: I am a lover of answers. I write on them all the time. I really believe the great questions do have great answers. But for the sake of your children's faith, the answers are nowhere near as important as the relationship you can build with them by opening up the conversation.

Children catch beliefs, mostly from their parents; and they continue with their parents' beliefs much more reliably when they're in strong relationship with their parents. The vulnerability of “Wow, that's a great question, I don't know the answer, and I'm going to need to work on that!” can be incredibly powerful.

I'll come back to answers in a moment, because yes, they're important, too. But I really want to emphasize the relational aspect first. “They'll know we are Christians by our love,” says the song, echoing John 13:34, 35. It applies to our children, too, doesn't it?

At this point you might expect me also to add that we must model true Christianity if we want them to catch it. Actually I've already said it. It’s where I wrote, “children catch beliefs, mostly from their parents.” They know by observing what we really believe. Our actions tell the whole story. So of course it's important to live out our Christianity at home; otherwise we're teaching something else, something false and foreign, to our children.

Still we need to be able to help our children get to the place of discovering good answers. As this series continues I plan to provide very practical things we can say at the dinner table, driving to sports events, or wherever these conversations happen. It will take some time to get to those topics.

In the meantime, I suggest you go to Stand To Reason, which I think has the best family-level, searchable list of articles on the Internet, covering almost any contemporary issue. But don't dare do it alone! I understand the temptation to go off by yourself and become educated for the sake of answering your child's question. It's far better, though, to do that exploration together.

So for the sake of your children, encourage their questions, knowing that it's building a relational connection that will help their faith even if you never get to an answer to their question. For answers (especially for now) try Stand to Reason first. Feel free to ask me questions here, too.

*I've been traveling and in a lot of meetings. Friday Parent Focus is appearing on Sunday this week.

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What Is This Elderly-Couple Argument for Same-Sex Marriage?

Tom Gilson — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:50:40 +0000

I would like someone to explain something to me, please, with respect to an elderly-couple argument for same-sex “marriage.”

It seems to go like this:

1. Man-woman marriage proponents like myself stake our position partly on the following:

a. Marriage is the comprehensive union of a man and a woman, and it is rightly thought to be so because of that which follows (b through f).

b. One central and unique aspect of a man and woman’s union is their unique bodily union, the one human biological function whose completeness is only attainable through two people of opposite sex coming together physically.

c. There are socio-psychological purposes for that union (pleasure, unity, intimacy). It is granted that these purposes are not unique to married couples, or even opposite-sex couples.

d. Along with that, however, there is also the unique biological function mentioned in b: procreation, only attainable through the physical uniting of a man and a woman.

e. Because marriage involves procreation and the nurturing and development of children, society has an interest in promoting marriages’ strength and longevity.

f. Therefore marriage is specifically for a man and woman.

2. But custom and law allow men and women to marry even if they are obviously not able to bear children, usually because of advanced age, or sometimes because of other obvious infirmity (quadriplegics, for example).

3. Therefore the argument in 1a through 1f is invalid.

(Not incidentally, the proportion of obviously non-childbearing marriages is very, very tiny with respect to the whole.)

Now, I’m having trouble seeing how 3 follows from 1 and 2. Could someone explain it for me, please, with some kind of valid logic?

Note by the way that the man-woman marriage position is based on other factors besides 1a through 1f; but this is the argument in focus for now, and it is admittedly an important one for our position. So if there is a valid objection here, we need to recognize it and deal with it as such.

If on the other hand there is no validity to this objection, then this would be a good time to drop it for good.

I’d be glad to know which is the case.

The post What Is This Elderly-Couple Argument for Same-Sex Marriage? appeared first on Thinking Christian.

Pentagon Reportedly Forbidding Military Personnel To Share Their Faith

Tom Gilson — Wed, 01 May 2013 18:52:56 +0000

The Pentagon confirmed to Fox News that Christian evangelism is against regulations.

“Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense, LCDR Nate Christensen said in a written statement. He declined to say if any chaplains or service members had been prosecuted for such an offense.

“Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis and it would be inappropriate to speculate on the outcome in specific cases,” he said.

Source

This could potentially include chaplains, according to some reports.

Decisions on whether to court-martial or not, and in what manner to punish infractions, will be made on “on a case-by-case basis.” I’d be interested to know how “case-by-case” differs from “arbitrary.”

Disagree with this Pentagon action? Please join me in signing this online petition.

The source on this seems to be of sufficient authority for me to feel confident in re-publishing it. If it should turn out to be false, I’d be the first person to be glad of it. Please let me know if you’re aware of other information on it.

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Why We Must Teach On Marriage In the Church

Tom Gilson — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:36:52 +0000

Tuesday Pastor-Teacher Focus

Before I get to far into this series, I need to explain why I think we need to teach on marriage in the church, in light of the same-sex “marriage” controversy. I don’t want you to think it’s primarily a political thing. For me, that’s pretty far in the background. Not that I’m unaware of it, but it’s not the main thing motivating me. My guess is that if it were only about politics, it would be a hard thing for many pastors to gear up for. But it isn’t. Let me suggest several other reasons to teach about marriage.

Addressing the Underlying Problems

Same-sex marriage is a symptom. The underlying problems affect us all. One of those is with marriage generally speaking: marriage between men and women, that is.

We have lost track of what marriage is, and what it’s for. In Genesis we discover that it’s for companionship (“It is not good for the man to be alone”), for unity (“the man will be united with his wife, and they will be one flesh”), and for procreation (“be fruitful and multiply”). In the Song of Songs the Bible affirms the physical pleasures of marriage. In Ephesians 5 and 6 we see that marriage reflects the relationship of God to his people, the church.

It is a high and glorious picture the Bible gives us. Virtually cultures in history have recognized the truth of most of that picture, based on what it means to be humans living in society.

In particular, marriage has always been tied to procreation; and speaking of “tied,” marriage has typically been societies’ way of keeping the male with the family to help raise his children.

There was a time when marriage meant children. Contraception and abortion changed that, and for the first time, marriage could be about “you and me, babe,” with no young crying babes in the picture. Marriage became for many a means to personal fulfillment, in an inward-looking sense that couples can hold on to but parents never can. There’s nothing quite like having children to make you aware of others’ needs and wants beside your own.

You and Me, Babe

A childless marriage can be very outward looking, if that is the character of the couple. But a marriage with children cannot be merely inward looking, for the couple’s mutual satisfaction alone, unless the couple’s character is very weak indeed.

So marriage for many now is about “you and me, babe:” not quite self-oriented, for there are two people involved, but certainly self-oriented in the sense that the two are in relationship primarily for each other, to meet their own needs.

And with that kind of relationship available for men and women, why wouldn’t same-sex couples be envious? Why wouldn’t they ask for the same thing? If that’s what marriage is, then why should they be denied it? I can see the logic of their demand, can’t you?

They call for equality. What they want, obviously, is not equality with marriage as it once was for almost everyone, where babies were expected to be part of the picture (medical difficulties aside). They want equality with the kind of marriage many men and women are modeling: marriage of and for the spouses’ mutual benefit alone.

Anger at Marriage?

And I can’t help wondering if there’s some anger underneath it all — anger at marriage, that is, for so many people growing up in recent decades have been so deeply hurt by their parents’ failed marriages. I would be surprised if there weren’t a lot of anger there. My parents stayed married until death did them part, so I can’t enter into the sense of loss, disappointment, and frustration that must come when one’s parents split up. But it must be awful. On that emotional level I can see why there could be a motivation to take aim at the institution of marriage and to re-make it.

And so the demand for same-sex “marriage” is a symptom of deeper issues in the culture beyond gays and lesbians. I’ve only scratched the surface. I could go on and speak of more obvious issues like the general approval culture gives to sexual immorality.

Teaching the True Picture

You may have noticed that I titled this “Why We Must Teach On Marriage,” not, “Why We Must Teach Against Same-Sex Marriage.” My guess is that if men and women hadn’t gotten marriage so mixed up, gays and lesbians wouldn’t be pressing for marriage today. We can’t change the past, but we can change the future: we must teach our young couples, and our younger, future husbands and wives, what marriage is for.

But I want to remind you what I’m saying about the role of same-sex “marriage” in this discussion. It’s a signal. It’s a sign, a symptom, of an institution gone sour. That’s the only way many young people can see the institution, for they live in the same culture that produced same-sex “marriage” campaigns: campaigns that make a lot of sense to a majority of them. What will their marriages be like? What vision of marriage do they hold? What can they hope for?

They — we — need a bigger picture and a better hope. That’s why we must teach on marriage.

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Separate Civil and Religious Marriage? Yes!

Tom Gilson — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:44:04 +0000

Separate civil and religious marriage? What a great idea! But not in the way you might have thought about it…

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/64763444 width="500"]

(See also the discussion at the original location.)

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How Do You Tell a Good Answer From a Bad One?

Tom Gilson — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:00:33 +0000

Monday Student Focus

I’ve been posting here about the importance of questions, and I got a great one from Tony that I’ll be addressing soon. Before I go there, though, I sense a need to say something about answers: how do you tell a good answer from a bad one?

Since you’re reading this you’ve probably reached the stage where, “Mom or Dad said so,” isn’t good enough any longer. My wife and I are encouraging our son and daughter to make their own decisions about faith, based on their own investigations, not our say-so.

You might have even realized, “My teacher/prof said so,” isn’t necessarily good enough, either.

So what is good enough? Unfortunately there’s no magic machine that automatically sorts out the good answers from the bad ones. But there is a list that can help guide you.

A good answer really addresses the question. It doesn’t sidestep it, it doesn’t shove it off to one side, it doesn’t ignore it. It doesn’t say, “Don’t ask that!”
It’s logically coherent. To be coherent means that the answer holds together without contradicting itself.
Some answers actually deny themselves. For instance, “You must be tolerant of all beliefs, in the sense that you should regard all beliefs as equal in value.” That’s intolerant of at least one belief itself: that it’s not necessary to be tolerant of all beliefs.
It matches up with known evidence. There’s nothing we know of — in nature, in science, in history, in our self-awareness of what it means to be human, and so on — that shows that it’s wrong.
There are some atheists who say human consciousness is an illusion (really!), but that contradicts the evidence of human experience, so it can’t be true.
Better yet, evidence plus logic together lead toward that answer. That’s how a detective decides who committed the crime.
Sometimes, though, it’s a good answer if a trusted authority gives it.
I’ve been to Cuba, and I could tell you just a little bit about what it’s like there. Before you accept my answer as a good one, you might want to decide whether you trust my word. Once you decided that, though, you could feel free to take my answer as a good one, just because I’m in a position to know something about Cuba. (This is why it’s not a good idea to doubt everything you hear from your parents or teachers. They have good reason to know some things.)
Many things we know by direct perception or experience. That’s how I know I’m not hungry at the moment (I can feel whether I’m hungry or not) and that it’s stopped raining outside (I just looked out the window).
And there are some things you just know are good answers.
Here’s a famous philosophical question that fits that category: Do other people have minds? It turns out there’s no scientific proof that they do: it might be you’re the only one who does, and the world could look just the same way to you if that were true. But really: you know you’re not the only person with a mind, just because you know it.

What would you add? (See below about including the Bible.)

I’m writing this today because I am concerned over how few people seem to be able to tell a good answer from a bad one. Over the next several months I’ll expand on that list, and I’ll try to teach some of the principles in it so we can all be wiser about the answers we accept.

(Some Christian readers might wonder why I didn’t include, “The Bible supports it,” on my list of ways to recognize a good answer. I did, actually: it’s under item 5. Those who recognize the Bible’s trustworthy authority know that it’s the best source of all. It’s just that not everyone knows that about the Bible, or is totally comfortable with viewing it that way, and this list is for them, too. So I didn’t make the Bible an item of its own on this list.)

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Down the “Marriage” Slippery Slope

Tom Gilson — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:15:21 +0000

Predictably enough, the “marriage” slippery slope is showing up for what it is. From John Stonestreet’s BreakPoint commentary:

As Dr. George pointed out in “First Things,” when Christians pointed out the logical link between same-sex marriage and polygamy, proponents of same-sex marriage rejected the connection. They insisted that “no one is arguing for the legal recognition of polygamous or polyamorous relationships as marriages!”

George writes in response, “That was then; this is now.” The “then” he referred to was last week; the now is today.

George predicts that Keenan’s article “will not produce a single serious critique by a major scholar or activist from the same-sex marriage movement.”

Now he would love to be wrong. But defenders of traditional marriage know that the enclosures that kept marriage a “monogamous and exclusive union” are being dismantled. And no one should be surprised by what emerges, least of all those doing the dismantling.

The post Down the “Marriage” Slippery Slope appeared first on Thinking Christian.

To Tell Truth From Error: The Church’s Teaching Responsibility

Tom Gilson — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:20:50 +0000

We don’t know how to tell truth from error, and it’s time for the church to take responsibility.

The Roman Catholic Church in New York is promoting Jesus Christ as “The Original Hipster.” I saw that on yesterday’s news, just a day after I found out an online poll by Prospect magazine had Richard Dawkins being named the world’s top thinker.

Neither of these speaks well for the state of thinking in our world.

Richard Dawkins is a prolific popularizer, which is hardly the same as being a great thinker. My co-authors and I have argued in True Reason that he and the New Atheist movement he leads are beset with irrationality (see here for an excerpt from the book.) I am no world-class thinker, and yet I find Dawkins to be almost embarrassingly easy to refute, on almost everything he says about Christianity. Still he was voted to the top of the list among thinkers in the world.

Meanwhile a church puts forth a campaign to attract people to Jesus based on identifying him with hipsters. Now, one evidence of my non-hipsterness is that I had to look up “hipster.” Urban Dictionary’s take on it includes a strong emphasis on “fashion sensibilities” along with a “bohemian lifestyle.” Hipsters are apparently responsible for/represented by VICE Magazine, which you do not want to google: the name is descriptive enough. Jesus was no hipster, original or otherwise.

This is not so much an indictment on New York Catholics — other churches have made similar errors, and the secular world has made false-image-based selling a science. Instead it underscores the same conclusion I draw from Dawkins’s being voted a top world thinker. He has crafted an image for himself as a thinker in spite of all reality. Meanwhile the Church in New York is marketing an image. In J.P. Moreland’s memorable phrase, the make-up artist is more important than the speech writer.

We can no longer tell good thinking from poor. We no longer expect anyone else to think well, either. And it is we who are allowing this. I am speaking to my fellow believers now. In fact, with our various versions of hipster “Jesus,” we’re promoting it.

This is part of the mission of the church: to teach how to distinguish truth from error. Too often instead we’re collaborating with contemporary culture’s curriculum in telling popular from unpopular, hip from drab. (Is it hip to say “drab”? I don’t know and I don’t care.) I don’t recall any instruction in the Bible to develop that skill in the church.

To recognize truth involves spiritual readiness (see 1 Corinthians 2 and 3). It requires knowledge of the Bible, the trustworthy guide to truth. Churches typically emphasize both of those. To tell truth from error also takes mental preparation: the ability to assess evidence and reasoning. Churches don’t often teach that.

There may have been a time when we could count on the schools covering that skill, but no longer. If anyone is going to fill the gap, it’s going to have to be the churches — and not just through Christian schools and home schools. Many of them are doing an admirable job of teaching logic and rhetoric, but they are too few to do all that’s needed.

So the church must pick up the responsibility. Either that or we could continue as we are. We could say that it’s not a sufficiently spiritual topic to spend time on in church.

And we could keep on trying to sell Jesus with confused and false imagery, and voting Richard Dawkins the world’s top thinker.

The post To Tell Truth From Error: The Church’s Teaching Responsibility appeared first on Thinking Christian.

Talk To Your Kids About Faith

Tom Gilson — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:00:42 +0000

Do you talk to your kids about faith? It can do them a world of good. Based on research from the Search Institute, though, you’re an unusual parent if you do. This group found,

[in a] nationwide study of 11,000 teenagers from 561 congregations across six denominations, 12 percent of youth have a regular dialogue with their mom on faith or life issues. . . . It’s far lower for dads. One out of twenty kids, or 5 percent, has regular faith or life conversations with their dad.

I’m reading this in Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids by Kara E. Powell and Chap Clark (p. 47 in the Nook edition). I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

The authors go on to say that students whose parents talk about faith have more “sticky faith” — their faith tends to last after they leave home. They also point out that “Christian parents tend to avoid tricky subjects.”

Talking About Tricky Topics

That’s understandable: why talk when we don’t know what we’re talking about?

For this I have two answers. One is immediate, the other is long-term. First, if you don’t know what to say about your faith, at least open up the conversation. Here’s one way to do it. After church next Sunday, ask your teen some questions he or she might not expect from you. (Half the fun is watching them trying to figure out what you’re up to.)

What did you think of the sermon?
Was there anything you heard at church today that made you wonder, “how could that be true?”
How do you think we do here as a family in living up to what was taught today?

The third question there is obviously dangerous: you might hear something you didn’t want to hear. It’s not half as dangerous, though, as letting your child just think it privately! Kids need us to be consistent, or (at least!) honest about our struggles with consistency.

The second one could be tough, too, if your teen brings up something you can’t explain yourself. Maybe you don’t know either. That’s fine (for now). Your teen may be relieved to find out you have questions, too! And then you could explore them together: for as Clark and Powell also say, it’s healthy in the long run for students to be able to share their questions and voice their doubts.

Learning About Tricky Topics

My second suggestion is of course that you begin to study and learn more about what and why you believe. Better yet: do it together with your children, as I have just said. (I think that’s one idea that’s worth repeating.) I’m building a set of resources here for you to do just that. I hope to have a linked list of suggested books and articles before long, so you’ll have an immediate access to helpful information.

Have the Conversation Regardless

In the meantime, talk with your kids about spiritual things anyway: it will do you both good!

The post Talk To Your Kids About Faith appeared first on Thinking Christian.

Thinking Christian

When Teachers Contradict Christianity: What To Say To Your Child

Is the Bible a book of fables?

Misconceptions

Circular Reasoning

To Respond in Class?

Further Reading

Purpose In Life: Nothing But Illusion?

Naturalism and the Illusions of Life

The Natural Impossibility of Purpose

Could Humanness Lift Us Out of Natural Impossibilities?

The Illusion of Purpose In Life

The Error of Naturalism

Five Reasons Churches Need More Unanswered Questions

1. To Follow Jesus’ Example

2. To Prepare Ears To Hear

3. To Accomplish Your Real Purpose

4. To Do the Questions Justice

5. To Answer the Questions They’re Really Asking

When To Answer After All

More Unanswered Questions

Summer Reading for Students

Getting the Moral Argument Wrong — Again

Begging a Question

“We're Right: Just Ask Us”

Getting the Whole Point Of It Wrong

Therefore:

Comment Subscriptions Interrupted

When Your Child’s School Undermines Christian Faith

Too Much Experience

Building Good Relationships

When School Undermines Christian Faith

If Going to Battle Is Necessary

Relational, Relational …

If You Have Questions

Dallas Willard Goes Home

Quick Note for Regular Blog Followers

The Worldview Clash in the Marriage Debate

Marriage Is …

… vs. Marriage Is Becoming …

The Worldview Clash in the Marriage Debate

The Pastor/Teacher Perspective

Monday Student Question: Why Pray?

When You Don’t Know the Answers

What Is This Elderly-Couple Argument for Same-Sex Marriage?

Pentagon Reportedly Forbidding Military Personnel To Share Their Faith

Why We Must Teach On Marriage In the Church

Addressing the Underlying Problems

You and Me, Babe

Anger at Marriage?

Teaching the True Picture

Separate Civil and Religious Marriage? Yes!

How Do You Tell a Good Answer From a Bad One?

Down the “Marriage” Slippery Slope

To Tell Truth From Error: The Church’s Teaching Responsibility

Talk To Your Kids About Faith

Talking About Tricky Topics

Learning About Tricky Topics

Have the Conversation Regardless