Are Christian Kids Indoctrinated?

This is part 2 of the video of Richard Dawkins, an avowed atheist speaking about why he thinks children should not be indoctrinated in religion.

The atheists accuse Christians of keeping their children cloistered away from other views and indoctrinating these young and impressionable minds as opposed to presenting them with a range of choices. Which they say is unfair to the children.

According to dictionary.com, the word ‘indoctrination’ means to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology etc. especially to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view. It goes on to say that indoctrination involves teaching someone to accept doctrine uncritically and that a synonym for the word is brainwashing.

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What role did God intend for the Christian home and family to play in his salvation plan, the Gospel? (Part 3)

So how exactly can God use our Christian families (Christian parents and Christian children) to impact the world and bring God’s blessing to the nations?

I believe he wants us to raise a generation of Christian kids that will do major damage to the gates of hell. Let me explain.

If Israel could become great and powerful by teaching their children to walk with God and keep the Old Covenant how much more can the Body of Christ grow and powerfully impact the nations, according to God’s promise, if we were to teach our children to walk in the power and grace of the New Covenant.

Can you imagine if instead of losing our kids to the world we kept them all in the church. I’m not talking about just having more bodies to warm the pews. I’m talking about a generation that grows up learning God’s Word, walking in relationship with God and growing in his grace. A generation that is excited about being used by God and about taking ground for the Kingdom of God. Like the generation of Israelites that took the Promised Land only each one of these would be under the New Covenant and filled with God’s Spirit.

Right now we try to protect our children from the evil influences of the world and there is a time for that while they are young.

Unfortunately, our children, (for the most part) are not learning about and growing in their Faith during that time. Think about if we taught our children math and science like we teach them their Faith not one of them would ever graduate. So when they get old enough to see what the world has to offer they wander over there to check it out.

Instead we should be training up our children in the Word of God, equipping them with truth, showing them how to grow close to God, walk with him and influence the world for God and change it for his Kingdom. If we did this we would not have to worry about the world affecting our children. The world would have to start to worry about our children changing them.

If we followed God’s plan and raised kids God’s way, we would all leave this world with the Body of Christ stronger and more powerful than it’s ever been.

Do you know why we have youth groups that have to put all their energies into keeping our teens out of the world or retrieving them from it? It is because we have not brought them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. They do not know God, who they are in Christ or what they believe. What they learn from Sunday school and from Bible stories and the occasional Bible reading won’t cut it.

I foresee the day when we won’t need that kind of youth group anymore. If we stuck to God’s program and taught our children well, when they were young, more youth groups would be more like an army headquarters then a long term care hospital.

Think about this, we currently burn out our pastors because a large portion of the congregation is either new to the Faith or they have never really grown in their Faith. While the pastors are getting burned out trying to get a congregation of baby Christians to grow up just a bit, the children of these same people are headed towards the world.

So we burn out the pastor and lose the children. Then when the children who left the church (who never grew up in their Faith) have children of their own, come back and we start the whole process over again.

If we did it God’s way we would focus on the children and grow up a generation of mature Christians who would work with the pastor, reach the world for Christ and train and instruct their children to do the same. The old cycle would be broken and a new cycle of strength and growth would be established.

What God wants to do through families is raise a generation that can have a bigger impact on this world then the one before so that he can bring about his promise to bless all nations.

For more practical and Biblical Christian Parenting ideas we recommend the Christian resource, ‘What Mary and Joseph Knew About Parenting’.

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)