The authors tell us, "In a 2006 Barna study, 61% of twenty-somethings who had attended church as teens were no longer spiritually engaged. One study showed that 70% of teens who attended youth group stopped attending church within two years of their high school graduation!" And, no, most of them don't come back after college.
Surveys show that self-proclaimed Christian teens frequently doubt the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, doubt that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and don't know if they can trust the Bible. Surprisingly, "research revealed that Sunday school was actually detrimental to spiritual health! Kids who grew up in a Sunday school environment were more likely to have a secular worldview than those who didn’t." And it's not just college doing this to our kids: "[I]t turns out that only 11 percent of those who have left the Church did so during the college years. Almost 90 percent of them were lost in middle school and high school." The world is teaching our kids that Christianity is a myth right under our noses.
The world does not play fair. It misleads with lies that sound like truth. So we need to be able to help our kids learn to distinguish truth from falsehood and to answer the lies with truth. And this book can help you do that.
The book has two major sections. Part 1 introduces us to the task at hand and teaches some important skills. The first is "the refined art of 'chew and spit'", a name taken from the experience of eating a steak and finding a bit of gristle. We can't just shut out the world. If we try and cloister our kids in a Christian commune, they'll eventually meet the world and be totally unprepared for it. The thing to do is to teach our kids (and ourselves, for that matter), to take the good and leave the bad behind, whether it's in a movie or in a sermon (because Jesus was the only perfect preacher). This section made me realize that I should stop testing my 17yo daughter's music purchases and teach her to do it herself.
The second skill is the art of detecting "linguistic theft" — the practice of redefining words so that lies sound like truth. And example is the word "tolerance." Once defined as "the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behavior that one dislikes or disagrees with," it now means "accepting all beliefs as equally true." The world uses linguistic theft to stop discussion, vilify opposing views, and compel people to act without thinking things through.
In the second section the authors teach you to ROAR, an acronym for Recognize the message, Offer discernment, Argue for a healthier approach, and Reinforce through discussion, discipleship, and prayer. They apply this to eleven "lies you've probably heard but didn't now what they were called" including self-helpism, naturalism, emotionalism, and Marxism.
The information in this book is excellent. I'm not aware of anything quite like it. The discussions of the various "isms" plaguing our society are usually only found in much larger, more intimidating books, and the chapters on "chewing and spitting" (aka discernment) and linguistic theft are worth the purchase price alone.
My only ... complaint? regret? is that the book is marketed toward and speaks directly to mothers, "mama bears", and it teaches you to "ROAR like a mother." Because of that a lot of men who could learn a great deal from this book will never pick it up. Don't be like them. Read this book. Teach it to your kids, the younger the better.
Image via Pixabay
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