Tag Archives: Worldview

Mentoring

The importance of being the first to frame issues for your children

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Dan’s post at The Bumbling Genius on the importance of parents talking to their children FIRST about controversial issues related to Christianity is a must-read. The post drew 100 comments, so far. The post is here.

Excerpt:

The common assertion that “Christians are narrow-minded, or anti-science” is a logical fallacy called”Poisoning the Well”. Well poisoning is a preempted ad hominem attack that attempts to pre-program, or especially in this case to embed into society’s thinking a predisposition against a particular point of view.

My first exposure to the effectiveness of this tactic-from the outside looking in-occurred during discussions in my home with Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was here that I began to appreciate the persuasive power of this logical fallacy, and to develop a similar technique in teaching my own children in ways to help insulate them against this kind of mind poisoning by doing a little pre-poisoning of the well of their thinking myself. I hope to accomplish this by being the first to present the messages of our culture except that I do so under the microscope of scripture, logic, and objective truth. In this way I am the one setting the table, so to speak, for the future discussions my children will encounter involving their worldview.

Not unlike the tactics used by the JW’s and anti-Christ cultural apologist, as I teach my children I employ the key concept of “firsts.” For example: when an institution or media is the first to present a cultural issue, and also the first to present my response in a “closed-minded”, “Christian” caricatured stereotype, followed by their a pithy, high-browed, and cognitive dissonant response to that stereotype, then my children’s Well becomes poisoned against my teaching. Everything I as parent subsequently espouse may then be seen through the lens of that stereotype. On the other hand, if I am the first to present the tenets of those opposing worldviews along with a logical and realistic explanation as to why they are flawed, then I will have achieved the objective of firsts.

This is something Christian parents really need to think about. You want to inoculate your children against pressure from teachers and peers by discussing issues long before they are introduced in the classroom or the playground. And you should be on guard against other sources of sin and lies, too.

Commentary

Parents need to take reponsibility for their children’s prosperity

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Here’s a post from Caffeinated Thoughts. It’s about parenting, faith and prosperity.

Excerpt:

It is my job, as a parent, to raise and protect the children that God has given me. It goes beyond the obvious needs of food, clothing and shelter and into an even greater need of “Train(ing) a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6.  Raising a child involves love, discipline, education and looking out for their needs now, as it will affect them when they are old. If parents in America only provide for a child’s physical needs, forgetting to nurture the whole child, then American parents have done nothing more than what a wild animal does for its offspring. My work as a parent goes well beyond the obvious and must be intentional in training, raising, and nurturing them into moral, ethical and God-fearing adults who will in turn also raise a generation who live and do likewise.

I must also fight for the ethical and moral rights of my children in the political arena, as they are unable to do so for themselves. As [Thomas] Paine stated, “We ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully.” He was looking at his posterity realizing that the condition of the country in which they lived needed a drastic overhaul and unless the adults stepped up and took the initiative, the children would suffer for it.

I like this post because it mentions protecting children’s relationships with God as well as their future economic well-being. I think that most people look at their children and think that their faith will be fine, and that their standard of living will as good as the parent’s, or better. But if we want to give those good things to our children, we need to be careful about how we teach them and how we vote. We can’t just “hope for the best” and expect things to work out – 80% of the young people who attend church through high school fall away from their faith. And the unemployment rate for young people today is over 50%.

Commentary

Do you all agree with Wes Widner about the doctrine of original sin?

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His post at Reason to Stand is here.

Excerpt:

When dealing with the doctrine of “original sin” it is important to understand what this doctrine does and does not mean. Simply put, it does mean that because of the sin of Adam and Eve (though, Biblically, the full weight of responsibility for this sin falls on Adam’s shoulders) sinful proclivities have entered into the hearts of men.

[…]What the doctrine of original sin does not mean is that we are all borne owing the debt of sins Adam incurred.

[…]“Original sin”, if understood in the sense that we are guilty of sin from birth logically leads to the untenable conclusion that all children go to hell (unless one holds to the unbiblical stretch known as covenantal theology) for sins they did not freely choose to commit.

Romans 3:23, which tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God“, is not a prescriptive phrase, that we will by necessity sin, but rather a descriptive phrase about what we all freely choose to do. Given long enough, after reaching the age of accountability, we will come to know the difference between good and evil and we will freely choose to sin of our own accord.

The fact is that we are actually borne innocent and freely choose to sin thereby breaking ourselves and disqualifying ourselves from participating in a relationship with a holy God.

Do any of my readers have a different understanding of original sin than this one?