Raising Christian Children in a Challenging Time – Part 1

Training children in the Christian faith in the expectation that they will likely share one’s faith as an adult has become a challenge for parents today. The allurement of a society focused on gratification, peer pressure, pervasive ideas incompatible with Christian faith, and hostility to orthodox Christian beliefs and practices on the part of many in today’s society draws children in Christian homes away from the faith of their fathers.

Joel Woodruff, President of the C.S. Lewis Institute discussed how parents can address this problem with Christian apologists and commentators Stuart McAlister and Cameron McAlister, a father and son team. Stuart McAlister has been involved in evangelistic outreach behind the Iron Curtain. Today he is an apologetics speaker and writer. His son Cameron McAlister is Director of Content and a Teaching Fellow for the C.S. Lewis Institute. He is a co-founder of Thinking Out Loud, a podcast about current events and “Christian hope.” He is also a staff writer with Christ and Pop Culture. Their recent (2021) book Faith that Lasts: a Father and Son Cultivating Lifelong Belief, discusses passing the Christian faith from parent to child, which was the topic of their discussion.

Woodruff said that “each person must come to know our heavenly Faither on their own and be adopted by Christ into God’s family. Yet the hope of Christian parents is that their children will choose to follow Jesus and make the faith their own.” Many children from Christian families give up their faith after leaving their home, however. With the drastic changes in the public understanding of life (particularly noticeable with sexual issues), people no longer have the sense of sin that they once had, and thus are less oriented to the gospel message. The question, Woodruff said, is “how do we protect our children from seductive culture of this world and raise them in the faith.”

Coming to Faith

Stuart McAlister was first asked how he came to faith in Christ. Raised in Glasgow, Scotland, he said that his mother had a Nazarene background, but found it too legalistic and turned away from it. His father came from the “Fabian socialist camp.” Due to conflict with his father, he left home at age 15, with no particular faith. A young woman he dated introduced him to Christian friends. It was from them that he heard the gospel, “experienced the grace of Christ,” and turned from the violence and vulgarity of his previous life.  

Asked how he tried raise his children in the Christian faith, Stuart said that he had an “intercultural marriage,” inasmuch as he had married an American, they were raising their family in Austria, and had a mission to bring the gospel to Eastern Europe. He felt that it was important to raise children to love Christ and follow him, not merely to inculcate the rules of a religion. This involved addressing the things that his family saw in society and over mass media. “A safe environment, truthfulness” are crucial, and “communication is the heart of it all.”

Cameron McAlister said that he essentially “grew up on the mission field.” People involved in mission visited the McAlister home who had “gone to prison for their faith.” These were “authentic voices, who truly believed what they said they believed.” He said that “so much is caught, as well as taught, when you’re a child.” Seeing his parents reading their Bible and praying showed authenticity. Cameron said that he “gave his life to Christ” at age 5, although he could not have given correct answers to “fine points about the Trinity or the hypostatic union.” He said that “from that day forward the entire quality of my existence changed.”

Challenges of Growing Up

In his adolescence, like many others he went through a “rebellious phase,” But his father (Stuart), asked him at the time “why do you call yourself a Christian.” This, Cameron said “forced me to deal with something that I had kind of pushed to the margins … I thought I could have God on my own terms.” This encounter occurred after having moved to the United States and the American South. Where they had been based in western Europe “you either are a sincere Christian, or you are not.” But in the American South, cultural Christianity still survived. The particular encounter he recalled did not end well, as he remembers. But he said that Christian parents should not be discouraged by the outcome of such occasions, because it “doesn’t mean that your child hasn’t heard you, and that doesn’t mean their heart hasn’t been stirred.”

Cameron said that “the key theme here really will be the heart.” People are driven by more than simply thought, but also by affections. These play “an absolutely crucial role in shaping who we are, and especially what we love.” This drives to a great extent what we do. His father, Stuart, pointed out to him how the comedy in television comedies often “turns on dishonesty.” Lying, cheating, stealing, etc., is all “breezily laughed off.” Cameron could then see from an early age that while they laughed at what they were seeing, it was really nihilistic. If one seriously tried to live in the manner of such shows, “you’re going to find yourself imprisoned, you’re going to find yourself a very lonely person, because nobody will want anything to do with you.”

Woodruff asked Stuart McAlister how one creates a culture that looks at the world critically from a Christian standpoint. Stuart said that parents must take responsibility as the primary religious instructors of their children, not pastors or churches or other religious educators. Parents may be deficient in this regard either from fear or laziness. Parents must themselves read their Bibles enough to know the Bible well, and “to bring it into everyday life.” Many Christians watch television or movies uncritically, not assessing whether the content is contrary to Scripture.

It was then asked what the McAlisters did to interest their children in Bible reading and prayer. Stuart said that his wife Mary did this more than he did, but he engaged his children in answering their questions about Biblical faith. He also explained to his son, Cameron, the bad things he had done before coming to Christ, and how it shows that we all need to come to Christ for redemption from sin. He wanted his son to know that “Jesus was my savior, he was my king.” Cameron said that he found this to be “utterly captivating.” He was impressed by the bad character and deeds his father related, and the present kind and loving father that his father became. This “pattern” of personal transformation on turning to God in faith and repentance is found “throughout Scripture,” he said. The Bible is not “a set of moral precepts,” but a “vision.” In the stories of the Bible “grace sometimes violently disrupted their lives.”

The Importance of Conveying the Christian Story

Woodruff remarked that in the McAlisters’ account of passing the faith to new generations, “the idea of story” recurs. Stuart McAlister agreed that the gospel is a story, “a grand narrative,” and conveying it is “key.” It must be conveyed as the truth, in contrast to alternative stories. Responding to those alternative narratives required “thinking and it required lots of discussion.” The content of the gospel speaks to its truth, Stuart McAlister believes. The experience of engaging these alternative stories when he was involved in mission to communist Eastern Europe was a kind of “second conversion,” he said. The life involved in this engagement with the world is lived “coram Deo,” i.e., before God.

Woodruff observed that today preoccupation with the Internet and social media has reduced in-person social interaction that occurs in families. The question is how the Christian story can be persuasively conveyed in a time of reduced familial interaction. Stuart McAlister responded that the McAlister family always made a practice of eating together and being together on Friday nights. This was before the days of smartphones, but if he had raised his family in this era, smartphones would have been set aside. People did not come and go from the table while the family was eating. Today we must remember not to let contemporary technology “drive your behavior.” Families should remember that family times are for social interaction.

Cameron McAlister said that he personally makes sure his smartphone is put away for a considerable amount of time. His young children “have very limited screen time. They play outside a lot.” Many children in his neighborhood do as well. This may involve accidents, but that’s part of growing up, he said. Children can easily rely on screens for entertainment, but this adversely affects a child’s ability to focus on reality, he said. His children have become articulate because they are asked to explain what they are trying to express in complete sentences. Many Christian young people cannot clearly articulate their faith, because they are not asked to. He said that it is good to attend a church where articulating one’s faith is “part of the culture of that church.” There is much to learn in the Christian faith, so Cameron and his wife “do a whole lot of talking with our kids.”

The McAlisters then went on to discuss how parents should speak to children about problems in the Christian life, conversion experiences, and other issues related to raising children in a Christian home. This will be reviewed in a subsequent article.

It can be viewed here.