10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and Answer) about Christianity (eBook)

Rebecca McLaughlin (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
208 Seiten
Crossway (Verlag)
978-1-4335-7169-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Written by Rebecca McLaughlin, Author of Confronting Christianity  In a world of increasing ideological diversity, kids are being challenged to think through their own beliefs at an early age. Questions like How can you believe the Bible is true?; Why can't we just agree that love is love?; and Isn't Christianity against diversity? can seem like roadblocks for kids who are following Jesus, as well as for those who might otherwise consider faith in Christ. In this helpful book-written both for Christian kids and for those who think Jesus is just a fairy tale character-Rebecca McLaughlin invites readers ages 12-15 to dig deep into hard questions for themselves and perhaps discover that the things that once looked like roadblocks to faith might actually be signposts.

Rebecca McLaughlin (PhD, Cambridge University) is the author of Confronting Christianity, named Christianity Today's 2020 Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year. Her subsequent works include 10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and Answer) about Christianity; The Secular Creed; and Jesus through the Eyes of Women.

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Note to Parents, Grandparents, Guardians, and Friends

I finally gave up Christianity when I was 15,” wrote famous atheist Richard Dawkins in his latest book, Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide (2019).1 Dawkins hoped to reach the rising generation of kids with the good news that they don’t need religion. In the decades since the New Atheist movement launched, you might think this was the only message sounding from the academic world. But that is simply not the case.

Religious belief was supposed to decline as modernization swept the world.2 But it hasn’t. Being a world-class academic and a serious, orthodox Christian was supposed to be increasingly untenable. But it isn’t. Giving up on religion was supposed to make people happier, healthier, and more moral. But it doesn’t.3 In fact, even Richard Dawkins has had to acknowledge (grudgingly) the evidence that people who believe in God seem to behave better than those who don’t. He thinks it rather patronizing to say, “Of course you and I are too intelligent to believe in God, but we think it would be a good idea if other people did!”4 And yet that does seem to be where the evidence points. Broadly speaking, religious belief and practice seem to be good for society—and good for kids. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 2019, therapist Erica Komisar gave this provocative advice: “Don’t believe in God? Lie to your children.”5

Komisar was not shooting in the dark. Mirroring the mental and physical health benefits for adults, there is a growing body of evidence that regular religious practice is measurably good for the health, happiness, and pro-social behavior of our kids. In the same year that Dawkins released his book, the Harvard School of Public Health published the results of a longitudinal study on the impact of a religious upbringing on adolescents and found that it contributes to a wide range of health and well-being outcomes later in life.6 In an op-ed for USA Today, Harvard professor of epidemiology Tyler VanderWeele summarized some of the key findings:

• Children who were raised in a religious or spiritual environment were better protected from the “big three” dangers of adolescence: depression, drugs, and risky sexual behaviors.
• Those who attended religious services regularly were subsequently 12 percent less likely to have high depressive symptoms and 33 percent less likely to use illicit drugs.
• Those who prayed or meditated frequently were 30 percent less likely to start having sex at a young age and 40 percent less likely to have a sexually transmitted disease.
• Moreover, children with a religious upbringing were also more likely to subsequently have higher levels of happiness, of a sense of purpose, of volunteering, and of forgiveness of others.7

Of course, these studies do not mean that belief in God is right, or that Christianity is true. It should, however, give us pause before dismissing religious perspectives out of hand and assuming that our kids are just better off without. As Erika Komisar put it,

As a therapist, I’m often asked to explain why depression and anxiety are so common among children and adolescents. One of the most important explanations—and perhaps the most neglected—is declining interest in religion.8

If this data is challenging for non-religious parents, the “declining interest in religion” (at least in the West) is worrying for believers. Just as evidence for the benefits of religious upbringing is mounting, cultural tides are pulling kids and teens away from religious moorings. So what are parents, grandparents, and carers on all sides of these great debates to do?

Whatever our beliefs about God, there are some things on which I’m sure we agree: we all want our kids to be happy, healthy, purpose-filled, and good. Few of us would want to lie to our kids, especially about our deepest beliefs. We want them to know the truth. But we also want to protect them from plausible-sounding lies. Deep down we know there’s a tension: to keep our kids truly safe in the long run, we must let them risk-take now. We know this when it comes to practical skills. A baby won’t learn to walk unless we let him fall. A child won’t learn to ride a bike unless we let her risk a tumble or two. The teenager who wasn’t trusted with a bike won’t be ready for a car. So how does this translate to the realm of ideas?

For some parents, protecting their kids from dangerous ideas feels like a must. I’ve heard this both from Christians who don’t want their kids exposed to atheism, and from atheists who don’t want their kids exposed to Christianity. I’ve even heard it from parents who think they are very open-mindedly encouraging their kids to explore different religious traditions, while insisting they respect each tradition equally. For these folks, the dangerous idea is that one religion might actually be true. Many of us who are now in the thick of parenting were raised with the idea that questioning someone’s religious beliefs was arrogant, offensive, and wrong. Beliefs were personal and should not be challenged.

In this book, I want to offer a different approach. Rather than protecting my kids from divergent ideas, or urging them to affirm all beliefs equally, I want to equip them to have real conversations with real people who really think differently from them—and from me. I want them to learn how to listen well and how to question what they hear. If what I believe is true, it will stand up to scrutiny.

The Christian faith sprang up in a world that was violently hostile to its claims. But rather than extinguishing the small spark of the early church, the winds of opposition gave it oxygen to spread. Two thousand years later (as I explain in chapter 1) it’s still spreading. But I don’t want my kids to believe in Jesus just because I say so, or just because it’s the largest and most diverse religion in the world, or just because going to church makes you happier, healthier, and more generous to others. I want them to see Jesus for themselves and to believe that what he says about himself is true.

Wanting this for my kids doesn’t mean hiding other options. If anything, I believe Jesus shines more brightly when all the veils are stripped away. My guess is that if you’re not a follower of Jesus, you also have enough confidence in your beliefs to think they’ll stand up to scrutiny, and that you too would like the young people you love—as a parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt, or friend—to think for themselves. My hope is that this book will challenge every reader to do just that. And, in order to do so, we’re going to have some adult conversations.

This book engages with some big ideas. It talks about racism and slavery, marriage and sexuality, gender and transgender questions, abortion and pornography, 9/11, Hitler, Stalin, heaven, and hell. In it, I share my early and ongoing experience of same-sex attraction, and the story of one of my best friends, who had multiple sexual relationships with other girls before becoming a Christian as an undergrad at Yale. Whatever your child’s current beliefs or emerging attractions, I hope this book will be a help to them. I’ve tried to write with empathy and care.

My eldest child has just turned ten, and I’ve written the book in a way I’d be comfortable for her to read. But kids develop at very different rates, and you’ll be the best judge of your own child’s readiness. You may want to read the book first yourself before passing it on to your kids. You may want to read it with the children you love. Or you may think they’ll prefer to read for themselves. In any case, my hope is that it will prompt fruitful conversations.

If you are not a Christian, I hope this book will at least give your child a handle on some of the best Christian thinking from some of the most credible sources, when too often we only hear in public from the worst. If you do consider yourself a follower of Jesus, I hope it will encourage your child to take the claims of Christ very seriously, and not to be afraid to ask hard questions.

I’m currently reading the Harry Potter series to my kids, and I must warn you that this book is full of Harry Potter spoilers! If you’re a J. K. Rowling fan and the young person you love hasn’t yet read her books, you might want to hold off sharing this book for now. If your children aren’t ready for the entire Harry Potter series, they may not be ready for this book either.

Harry Potter was eleven when he found out there was magic in the world. Richard Dawkins would say that believing in the Christian story is about as childish as believing that Harry Potter’s world is true. But the thousands of Christian professors at the top of their fields—ranging from physics to philosophy to psychology to epidemiology—would disagree. My hope is that this book will help young...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.3.2021
• Verlagsort: Wheaton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Pastoraltheologie
• Schlagworte: agnostic • Apologetics • Atheist • Belief • case Christ • Christianity • christian worldview • college student • Debate • defend faith • Doubt • equip • Evangelism • Evidence • God • High School • Intellectual • Philosophy • prepared • questions • reason • skeptic • Teenager • witnessing
• ISBN-10: 1-4335-7169-2 / 1433571692
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4335-7169-5 / 9781433571695