Who is Guarding Your Children?

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127:3-5)

As grandparents, we have a double perspective of God’s gift of children. First, we were blessed with our own, and then we were blessed with grandchildren too. Children enter our lives as defenseless little people that demand and need constant care, feeding, changing, and perhaps most important of all, guarding and protecting. When they begin to crawl and then walk, we must “kid proof” the home by covering electrical outlets, putting child locks on appliances and cabinets, and generally keeping dangerous objects out of their inquiring little hands and mouths. We keep them from climbing up dressers that might topple over on them. We keep them away from electrical cords and employ gates on stairways. If you have or have been blessed with children, you know the drill. We make it our business to be ever mindful of what they are doing or playing with. If they should toddle into another room, we are alert for strange noises and/or ominous silences. What a child sees as “wondrous adventures” can admittedly be nightmares for parents. Guarding and protecting this little blessing can be very time-consuming and quite wearing, so it is generally a good thing that people have children when they are young.

And then there is OUTSIDE, with streets and yard tools, bees, and garden chemicals. Moms especially seem to develop eyes in the back of their head, and they need them! Out in public, say at the grocery store, we feel the need to protect the little ones from strangers. Why? Because we know things they do not know.

Eventually they become teenagers, so we parents can finally relax. 😊 You might not realize, however, that the teen years can be quite stressful for parents. Christian parents usually have taught their children what they believe and tried hard to pass on their faith to them. And children do imitate what they see their parents do and do pick up their beliefs. But especially in the teen years, they also test it, sometimes by rejecting it, just to see what happens. And we parents quickly learn that we don’t have nearly as much control over our kids input, stimulus and education as we had when they were young, since they now know how to climb out of playpens and climb over gates. The culture’s influence in movies, TV, video games and music probably has more of a hold on teens and their peers than any other age group. And we all know our culture is not friendly towards our faith. We also know about the enormous power of peer pressure. One especially important thing parents may or may not be aware if is what kids today are being taught in school. 

We tend to think kids are learning much the same things we learned in school. But whether you were schooled in the 50s or even the 90s, the kids definitely are not being taught the same things today. Most parents trust the teachers and the institutions. “They” are the professionals, and we want our kids to learn to read, write, do math, learn history, and become a well-rounded individual.

However, more and more Christian parents have rightly become concerned that public schools are teaching their kids things completely contrary to what the parent believes and has taught their child. There are some very fine teachers in the public-school system, but frankly, there is also an agenda which absolutely militates against the Christian faith. It must be difficult to be a committed Christian teacher today. In this environment, parents need to find out what their kids are learning and guard their children by spending time comparing and contrasting, with the child or teen, the school’s teaching with a biblical worldview. Most parents are just not prepared for this and too few churches equip their people in worldview questions and defense of the faith. The first the parent might discover there is a problem is when teen or even preteen Ethan or Emily voices their opinion, say, that homosexuality and transgenderism are normal, and that is it wrong (bigoted) to say otherwise. Wait, what? Or they might believe the next President needs to be a woman, without regard for what this woman may stand for — or stand against. And younger and younger age kids are being taught (and believing) the pernicious Critical Race Theory. We are highly critical of the Critical Race theory, which is highly divisive and thoroughly unbiblical. For one example, it teaches that people from minority groups cannot be racist, while all whites are racists, thereby denying that all people are equally lost in sin and all equally need a savior. CRT is not about racial equality, but the destruction of the nation by tearing us apart.

We have all witnessed the fruit of these progressive teachings being played out in the nation’s cities this year. “The chickens,” as Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright might have put it, “have come home to roost” The disruptive rioters in the streets are admittedly more likely to be college students than high schoolers, but you can bet they have been marinated for quite a few years in their beliefs while younger — at their local Jr. High or High school.

Christians, like most other Americans, live terribly busy lives with a lot of distractions, not to even mention work obligations. It is not easy to keep up with it all. Yet Jesus warns us all to be on the alert for false prophets (Matthew 7:15 — 23). This includes false teachers and false teachings. To guard their kids, some Christian parents opt for homeschooling. They figure at least they will have control over which materials will be used, opting for sources they trust, but even that does not always guarantee the curricula will be safe and reflect true Christian beliefs. We have discovered many false and anti-Christian teachings embedded in Home School materials recently. The Enneagram, an occult New Age teaching, has invaded homeschooling material in recent years, and many parents are not aware of it. In fact, it is possible that many parents do not even know what the Enneagram is. Some old and trusted sources cannot and should not be trusted without knowledgeable verification of their teachings.

Another option some have chosen is Christian schools. In many cases that is a good choice if those who are running the schools are biblically sound and make good choices in hiring of teachers. School leadership needs to make it their business to act as a guard for the students concerning what the teachers are teaching, but many are not.

Jesus was concerned about the effect of adults on young ones and issued a warning:

And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.(Luke 17:1-2)

The context of Jesus’s words concerns sin, which can include actions, behaviors and/or beliefs. Our focus here is on beliefs. Guarding our kids from encountering any and all false beliefs is not possible but training them to recognize and reject those beliefs is an extremely important protective measure. Unfortunately, parents tend to blindly trust, without careful examination, that the leadership of Christian schools, along with supposed Christian publishers, and our own church leadership are biblically sound. We should instead “trust but verify.” Parents drop their guard when they drop off their impressionable teenagers at a “safe” Christian school. Also bear in mind that kids are probably going to trust what they are taught because their parents do. All of the hard work of teaching, guarding and protecting our kids at home can be undone in a matter of months under the tutelage of a teacher presumed to be a true believer who becomes enamored with a false teacher whom he sees as his mentor.

We are presently working with parents in two Christian high schools. In one situation, a teacher has her students taking the Enneagram test as a “Christian tool” and writing a paper on it. In another Christian high school, Richard Rohr’s teachings are permeating many of the classes in the school unchecked. They are being woven into the fabric and ethos of the school and most parents are unaware of its presence or its danger. In our book, Richard Rohr and the Enneagram Secret, we demonstrate that the origins of the Enneagram are occultic and the theology is completely out of line with the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Franciscan Priest, Richard Rohr, is a central figure in formulating the Enneagram’s theology. He is a false teacher with a different Jesus, a different gospel, a different salvation and more.

Critical Race Theory is also being taught in many Christian high schools under the guise of “diversity training.” Churches and whole denominations are embracing it as well. There is much false teaching abroad today, right in our own churches and schools. Let’s as parent’s (and grandparents if possible) make a real effort to ensure our homes are counter-acting the false doctrines out there. Christian parents must take it upon themselves to learn what is being taught in their kid’s schools and hold school leadership accountable. It is crucial at that point to sit down with their child and show them what is wrong with the objectionable teaching, and how it conflicts with sound Christian teaching.

Please understand we are not saying that if a child turns away from the faith, it is the parent’s fault. No one is perfect, but parents can do “all the right things” to the best of their ability, and still the child may choose to walk away from the faith. Kids are very headstrong, and the pull of the culture today is immensely powerful, calling them to conform and leave their parent’s beliefs behind. Teens have free will, as we all do, and each person must ultimately make the choice to follow Christ or go their own way. We just do the best that we can, pray without ceasing, and put our kids in God’s hands. Heartbroken parents — and there are many — can take solace from the fact that many kids return to the faith their parents instilled in them at a later point in time, often when they have children of their own.

The important point is that kids very much need to be tended to, taught well, and guarded by their parents and their churches from the temptation to accept and embrace false teaching. It is as important, if not more so, than it was to guard them from physical danger when they were small. That wasn’t easy either. At times it may seem overwhelming, but God is faithful to give us strength to do what we need to do to arm our children against the schemes of the evil one.Ω

© 2020, Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc All rights reserved. Excerpts and links may be used if full and clear credit is given with specific direction to the original content.

Recommended Resources:

Enneagram and Richard Rohr

– Richard Rohr and the Enneagram Secret Don Veinot, Joy Veinot & Marcia Montenegro (Book)
– Is the Enneagram a Trojan Horse in the Church? With Marcia Montenegro (Video)
– Theology on Tap — Christian Mysticism Pt. 1 — Is the Enneagram Dangerous? (Video)
– Why I Quit the Enneagram (Video)
– John Haller “Practice Biblical Distancing” (Video)
– The Apostle and the Enneagram (Article)
– The Enneagram — The Draw of Mysticism (Article)
– Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity Alisa Childers (Book)

Critical Race Theory

– Is Critical Theory Biblical? (Short video explanation)
– Black Lives Are Sacred (Article)
– The Quest for Cosmic Justice Thomas Sowell (Book) This was not written in response to CRT (published in 2002) but the content addresses the issues which CRT claims and asserts
– “Critical Race Theory and Culture” — Dr. David Marshall (Video)
– Center for Biblical Unity – Chantel Monique Duson (Former CRT Proponent)
– Is Be The Bridge a Path Toward Racial Unity? – Chantel Monique Duson
– The Occult Religion of #Black Lives Matter (Article)
– The Social Justice Question – Carl Teichrib (Video)
– JFK — “Ask Not …” (Article)
– Racial Reconciliation – Ephesians 2:10-11 | Dr. Voddie Baucham (Video)-
– Just Thinking Podcast | Slavery Reparations – Darrell B. Harrison & Virgil Walker (Audio podcast)
– Neil Shenvi — Apologetics (Blog site with a major focus on understanding and responding to CRT claims)