Preparing Teens To Defend Their Christian Worldview
Today, many evangelical Christian young people are facing mounting opposition within our culture. It is your faith in the Infinite-Personal God of the Bible and your commitment to truth as revealed by God that is putting you at odds with our culture.
I was recently reading the award winning "pop cultural" novel, Ready Player One. Perhaps you have seen or heard of it. In the opening of the book I came across this statement by the main character, Wade:
"The worst thing about being a kid was that no one told me the truth about my situation. In fact, they did the exact opposite." (Ready Play One, Ernest Cline).
It struck me as a little odd. For several generations now we have been told by educators and those controlling pop culture and social media that there is no truth. So why was this comment inserted?What Is Truth?
Think with me for a moment about this idea of truth. Western culture, for thousands of years, accepted the idea that truth existed. Although there has never been full agreement as to what truth is, the Christian view of truth has dominated Western thought during much of that time. But about the time your great grand parents were born, something began to change. The idea of the existence of objective, universal and absolute truth as explained in the Word of God began to be questioned. It was subtle at first. During the lifetime of your grand parents, truth was being pushed out of society into the four corners of the Church. Today, the concept of truth has been so marginalized by society that even many of your Christian friends have accepted the idea that truth is personal rather than universal, relative rather than absolute and subjective rather than objective. Do you wonder why Ernest Cline, the author of Ready One Player, has his main character talk about truth as if it really exists? Wade appears utterly disgusted with what he had been taught:"And, of course, I believed them, because I was just a kid and I didn't know any better… So I swallowed all of the dark ages nonsense they fed me. Some time passed. I grew up a little, and I gradually began to figure out that pretty much everyone had been lying to me about pretty much everything since the moment I emerged from my mother's womb."
Do you see what this author is attempting to accomplish? You can almost anticipate what is coming next. The main character begins introducing two opposing worldviews: the Christian worldview and the Secular worldview. Lean in and learn what is at the heart of this book:"I wish someone had just told me the truth right up front, as soon as I was old enough to understand it. I wish someone had just said:
"Here's the deal, Wade. You're something called a 'human being.' That's a really smart kind of animal. Like every other animal on this planet, we're descended from a single-celled organism that lived millions of years ago. This happened by a process called evolution, and you'll learn more about it later. But trust me, that's really how we all got here. There's proof of it everywhere, buried in the rocks. That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? …The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
"You're probably wondering what's going to happen to you. That's easy. The same thing is going to happen to you that has happened to every other human being who has ever lived. You're going to die. We all die. That's just how it is."
In this short monologue the Christian worldview is ridiculed and replaced by the post-modern secular worldview. I wouldn't be too concerned about the impact this one novel could have on culture if it weren't for the fact that a film adaptation is slated to begin production this summer and premiere in the spring of 2018. The director is Steven Spielberg. Can you imagine the effect this movie could have on our society? I wonder, will Spielberg have the courage and audacity to incorporate this monologue? Little doubt. If so, non-believers will be emboldened to question, ridicule and attack those of us who accept truth as described in the Word of God. Be assured this book and movie are directed toward you, and all those in the millennial age group. For what purpose? To entertain? Hardly. Their objective is to undermine and strip away your Christian faith. It is another attempt to push Christians into a corner. If they can persuade you to identify with Wade, which they might, then you too will have been prepared to question and possibly reject the basic core beliefs of Christianity in order to accept their post-modern view of the world. "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:1,2, ESV).
