Having blogged for over six years now, I’ve received hundreds (and hundreds) of comments and emails from sceptics of Christianity. Once in a while, I receive one from a pleasant non-believer who is truly interested in discussing evidence, asking reasonable questions, and engaging in thoughtful discussion.
But that’s the exception.
Those who contact me typically wield the tool of shaming to make their point—something highly ironic given how much sceptics talk about the importance of evidence.
To be clear, none of the non-believers I personally know would use shaming tactics in person. But when people are behind their screens, it brings down the “barrier” of civility, and faith conversations often look very different. You can see it on social media (even with friends who wouldn’t say such things in person), comments on news articles, blog posts—everywhere.
Kids need to understand these emotion-laden shaming attempts they’ll encounter. Like so much else, this is something parents can and should prepare them for. Here are the five most common sceptics who want to shame your kids for being Christian.
1. The Science Thumper
Shame Tactic: Making the child believe they don’t have enough scientific expertise to understand that belief in God is unnecessary and silly.
The Science Thumper applies some notion of science to each and every conversation about Christianity, making it the final word on any given topic, and implying that science and Christianity are at irreconcilable odds.
For example, in response to one of my blog posts about the meaning of life in a theistic worldview, a sceptic commented:
You need to study the mechanisms of replication, mutation, natural selection if you want to understand why life exists and is the way it is. If life and existence are too amazing, astounding and astonishing to exist naturally…then how much more complex is god [sic] for having created it? … Did you invent superman as a panacea answer for everything you don’t understand?
Questions of faith and science are very important, but framing faith and science as a choice—one option for the unsophisticated and one for those in the know—is a cheap and false dichotomy.
Parent Solution: Thoroughly address faith and science topics so kids understand how shallow and unnuanced the Science Thumper’s claims are. See Talking with Your Kids about God for six chapters outlining the conversations parents need to have.
2. The Indoctrination Informer
Shame Tactic: Informing the child that the ONLY reason they believe in Jesus is that they’ve been “indoctrinated” by their parents.
Indoctrination is a word that both Christians and sceptics use wrong. Sceptics often think a kid has been indoctrinated any time they’ve been taught a given religion is true. Christians often think indoctrination means teaching kids Christian doctrine. These misunderstandings lead to conversations that unfortunately sound like this:
Sceptic to Christian parent: “You’re indoctrinating your kids [by raising them in a Christian home]! Let them think for themselves.”
Christian parent to sceptic: “You’re right! I’m teaching my kids Christian doctrine, and I’m proud of it!”
Both sceptics and Christians need to understand that indoctrination means teaching someone to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs. In other words, indoctrination is a problem with how you teach someone something. It is not inherently related to any particular belief system, though religion is one type of belief system where indoctrination is possible.
Parent Solution: Intentionally introduce your kids to sceptics’ challenges so they never feel the need to question whether you tried to shelter them from other beliefs. For more on the importance of this, see the post “If Your Kids are Someday Shocked by the Claims of Sceptics, You Didn’t Do Your Job.”
3. The Miracle Mocker
Shame Tactic: Making the child feel gullible for believing something that doesn’t happen according to natural laws.
Here’s a recent comment a sceptic left on my blog:
Just because some so-called holy book says something is true doesn’t make it true. Why do you believe outlandish claims about a god [sic] speaking things into existence, or about a man being swallowed by a fish for a few days and surviving, a worldwide flood [and ark] that fit all of the animals in it and eight people, or a story about a virgin getting pregnant? None of that makes sense, you don’t have any proof that it happened, but you still think it’s true. Why do you prefer to believe outlandish claims because they’re religious?
The logic here is what’s “outlandish” (no one believes all miraculous claims simply because they’re religious), but my point is not to critique the details of this particular comment. My point is to show how sceptics present miracles in a way that parades them as “obviously” absurd because (and by definition!), they don’t follow the course of nature.
Parent Solution: Teach kids the basic logic that if God exists, miracles are possible, and if God doesn’t exist, miracles are not possible (for more on this, see chapter 24 in Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side). This brings the question of miracles back to the underlying question of the evidence for God’s existence so kids understand that the person claiming miracles are silly is simply presupposing God doesn’t exist.
4. The Self-Sufficient Scoffer
Shame Tactic: Boasting that the sceptic doesn’t “need” God—and implying that anyone who does has an inferior need for an emotional crutch to get through life.
Oftentimes, when ex-Christians recount their deconversion story, they conclude with a glib comment of how they moved on because they no longer “needed” God. The subtly condescending implication, of course, is that those who believe in God do so because they don’t have the emotional resources to make it through life admitting that we live in a universe of pitiless indifference.
This is a strange conclusion that betrays a lack of deeper insight.
If God exists, we need Him. All things were created through and for Him; He is the Source and sustainer of everything by definition. Therefore, if God exists, it’s not a choice to need Him…it’s simply a fact that we do.
If God doesn’t exist, we don’t need Him. We cannot need Him. We cannot need something that doesn’t exist.
In other words, saying that you don’t need God anymore is a nonsensical conclusion. Of course you don’t need God if He doesn’t exist. And if He does exist, you can’t choose to not need Him.
What this kind of statement betrays, therefore, is that the sceptic originally believed in God based on felt needs (desires) rather than on the conviction that He truly exists. When they realised they didn’t need to believe in God to satisfy those felt needs, they simply eliminated Him from the picture and met those needs in other ways.
Parent Solution: Be mindful of helping kids build a faith based on the conviction of God’s existence and the truth of Christianity—not on felt needs for things like being happy, being a good person, or finding meaning in life. In other words, if anyone ever asks your child why they’re a Christian, you should want their response to be, “Because Christianity is true!” For more on escaping the felt need pattern, see the post “Do Your Kids Know Why They Need God?”
5. The Tolerance Enforcer
Shame Tactic: Making the child feel like they are unloving and hateful for taking a biblical stance that doesn’t approve of all choices as morally acceptable.
In a spectacular display of irony, the Tolerance Enforcer shames kids into believing that they must be horrible people for disagreeing with non-believers on the morality of various issues. By labelling kids hateful and unloving rather than thoughtfully discussing the evidence for the truth of the underlying worldviews that produce divergent moral conclusions, they rely on purely emotional attacks. Kids without an intellectual foundation for the Christian worldview are left feeling that they must be wrong about the truth of their faith.
Parent Solution: Help kids understand the irony of a person championing tolerance who won’t tolerate Christian beliefs without labelling disagreement hateful. Then demonstrate how Christians and non-Christians will necessarily disagree on moral issues because we have a different source of authority—the Bible. Here’s an example.
In all of these cases, remember that shame, by definition, is “a painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness or disgrace.” In other words, the root of shame is feeling inadequate.
In order for our kids to feel (more than) adequate when they encounter shaming attempts, they need to have the deep conviction that what they believe is really true. Only then will they be able to fully see these shame tactics for what they are—shallow and baseless emotional attacks—and be able to say confidently with the apostle Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).
Natasha Crain
is a speaker, author, and blogger who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side and Talking with Your Kids about God. Her third book, Talking with Your Kids about Jesus, will be released in March 2020. She has an MBA from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, Natasha lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.
Reprinted with permission from www.natashacrain.com.
Stirling is a beautiful city to live and work in. “The Haven”, is a community hub run by Stirling Baptist Church, which is surrounded by historical buildings, the castle, and parks. The city’s beauty masks countless tragedies however, not least in the community in which we are based, known as “The top of the town”. The ingrained problems here include terrible rates of drug and alcohol addiction with all their associated problems, and it’s one of the very worst postcodes in the whole of Scotland for child 
poverty. Statistics show the scale of the problem, but don’t reveal the tragedy of what we see here. I could cross the road from The Haven, and show you a mother sharing her heroin needle with her 16 year old daughter, which is absolutely heartbreaking. From my window, I cannot only see the tourist sights, but also the addicts heading down to the local chemist to queue for their Methadone, and customers coming and going from the drug dealer’s house too.
Because she has come off heroin, she looks great. Her inner transformation has been matched by a physical rejuvenation too. She looks so different that it has drawn a lot of attention. In fact, people shout to her in the street, “Hey Ellen, what has that drug dealer got you on now, you’re looking fantastic, doll!” And she shouts back, “I’m not on anything, I’ve got Jesus in my heart!”
Some people are afraid of the addicts and their challenging behaviour, the sores on their skin, vacant expressions and their dirty clothes. I just see somebody’s daughter, or somebody’s Mum, somebody’s child who is suffering and broken and hurting. Many people just break down when you show them any kind of compassion and love. They’ve forgotten what it is like to be loved because they have been rejected for so long. They say, “Why are you doing this?” “Why are you talking to me?” “Why are you nice to me?” “Why are you talking to my friends?” – they are initially really suspicious, but then they realise that we are giving and we are not expecting anything in return; we’re giving and giving and giving – and it’s Jesus that we are giving them.
Follow these links to find out more about supporting their work. If you are in the Stirling area and want to know more about the life-changing message of Jesus, they are a good place to start! Some of the names in this story have been changed for confidentiality.
The Solas conferences in Dundee have been tremendously popular over the years, in response to demand from churches we’re now delivering them all over the UK.
Confident Christianity: Cowplain kicked off with Solas Director Dr. Andy Bannister on, “How To Talk About Jesus Without Sounding Like An Idiot”, which outlined a sensitive, biblical and winsome way of speaking faithfully about Jesus to sceptical friends. At the heart of what Andy taught people was the power of asking really good questions—the very method that Jesus used in the gospels.
Dr. Ben Thomas delivered two talks during the day on the hugely important subjects of human sexuality and the Christian faith. He began with a talk entitled “Sex and Salvation: A Story of Personal Transformation.” Ben explains: “I told the story of how I became a Christian which was linked to the fact that I identified as a gay man who was always contemplating, as I explored my sexuality, what if Christianity is actually true? I had started to read the scriptures while at University, and was attracted to who Jesus was, but yet never felt that God would love me or accept me because of my sexuality. And it was the story of really reconciling the two together which lead me away from leading a life as an active gay man and becoming a Christian and living in that way ever since.”
Our third speaker, David Hutchings, gave a cracking first talk on “God vs Science : A History”. It hugely impressed Tim Boxall from Portsmouth who said: “I was really interested in the origins of the science-versus-religion narrative (the mistaken idea that science and religion are at war), particularly its roots in the nineteenth writers who laid out a lot of the myths which are upheld today. I studied physics at university, and I thought it was really important to highlight that “science versus religion” is really a myth, they really are not incompatible.”
Reactions to the Confident Christianity conference have been wonderfully positive. Phill Brown, pastor of the host church, said: “I think people have found today so helpful because it was real, it was informative but also inspired people who are shy in talking about their faith to think ‘I can do this!’. The format was helpful too: short, 25 minute talks on a variety of subjects, evangelism, apologetics, testimony, was a really good way to approach it. People have been really positive and encouraged to be more confident.”
Long before Jesus sent the Holy Spirit and propelled the early church out into the world on mission, he modelled what God’s mission should look like in practice. In over a quarter of a century of Christian mission, in various cultures, I have observed that the closer to Jesus’ model we stick, the more authentic, fruitful and honouring to God we are. When the church, and mission agencies drift away from Jesus’ model, things start to go wrong.
That verse features frequently in the prayer update that I write for our mission, Novi Most International. Here’s the reason: about 7 years ago Novi Most had 12 workers in Mostar, now there are only 2 of us. There aren’t any fewer spiritual or practical needs – but there are fewer workers.
What does Jesus think when he looks at this country? I believe that he hasn’t changed, and that he still brims over with compassion for my friends and neighbours here. In Jesus’ mission, people are not statistics for us to count as ‘ministry success stories’. People do not exist for us in order to have successful ministry projects. No. God has deep compassion for people, and calls us to do the same. That’s why we have to be willing to serve and bless people, even if they have no intention of responding to our message or helping us in any way. Presumably, if Jesus healed ‘every’ disease, amongst that number will be people who didn’t follow him, but simply received his compassion.
serves with 
BEChurch pastor, Derek Johnston said, “Thursday went well. We were pleased that those who said they would come did so, especially those who have yet to fully commit themselves to Christ. I think one of the plus points of the evening is seeing that when folks are confident of the quality of presentation they are going to hear they are far more likely to invite their friends.”
I want to offer some reflections on something that God zoomed in on in my own life a number of years ago. If you take these pieces of advice seriously, I honestly believe it could radically change the depth and enjoyment of your conversations about God and the fruitfulness that comes from them. That is what I have found personally and that is my prayer for you.
Randy Newman, M.Div., Ph.D. serves as the Senior Teaching Fellow for Apologetics and Evangelism and is an adjunct faculty member for Reformed Theological Seminary and Patrick Henry College. He established Connection Points, a ministry to help Christians engage people’s hearts the way Jesus did. Randy blogs atwww.connectionpoints.us . Lawrence and the Pigs is an extract from his forthcoming book, 
Jonny Somerville: NUA is an 8-part video series, which looks at 8 tough questions for the Christian faith. They are fifteen minutes long, and each episode is split into three five minute sections, so they are built for integrated discussion. The real heart behind NUA is to enable a better conversation about faith, which will enable young people to dig deeper, explore what they believe, and share honestly. Our hope is that they will dialogue with good, credible content, explore the Christian faith clearly and also look at the compelling message and person of Jesus Christ. So while it has apologetic questions on ‘faith and science’, ‘is God good?’, ‘has the church caused more harm than good?’, ‘is the resurrection credible?’; it also has episodes on ‘the character of Jesus’, ‘would I like Jesus’, and ‘what’s with Christian-extremism?’ Lots of people have said to me over the years, “I like Jesus, but your followers give me the heebie-jeebies!”
Jonny Somerville: It’s geared for a 17-18 year olds, but the feedback has shown that it is pretty age-less really. It is humorous, it has a quirk about it, but is in no way childish, and I think that the way that it has been filmed, coupled with the animation, makes it quite universal. It been really encouraging to see it being used in church homegroups, and in prison ministry in Dublin too.
Taken from the Latin word for “meaning”, Genexis is the name of an exciting series of public lectures taking place in Coventry Cathedral, starting in September 2019. The brains behind the project, Paul Downes QC, has enlisted a phenomenal line-up of thinkers to address some of the greatest reasons to believe in God and to disbelief in atheism: among the speakers are such leading public intellectuals as Ard Louis, Francis Collins, John Lennox, N.T. Wright and Sharon Dirckx.
One especially interesting speaker is Professor Paul Davies from Arizona State University. Although Paul is an agnostic, he has written extensively on the ‘fine-tuning argument’, the way the fundamental numbers built into the laws of physics are so precisely “tuned”. Paul vehemently believes that atheism is untenable in the light of the evidence; he just doesn’t accept the Christian concept of revelation. However, from a purely scientific perspective he argues that the universe shows all the marks of having been designed. It’s wonderful that he is willing therefore to engage in this ostensibly Christian project.
