Are Christian’s Brainwashing Their Children?

I recently started a FaceBook group called 1,000,000 ‘Christian Parents Raising Disciples For Christ.’

I was pleasantly surprised when young pre-parent people started to join the group. A few have joined because they wanted to voice their objection to being raised as a Christian. Needless to say, this has livened up the discussion area. One of the well-meaning, sincere questions posted, asked if raising our children as Christians is a type of brainwashing. My below blog is what I posted in reply to this question.

I agree with you that no one should ‘force’ his or her ideas or opinions on another person. Having said that, I have to ask you, did your parents force you to brush your teeth, go to bed at a certain time, go to school or eat your dinner?

A parent/child relationship is different than a friendship. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary definition of parenting; “Parenting is the process of raising and educating a child from birth, or before, until adulthood.” The article goes on to break down the responsibilities of parents into categories. Here’s what it states under the heading, ‘Providing intellectual development.’

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What role did God intend for the Christian home and family to play in his salvation plan, the Gospel? (Part 3)

So how exactly can God use our Christian families (Christian parents and Christian children) to impact the world and bring God’s blessing to the nations?

I believe he wants us to raise a generation of Christian kids that will do major damage to the gates of hell. Let me explain.

If Israel could become great and powerful by teaching their children to walk with God and keep the Old Covenant how much more can the Body of Christ grow and powerfully impact the nations, according to God’s promise, if we were to teach our children to walk in the power and grace of the New Covenant.

Can you imagine if instead of losing our kids to the world we kept them all in the church. I’m not talking about just having more bodies to warm the pews. I’m talking about a generation that grows up learning God’s Word, walking in relationship with God and growing in his grace. A generation that is excited about being used by God and about taking ground for the Kingdom of God. Like the generation of Israelites that took the Promised Land only each one of these would be under the New Covenant and filled with God’s Spirit.

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God At Work In Our Kids

How can I disciple my children when my own faith is a little shaky and when I don’t know enough about the Faith to disciple anyone? (Part 4)

We have set some great foundations in this category. We have established what Christian Parenting is. We have established that no matter where we are at personally we can get started and parent God’s way because growing with our children is the way that works. We have seen that we can be confident in our calling to parent because God is the third parent. He loves our kids more than we can imagine and He is ready to do His part. He will not only do His part, but He has put his Spirit in us and He has promised to work inside us, change us, teach us and cause us to do our part. WOW!

As if that were not enough to get us excited, encouraged and ready to go, we have got one more essential part of the foundation to set in place.

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Growing Together

How can I disciple my children when my own faith is a little shaky and when I don’t know enough about the Faith to disciple anyone? (Part 1)

When I first dove into the Bible for help on parenting and teaching my children about God I came across a period in Israel’s history that at first didn’t make any sense.

The generation of Israelites that God called rebellious and stiff-necked (the ones who died in the wilderness because they were not allowed in the Promised Land) brought up a generation of children who served God and conquered Canaan.

Then that wonderful generation of God serving Israelites brought up a generation that turned their back on God and started serving idols.

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What is Christian Parenting? (Part 2)

Here is where we begin to deal with what I call ‘side of fries’ Christian Parenting.

In the opening comment of part one of this blog I talked about what most parents believe Christian Parenting to be. I sum that up as believing that we are to raise our children like everyone else aiming at them one day being healthy, well adjusted successful adults but with a side of Christianity. Bible stories, Sunday School, bedtime prayers etc. need to be added, so that hopefully, they will know Jesus, attend church and even read their Bible when they grow up.

Let’s examine what Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to see if the ‘do you want fries with that?’ idea holds up.

Ephesians 6: 4 “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (NIV)

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