The following is Part 2 of a two-part series, a very condensed version of Linda Harvey's book, Not My Child: Contemporary Paganism and the New Spirituality. For more information about the original book, go here. To read Part 1, go here.
Chapter 4
Outreach: How, Why and Where Paganism Connects with Kids
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. 1 Timothy 4:1
America’s youth are the most privileged, comfortable, and healthy generation in the history of humanity. Why in the world would something dark and pointless like sorcery appeal to them?
If we ascribe to the humanist principle that each person is fundamentally good, this at first makes no sense. With opportunity, money and physical security, all the potential in each person should be free to develop to its maximum, and adventures into the spooky and weird just shouldn’t be an issue. There would be too much fulfillment with the material world to be tempted by the murkiness of the supernatural.
But wait! What if a “nice” version of paganism and witchcraft was available, one that fits with our world’s apparent enlightenment and progress? It’s not “black” magic, but “white” witchcraft. It’s Glenda the Good Witch, not the Wicked Witch of the West. Surely, this couldn’t be harmful, and those who decry it are uninformed alarmists. Right?
There is a problem. The biblical view of humans depicts us as creatures who, without God, will always drift or race toward self-destruction, especially when destruction looks like paradise. From this view, the puzzle pieces form a very different picture. As America becomes increasingly paganized and stripped of Christian underpinnings, the essence of what can make one content is changing also. Without the taming and softening effect of the Gospel, humans descend into mindless self- indulgence, even savagery. The teens of Columbine, Jonesboro, Paducah, Sandy Hook and Parkland weren’t desperate inner-city street kids, but middle-class students from small towns or suburbs. What would make comfortable American kids murder fellow classmates?
The heart of a beast is already standard equipment in our offspring. Ask parents who are honest and they will admit that toddlers naturally show a viciousness and defiance that cries out for discipline. Kindness and sacrifice do not come naturally to them or to us adults, and are virtues that must be learned. So predictably, if we begin to tell children that they are their own authorities, they will readily embrace this vision and act accordingly. The supervision of parents or teachers, the authority of the state, and finally the boundaries of God will all be put to the test as each attempts to become his/her own “god.”
The Purchase of Power
Like most other areas of life, money buys freedom. Our emancipated kids, first and foremost, have cash and know how to spend it. American teens spend around $159 billion a year. Most teens and many pre-teens have their own smart phones. This creates a whole world of influences that are increasingly beyond parental control. The publishing industry’s preoccupation with the occult in young adult titles, for example, instead of earlier teen themes of sports, pets and dating, are driven by a market that is no longer totally accountable to Christian parents. It is responsive first to youth themselves and their interest in the sensational, and second, to the current parental majority which seems to be willing to trust marketplace values, failing to demand that the marketplace adhere to traditional ideals.
Some parents are alarmed at the new level of freedom for their offspring, but don’t know what to do about it. Others aren’t that concerned, having been indoctrinated to believe humans will gravitate toward what is positive if given an array of options. Creativity and spontaneity are valued above hard work, guidance from authorities, and discipline over one’s shadier impulses. So, letting a child’s eye roam the culture is accepted as “safe,” and constant vigilance and screening is to be avoided because they connote “censorship.” Only the ignorant, unenlightened and fearful stoop to such methods.
So it’s no wonder that many families today, having built their parenting upon this erroneous foundation, collapse in confusion at the inevitable child-rearing crises. How does one fix the child who won’t listen, insists on his own way, will only behave when entertained every minute, and is unhappy unless granted the trendiest toy, game, book or fashion? Children are not best aided by unsupervised exploration, but by parents who assume there are bad things out there, and that children will be tempted by them and can be harmed by them.
In addition, just the constant act of acquiring develops in kids a habit of greed and self-indulgence as well, not to mention the potential for abuse. One doesn’t need to take care of or cherish anything if there’s always a replacement toy or a more current electronic gadget available tomorrow. That goes for relationships and people, too, who begin to be seen as disposable.
So how can we encourage in children noble virtues, those that not coincidentally arise from the work of the Holy Spirit in one’s life? As described in Galatians 5:22-23, the fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” But pagan ethics lead us directly away from these qualities, encouraging children to pursue their immediate desires, i.e., to read, buy, listen to, watch, and experience as much as possible, no matter how outlandish.
Schooled in Fantasy
How have such ideas taken hold in our schools? Fantasy now dominates most popular youth fiction, TV shows, computer games and movies, so it’s no wonder the schools have jumped on board.
Part of the appeal is one of reconstructing reality. If you aren’t living out all your desires, all you have to do is envision a different situation. Hollywood dreams can change Anytown, USA. It might be one reason why Halloween with its costumes and carnival is emerging as our most popular holiday, right behind Christmas. It may also be no accident that Halloween—or Samhain, as witches call it— is the most important annual pagan celebration.
The American social preoccupation with illusion and make-believe brings up serious questions. There is no known precedent of a culture in history where the populace spent a major portion of its time immersed in the imaginary. Yet when one adds up the time most Americans spend in front of a television show, movie, or at an Internet site, it totals about 20–40% of our available waking hours. Much of the content is fiction. Throw in our consumption of novels and it means we are living lives where fantasy is a major player.
As adults this certainly has an impact, but one can only speculate what this does to the developing minds and characters of our children. Might one of the results be a decreasing ability to recognize truth, or even to want it?
U.S. education has wholeheartedly embraced the philosophy that the best story wins. Facts and data are increasingly irrelevant. From the whole-language reading method to advocacy-group versions of history, children embrace the imaginary as truth, including their own reflections. Biological and physical science instruction has been transformed by narrow, politically correct notions of environmentalism, with its population control/climate change subtext and gloom and doom projections for a revered “Mother Earth.” We’ll explore this in more detail below.
Literature selections are frequently thinly disguised propaganda as students read stories with an “agenda” that showcase minorities, variant gender roles, deviant behavior, and non-Western spirituality. Much of school-endorsed fiction is composed of graphic stream of consciousness ramblings that seem more like the author’s therapy than anything else. And composition exercises from elementary school onward continue the focus on self with a heavy emphasis on journaling. Personal opinion is valued over objective discovery. Journaling may assist writing skills, but often students are given no constructive feedback about content. Virtually every thought and feeling instead is validated.
History classes now dwell disproportionately on oppression, real or imagined, of special interest groups; or their subjective utopian dreams: what should be or should have been, from the viewpoint of women, Native Americans, or minorities. While some of this is valid, it often serves another purpose: that of spotlighting for special antagonism Western, Christian leadership and values. Our founding fathers are less often heroes to emulate, but instead come off as hypocritical buffoons. The most important “fact” many students learn about Thomas Jefferson is that he supposedly hid a sexual relationship with a slave woman.
Re-Imagining Western Civilization
Key historic incidents are now added or dropped as political correctness reigns. Recently, schools in Britain dropped teaching about the Holocaust and about the Crusades because of offense to Islamic students. In the United States, an increasingly disproportionate amount of class time is spent on subjects that distort history. The 1692 Salem witch trials in Massachusetts are a prime example.
While studying early American history, today’s grade school student will likely read Tituba of Salem Village by Ann Petry, about the Caribbean slave girl implicated in the mayhem in Salem. For many students, a unit on Salem will appear again in middle school. Then in high school, Salem will likely be the focus once more as students read or perform Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible.
Virtually all the material used contains withering portrayals of Christian “fundamentalists” who might dare to believe that Satan exists. The accusers are depicted as irrational, ignorant hypocrites with their own twisted agendas. Tituba and the young Salem girls are often positioned as unwitting victims of bigoted community values that repressed their natural creative gifts and thirst for knowledge.
The takeaway for students is that they have much more to fear from biblical Christianity than from fortune-telling and sorcery, when the reality of the Salem episode is a much more complex illustration of exactly the subject of this book. Satan will use any human weakness to create confusion, to destroy hope in Christ, and to foment dissension, even among believers.
For instance, in the Salem trials, the discerning position of Congregational minister Rev. Increase Mather—that “spectral evidence “ was not supported by Scripture—would have changed the outcome had his advice been heeded. Instead, officials gave credence to the testimonies of accusers who said they had witnessed acts of sorcery by the “spirits” of the accused. The Bible’s standard for discipline is the testimony of two or more reliable (and living) humans. Faithful adherence to Scripture, rather than being a problem, would have brought sense to the table.
The lesson of Salem is not that Satan and sorcery do not exist. It is that, even in the midst of the confusion Satan delights in, humans owe their allegiance to God and must prayerfully seek careful direction from Him through the Scriptures.
What’s the attraction of all this stuff? To kids raised on adrenalin, rebellion spiked with mysticism is the natural next potion. The promise that “something” supernatural and mysterious might be within a person’s grasp breaks the boundaries of youth restraint. You can change the world, right from your own bedroom.
And sometimes, parents are otherwise occupied. Christian families suffer unfortunately from the same traumas and dysfunction as the whole culture. Fathers leave the home or are consumed by work or swallowed up in alcohol, drug or gambling addictions. Mothers suffer depression, are expected to carry full-time jobs to keep up with the demands of indulgence, or are trapped in their own self-directed sins. It’s no wonder children are lonely, sometimes neglected and insecure.
When self-respect is missing from a child’s life, alternate spirituality appears to offer a solution. Fantasy weds authority, and even an eleven- year- old orphan nerd like Harry Potter is revealed as a powerful wizard who can excel at sports and take revenge on his enemies. In the lost American child’s life, it doesn’t get any better than that.
If Satan existed—and if his major goal was to mess with people’s minds and spirits to the point where they self-destruct, dismissing the offer of salvation from a merciful Savior—this is exactly how we adults and then our children would be manipulated. Hmmm. . . .
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Jesus, quoted in Matthew 18: 6
Chapter 5: The Dangers of Living a Pagan Lifestyle
“In this book, we will examine one image of the goddess that is found in many cultures: the young goddess. She is not necessarily a Maiden or virgin, for she may have engaged in sexual activity, by her own initiative or without her consent. Her age varies: sometimes she is ten, sometimes fifteen, sometimes, twenty. She usually lives with her family, but sometimes she is alone in the wilderness. . . ” Wild Girls: The Path of the Young Goddess, xv
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A letter to Cassie from her best friend Mona (not her real name) opened with several lines of unprintable sex talk and ninth grade gossip, and went on to discuss a teacher. . . . ."Want to help me murder her? She called my parents and told them about my F.” The letter ended with a reminder about a ‘neat spell,’ drawings of knives and vampire teeth, mushrooms, and a caricature of Mrs. R. lying in a pool of blood. . .
Columbine victim Cassie Bernall’s mom, Misty, writing about her daughter’s earlier dabbling in witchcraft, in She Said Yes, 38
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The spiritual deception of paganism leads humans into mistakes of a more earthly kind. The Bible says that there is a blindness that accompanies unbelief, especially heightened when the dark powers of evil are involved. “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded. . . “(2 Corinthians 4:3–4).
It’s not surprising, then, to find that people involved in paganism are often drawn to lifestyles that are worldly, unproductive, even destructive. What is amazing is the extent to which neopagans not only participate in hedonism and rebellion, but celebrate and embrace it, ignoring or perhaps unable to see the hazards. Yet over and over history is littered with lives wrecked by these lifestyles that ultimately bring brokenness and despair.
Fuzzy Brains
One of the first things I noticed about becoming a Christian was the new clarity of thought faith bestowed upon me. Things I had not understood before suddenly came into focus. I also found myself freer from worries and anxieties than in the past. The verse in 2 Timothy 1: 7 turned out to have a deep and abiding meaning for me: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
By contrast, discussions with pagans young and old reveal hostile prejudices, rigid responses and circular arguments—even as they believe themselves to be open-minded. Sadly, they seem trapped in futile emotional and ideological patterns. In them, I often see my pre-Christian self, wearily swimming upstream emotionally and mentally without understanding I was doing so.
So today’s young neopagan has been brainwashed into trusting misleading information combined with gut feelings and desires. Truth and logic are to be distrusted as part of a patriarchal power play. Recoiling at any suggestion that paganism and its anarchist affinities might be less than beneficial, the pagan gets defensive when confronted with facts, dismissed as irrelevant or an attack. This denial is frustrating and makes no sense until one understands that spiritually dark powers combined with human sinfulness keep young pagans swirling in blindness and confusion.
One’s instincts, without the discipline of the mind of Christ, with its truth, patience, light, charity and self-control, usually lead into treacherous territory. Impulsively diving into sensual and irrational experiences is a hallmark of tribal cultures, but also characterizes twenty-first century affluent American youth.
Young, Dark, and Damaged
Judeo-Christian morality, our offspring are being told, is repressive. Freedom is what one deserves, and that only comes by listening to one’s “heart.” The anatomy of today’s youth is such that the “heart” shifts frequently from the stomach, to the eyes, to the adrenal glands, and finally, to the genitals.
It’s true that many of the children and teens who gravitate toward neopaganism are those who are hurting and vulnerable. These are often the students with family struggles, poor peer relationships, low scholastic achievement. But the attraction of outlaw spirituality isn’t always the result of misfortune. Perhaps just as frequently, the culprit is just plain old boredom or bad influences. And bad influences are everywhere in today’s America.
The explosion in “body modification” exemplifies the trend. Not every person who pierces or scars himself embraces sorcery, but those involved in the occult have driven the fashion trend. What makes beautiful, healthy young people do such things to themselves, believing not only that it’s not abnormal, but that it’s a positive experience and an attractive look?
The book She Said Yes contains a mother’s bittersweet memories of both the bad and good times in her teen daughter’s life. Cassie Bernall was the 17-year-old who, when asked by one of the Columbine killers if she believed in God, answered affirmatively. She paid for that answer with her life when he pointed a gun at her head and fired at close range.
Misty Bernall writes about Cassie’s strong faith in Christ, her poetry celebrating a relationship with Him, and the precious Bible she always carried. But Cassie’s life hadn’t always centered around hope in God. Her early teen years, her mother writes, were dark and disturbing. Under the sway of wayward friends, she had dabbled in witchcraft, Satanism, substance abuse, and had even considered violent acts against her parents and teachers.
When they realized the gravity of the situation, Misty and her husband transferred Cassie to another school and severed the questionable friendships. They insisted she attend a Christian youth group, and her response was initially sullen and rebellious. But little by little the message penetrated Cassie’s heart and they saw amazing changes in her life.
Cassie wrote later in a journal reflecting on her earlier struggles.
…I cannot explain in words how much I hurt. I didn’t know how to deal with this hurt, so I physically hurt myself. . . Thoughts of suicide obsessed me for days, but I was too frightened to actually do it, so I “compromised” by scratching my hands and wrists with a sharp metal file until I bled . . .I still have scars.
The Sexuality Dimension
In the world of the young pagan, the sexual sub-text is everywhere. Premarital sex is wedded in an unholy alliance to an alluring, if false, faith. Acceptance of “LGBTQ” behavior is a given; even kinky sexual practices surface from time to time. And the “safe sex” and pro-abortion sympathies are taken for granted. There is truly no other viewpoint.
Today, wherever you find pagan beliefs, you will find kids being sexualized early, and wherever you find kids being sexualized early, you will likely find paganism. You won’t find graphic sex advice columns on a Christian site, because Christians deal with the truth of what’s best for teens, and that means abstinence until marriage.
Sex divorced from fertility is the platform for sex education classes, and it’s at the foundation of paganism as expressed by most of its leaders. Not that babies and children aren’t celebrated and appreciated at times. But they are clearly incidental to the vastly more important goal of satisfying one’s desires, and they are never to “control” one’s destiny.
Paganism marries sex to religious faith and ritual practice. One of the most obvious symptoms of the apostasy of current mainline Christianity is the extent to which outright pagan sexual “values” are quickly being incorporated into church life and beliefs.
The young person interested in paganism will not have to wonder long about what sexual ethics pagans espouse. A quick visit to numerous high-traffic web sites of pagan leaders and groups reveals the permissive nature of pagan sexual practices and the kinds of role models they will emulate.
The pagan ethic of hedonistic sexuality is neatly packaged and sold to youth in today’s social engineering agendas of “reproductive choice” and “ lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBTQ) rights.” The primary targets have been teens and college students but now younger children are recipients of this propaganda as well.
The closer one examines the sexual messages to kids by the paganized spirit of our time, the worse it gets. Some believe the problem is simply an “anti-family” agenda of getting kids to accept heterosexual sex before marriage, or homosexuality. There’s an even more foundational message aimed at youth, one that threatens their very selfhood.
The real issue is that young people are being awakened sexually at younger and younger ages, continuously exposed to stimulating images, and offered “choices” of fluid sexual behaviors, including homosexual activity. Then they are told that even male and female roles, dress, mannerisms and biology are changeable if one desires. In short, our kids are growing up to accept and seriously consider an ideal of androgyny, a blurring of masculinity and femininity—carried out under a smorgasbord of erotic practices that some call “pansexuality.”
Outlaw Sex as a Pagan Right
Among pagans, youth are often told that sexual expression even as a young person is a basic human right and closely aligned with spiritual enlightenment.
As we discussed in Chapter 3, the Holy Spirit provides appropriate boundaries for sexual pleasure. Pagan spirits, by contrast, dissolve safe and secure venues, ultimately undermining relationships and ironically, diminishing pleasure as well.
Sexual activity apart from procreation—trying mostly to avoid it—is a crucial cornerstone of this new lifestyle. The emphasis is on “outercourse,” i.e., all the various activities that bring sexual stimulation other than intercourse. Those behaviors, our children are taught, can be done alone, or with a peer of the same or opposite sex, even before puberty. At times, it is hinted that they can choose to engage in these activities with an adult.
The boundary-smashing messages of both pansexuality and paganism are everywhere in mainstream youth culture, starting in pre-school and elementary grades. One book for young children who are studying “diversity” is The Duke Who Outlawed Jellybeans. In this supposed collection of fairy tales, pagan spirituality, homosexuality and gender variance abounds. In one story, a little boy named Peter lives with two lesbians, his mother and his mother’s friend, who is a sorcerer.
There is a unique connection between sorcerers and “cross-dressers” or transsexuals (those who have sex change hormones or surgery). A tribal tradition which pops up around the globe in both current and past times is the cross- dressing witch doctor/ shaman, called a berdache among American Indians. Biologically a male but dressing and living as a female, this was often a person considered to have special powers and supernatural gifts.
Today’s pagan youth who suffers from a gender identity disorder may summon this image when trying to glamorize or justify this path, yet it remains one of confusion and turmoil. And he or she may be reinforced in some schools where the “two-spirit” concept has been introduced during Native American/multicultural studies, even as part of lessons leading up to Thanksgiving.
The Violent Rainbow’s End
There’s yet another more sinister aspect of this belief system. Despite the protestations of many teens who’ve written me e-mails, there can be little dispute that paganism has a core of wildness that can quickly unleash anger and violence, and aberrant sexuality fuels these feelings. Not only is this tolerated, it is at times encouraged and celebrated.
There is only the pagan’s conscience to limit her/his use of spiritual “empowerment.” Unlike Christianity, there is not an unchanging ethical system that forbids killing, stealing, lying, coveting or committing adultery to guide one’s behavior. Nor is there an ultimate omnipotent authority like Almighty God. The human is the authority.
Chapter 6: Conclusion
Managing Pandora: What Can Parents Do?
It’s difficult enough to raise children when our only concerns are the age-old matters of their health, safety, Sunday school training, career path, and marriage. To add the worry that they might be entrapped by deadly spiritual forces, is almost too much. But the world we inhabit today calls for a new type of parenting.
There’s great hope. Remember Who we have on our side.
Practically speaking, though, how do we navigate the dangers, short of locking each child in a room and saying, “Stay there, honey. You can come out when you’re 21”?
Roll Up Your Sleeves...
Just like any other avenue of parenting, there’s one bottom line issue: it’s hard work. And for those who like easy answers and quick fixes, the product (the child) will suffer. This is true in all aspects of parenting, but spiritual vigilance is needed more than ever, and that takes time, sweat, research, courage and prayer.
To grow a bountiful crop, one must prepare the soil. So step one: the first plot of land is ourselves.
Huh? I have to work on me first? Well, of course. That’s where it all starts.
Too many parents have called their pastors, friends, and counselors after the fact with horror stories that could have been prevented if the parents themselves had done some soul-searching and priority-checking early on. Then they might have known what they were dealing with, and done the hard work needed ahead of time. We’re always telling our kids to do their homework, but the same applies to us.
How can a parent know about spiritual danger and take precautions? How can parents develop that all-important quality of spiritual discernment on behalf of their children?
Preparing the Home Soil
Here are the absolute first steps we must take.
1. Know Christ as your own Lord and Savior. Does this need to be said? Perhaps it does, because some parents who have picked up this book may not be on solid ground with Jesus. If you have not confessed your own sins, repented and asked Christ into your heart, perhaps now is the time to do that.
2. Know what the Word of God says. There’s no better tutor on spiritual matters than the Bible. In Scripture you learn about the character of God, why Christ came, what He stands for, how humans relate to God and the nature of the Holy Spirit vs. the fallen angels of the spiritual world.
3. Study and pray. Read, and read again what Scripture says. Get involved in one or more Bible studies. And set aside a daily private prayer time with God. God’s work in your mind and heart will begin to make changes from the inside out, and you will develop the eyes and mind of discernment.
4. Lead your child to Christ. Make sure your child believes in Jesus Christ. This question needs to be directed personally and specifically (and also gently and happily) to your son or daughter at the appropriate age, after they have heard the salvation message of the Gospel. It’s not enough that they have attended classes at your church, or have been through confirmation or another traditional group activity. Many kids leave Christianity because the whole process never got down to them, personally. As the saying goes, God doesn’t have grandchildren – just children. We are each responsible for making that faith decision ourselves.
Preparing the Home Soil, part 2
So let’s say you, your spouse and your child are all Christians. Praise the Lord! So that’s all there is to it, right?
Well, as you read earlier, not necessarily. Satan will mount fierce spiritual attacks against Christians to test their faith, to throw trials and stumbling blocks in their paths, with the goal of drawing them away from Christ if possible, or to distract and discourage them so they fail to bring others to know the Lord. But do not be discouraged. There is tremendous hope.
You and your family will be ready if you set up a framework for your child that will minimize exposure to spiritual danger in the first place. Some background preparation will need to be done by you.
1. Choose an educational climate that maximizes Christian faith and minimizes deception and danger. It cannot be said strongly enough: get your children out of the public schools and non-religious private schools if you can. The core philosophies, curricular materials, and permissive environments are hostile to Christianity and detrimental to strong character development. They are also under the sway of unproven fads and special interest groups, and often provide only a marginal education.
There’s much more available on this subject, so we won’t go into great depth here. But second to bringing your child to Christ, this is the next most important thing you can do. Enroll your children in Christian schools or home school them. Children from these backgrounds are markedly different from public school children: happier, more secure, better educated, less aggressive, more hopeful in outlook, able to get along with people of all ages, and more sound in their faith.
2. Limit TV viewing and Internet use. If you think this will be tough, you are correct. It will also mean a possible change of habits for you and your spouse. It will be absolutely worth it, though, because your kids will avoid adopting the vulgarity and spiritual misdirection of cultural habits and values.
You’ll get a child as a result who is more creative and resourceful, more settled in spirit, and less in need of constant, artificial stimulation. By all means, never allow a child or teen to have his/her own TV or Internet access in their room, away from parental supervision. Such access is a recipe for disaster.
One very positive alternative is to listen to Christian music in your home. Whether it’s your own CDs or a favorite FM station, there are some great tunes out there that will appeal to kids and penetrate their spirits in a God -honoring way.
3. Get them involved in sound Christian youth activities. We want to emphasize the term “sound” here, and this is where parents will need to do homework. There are many great youth groups, but also some that do little to build and strengthen a budding faith. Not that fun can’t be part of youth activities, but too many youth groups offer little but hay rides or field trips to concerts or video game parlors (a problem in itself). Others as we’ve mentioned above dive into flagrantly un-Christian pursuits such as meditation and other aspects of mysticism.
Ideally, a child might attend both a Sunday school class grounded in Scripture as well as a youth “bonding” group that builds on biblical knowledge. Occasional group activities like service projects, field trips and pizza parties are okay, as long as they are not the main focus.
4. Encourage healthy friendships and discourage iffy ones. As a parent, your instincts are usually right. If something about one of your child’s friends makes you uncomfortable, trust your gut. Try to steer your child away early on, rather than waiting.
It should not need to be said after the chapters above, but let’s make it explicit: your child’s closest friends should not be self-avowed pagans, wiccans, homosexuals, gender changers, or drug or alcohol users. Kids are drawn into shady activities and beliefs by peers. Children do not need to carry the burden of evangelizing the lost, except at arms- length. The close-in work of bringing the lost to Him is the job of adults.
We are told not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14). This does not mean kids can’t be acquaintances, and can’t witness—quite the contrary, we are supposed to witness to the lost. Yet our close friendships and relationships are to be with believers.
There are special challenges when the pagan or bisexual is a relative. You and your spouse will need to make decisions about how a pagan uncle, for example, interacts with your kids. Openly pagan, homosexual, bisexual, adulterous, or cross-dressing relatives should not be invited into your home, in my opinion, and this needs to be explained to them in advance of holidays or visits as tactfully and lovingly as possible. Just shutting the door suddenly in someone’s face would be hurtful.
Yet the standard of godly behavior needs to be upheld within the walls of the home. To not do so, is to invite all kinds of compromised situations into your midst, as your children are watching and learning.
Outings and visits by your children away from your home to the relative in question are also highly risky, unless you are present. If your whole family is invited to the wedding of your niece, for instance, whose brother is a wiccan, well, of course everyone should go and interact with him in that environment. But attending his wedding to another wiccan with your kids is not a great idea.
Learn To Say No
My husband taught me many valuable lessons along the way about raising kids. One was that it’s easier to say “no” up front than to deal with the damage later.
It takes eyes of discernment to foresee the kinds of damage that may result, and turning to Scripture is an invaluable tool. So books, music and movies that are dark, steeped in pagan practices, not to mention graphic sexuality or violence, should not be a big question mark for parents. Just say “no.”
Remember, this culture is built on money and profit. Most of what is available to our kids is out there for that motive alone—not because of intrinsic noble benefits, but solely to sell, satisfying America’s unquenchable desire for entertainment. Yet there’s really not a lot of priority on “entertainment” in Scripture, and especially not the kinds that most people today embrace.
Kids are designed to play and explore. But it’s important to guide them in that natural curiosity toward constructive, God- created options. Friends and relatives, everyday activities, and the beauty of the world can be their “toys.” If we steer them toward these choices early on, instead of planting them in front of the TV or plugging them into earphones, they will have a natural curiosity and wonder about daily routines, people, nature. And when reading age arrives, put in front of them stories about wholesome, constructive, rational and godly topics.
How do daisies grow? What are all the parts of a butterfly’s wing? How can I build a doghouse, sew a skirt, or make a pizza? How can I learn to play the guitar? Kids can have positive interests that take advantage of the abundant resources all around them.
Find within yourself your top priority, which as a Christian is to please God. I often imagine the scenario as we stand before the Lord one day and our deeds are rolled out for examination. Even though we know Christ will stand with believers to make atonement for our sins—as He did at the cross—still, Scripture tells us the books will be opened and everything will be known.
We need to think bigger and extract our vision from the current culture. Life doesn’t begin and end here, and some “phases” kids are going through end up tragically as they reject Christ altogether, sometimes permanently. Most parents, when they search their hearts, realize they don’t want to take that chance.
This is not to say that parents can’t overact, which can also be very counter-productive. For instance, if a parent suspects something is spiritually awry with a child, and then discovers candles and spell books in her room, what’s the best way to handle this? It would not be to scream and lock her in her room, although the danger is very real.
I have a friend who discovered something along these lines. After abject prayer and crying out to the lord in private, my friend and her husband calmed down, then talked with their daughter, showing her the problem by revealing what Scripture teaches. It is very hard to maintain one’s cool in these situations, but self-control is critically important.
A parent should ask the child to pray together. Some new restrictions then need to be placed on friendships, and the occult material tossed out, but only after a discussion so the child understands why. If there’s been any lapse in church or youth group attendance with this child, these need to be reinstated as a routine. As long as he or she lives under your roof, the child should honor your beliefs and live under the godly framework of your home. And it’s important to tell the child, and repeat again, that the reasons are:
“I love you.”
“God loves you.”
“In our house, we love God, and we honor Him.”
The Importance of Dad
The distraught phone calls and e-mails I get are more often from mothers than fathers. When moms contact me, somewhere in the conversation, I’ll ask, “What does your husband think about this?” Virtually every time the answer goes something like this: “Well, my husband isn’t as convicted about this as I am. He thinks our daughter (son) is just going through a phase, and he remembers what he did when he was a teenager, and he’s just not worried.”
Many of our kids’ problems would be solved tomorrow if dads were more concerned. The philosophy above breaks down when one considers these reasons:
1. Today’s dangers are worse than those of twenty or thirty years ago. I’m not saying that pagan practices, drugs, sexual issues were non-existent in the past. They are just seriously heightened on every dimension today. There were books on spells then; they are now available on kids’ smart phones. There were a few witches then; they are now their teachers. There were a few kids having sex in middle school then; now, bisexual Goths are having group oral sex parties at age 13.
The media’s all-pervasive reach into kids’ minds and hearts (to the extent that parents allow it) cannot be over-estimated. We literally have no idea what kind of people we are producing in the Internet/smart phone age. How bad can the damage be? We will find out in the future, but as it pertains to your child, don’t assume that the past gives you any security. This is truly a different age. Barbarians, indeed, are in the making. Don’t let one of them be your child.
2. We were raised in a traditional culture; our kids are not. Virtually all of us who are now adults were raised by parents who were more traditional than we are, and in an era when certain Christian norms were still assumed. Now, anti-Christian hostility and smashing all moral and spiritual boundaries is becoming the norm. You can’t simply turn your child loose in the world without some clear boundaries.
3. How well did Dad turn out? A laissez-faire attitude presupposes that “Dad” has turned out great. Upon objective examination, that may not hold up. Virtually everyone has some baggage they wish did not exist, and the truly humble person will have regrets about the past. So—if drugs were a part of your youth, and you struggled to overcome them, imagine your child having both drugs and demonic influence to overcome. Everything you did, they will do worse. The end can truly be horrifying as our kids’ issues turn out to be much more than a phase. You may have fathered an illegitimate child; your daughter may bear three kids out of wedlock in the commune with two Druid boyfriends.
And some parents, especially fathers, think that kids need to be “toughened up” to be ready to “face reality.” Today’s reality for your child may mean friends who cut themselves, and kids who chant to goddesses at sleepovers. Is this really what you want your kid to face?
4. Don’t worry about so-called hypocrisy. Many parents, especially fathers, have bought the idea that if you made a certain mistake when you were young, you have no grounds upon which to forbid that same action in your child’s life. It’s time to stop and think about how irrational this is. Why do parents teach our kids not to touch a hot stove? Because we once touched one, and it hurt. If our past experience, all of it, can’t be used for our child’s benefit, then we are pretty much useless to our kids.
5. Dad is responsible to God for the care-taking of children. Every father will have to stand before God and defend his fathering actions or non-actions, because he is the head of the family God has given him. Think about this, before shrugging at your son’s “God is dead” tattoo.
The Power of Prayer
How do we contend against the spiritual forces of darkness that would keep us and our children away from God? Scripture gives us clear direction. Christ himself told his disciples that powerful faith, prayer and fasting can overcome powerful demonic forces (Matthew 17:21).
Constant prayer for our children is not simply an aid, it is our responsibility as parents. Fasting may need to be added to the daily habit of prayer in times of intense challenges. And lifelong Bible study is the foundation upon which all our actions should rest.
Sometimes Christians will say, “I’m waiting for God to tell me what to do.” Although that can be the right course of action in some situations, often God will remain silent. It may be because He has already told us in His word. He has already said that parents are to be the teachers and trainers of their children; that divination (fortune-telling) is wrong; praying to anyone but Him is a violation of the first commandment; and so on.
The cherished gift of Scripture is an invaluable resource for parents as we go through the difficult days of parenting. And the answers are not always easy, the results not always immediate.
The Star in the East
There is hope even in this wicked trend. The Gospel shines brighter in contrast to the darkness of sorcery.
In the darkest hours, remember that if we are faithful and obedient, the glorious fruit will, in His good time, ripen on the tree.
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37–39)
