Dangerous Ideas Threaten Our Kids
How
can we rescue them?
by Ken Ham,
President of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum
January 1, 2013
More than ever in our
increasingly secularized culture, Christians need to actively rescue our
children. Regarding this need for rescue, I think of Galatians 1:4; it declares that Jesus
Christ “gave himself for our sins so that He might rescue
us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”
When we consider this
“rescue,” believers usually think of rescuing children from secular humanists
who are actively trying to pull children away from God’s Word. But the Bible
warns us about another group of people from whom our children need to be rescued:
“‘Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep
of My pasture!’ says the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:1).
I
thought of this verse recently when I watched a segment of the700 Club TV program, hosted by
Pat Robertson.1 A lady had written to
him the following message, which he read on the air:
I have three teenage
boys and now two of them are questioning the Bible. This scares me! They tell
me if the Bible is truth, then I should be able to reasonably explain the
existence of dinosaurs. This is just one of the many things they question. Even
my husband is agreeing with them.
How do I explain things
to them that the Bible doesn’t cover? I am so afraid that they are walking away
from God. My biggest fear is not to have my children and husband next to me in
God’s Kingdom.
Pat
Robertson’s poor response was as follows:
Look, I know people will
probably try to lynch me when I say this, but Bishop Ussher, God bless him,
wasn’t inspired by the Lord when he said that it all took 6,000 years. It just
didn’t. And you go back in time, you’ve got radiocarbon dating. You got all
these things and you’ve got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in
the Dakotas . . .
They’re out there and
so, there was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth and it was
before the time of the Bible. So, don’t try to cover it up and make like
everything was 6,000 years. That’s not the Bible . . . If you fight real
science, you’re going to lose your children, and I believe in telling it the way
it was.
I
pray this lady does not accept Pat Robertson’s destructive advice. This
televangelist does not understand that the Bible includes references to huge
land-dwelling creatures—what we would call dinosaurs—that lived at the same
time as man. Furthermore, he does not understand the difference between
historical and observational science. Plus, he apparently does not understand
carbon dating, which has nothing
to do with millions of years.
As he has in the past,
Pat Robertson mocked those of us who take a stand on a young earth. He
essentially told this deeply concerned woman to make sure her children believe
what the secularists say about earth history. Sadly, this kind of approach is a
major reason children are walking away from Christ and from the church in unbelief—not
because of the teachings of biblical creationists.
Though
he has done much good (especially in humanitarian relief work), Pat Robertson
is similar to the compromising shepherds we discuss in my book Already Gone. This
coauthored book with renowned researcher Britt Beemer summarizes the detailed
research into why two-thirds of young people walk away from the church.
One
of the major reasons for the youth exodus, which our research revealed, was
that young people saw this kind of biblical compromise as hypocrisy. On the one
hand this shepherd tells people to believe the Bible, but on the other he tells
them they shouldn’t believe Genesis as written. Instead, he argues that our
children should believe what anti-God secularists say about earth history.
In
October, we released the new
Answers in Genesis theme for next two years.
There is an increasing emphasis by secular evolutionary humanists to try to
stop kids from hearing the truth about creation and to teach them
evolution/millions of years as fact. So we decided that the theme should center
around reaching the current generation of children—and coming generations—and
doing so in a very active way. The theme is “Standing Our Ground, Rescuing Our
Kids.”
As
we embark on a new year of ministry that reaches around the world, we at AiG
will be doing our best to help rescue kids (and adults) from this present evil
age by directing them to the Savior and showing them that His Word can be
trusted. But we also need to rescue children and teens from the destructive
teaching of shepherds who compromise God’s Word and lead our children astray.
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