new strategy: out breed, out educate, out last--survivor

 In a previous post, I discussed the relationship between the shrinking denomination and the shrinking christian family.  My thesis was that ubiquitous decline/plateau of the church had little to do with more of less evangelism efforts but was related to the size of the families we are having (hidden premise: our evangelism efforts are primarily "bringing in" direct kin).  Voddie Baucham's solution is to have more kids and to home school them.  Voddie is really making a splash over the "pull your kids out of public school" issue as in the video and SBC resolutions.  He is now trying to get parents not to send their kids to college-even Christians colleges!  It is a bit ironic {read: hypocritical} since many of his speaking engagements place him talking to Christian college students both from christian and public colleges {we will come and speak, take their money, but wants no part of it, mean while going to the home school/FIC crowd telling them to stay away and writing books and giving voice and credentials for their cause...}.  My point is not to go after Voddie--though I certainly disagree with him on a number of points--and I am doing my best to be respectful since it is the right thing to do, and I have a number of readers who are big fans of his (I used to be till he started sounding like what I left behind).

I want to note a few things about the video/movement, especially since we continue to see these misguided resolutions at the convention.

1. Even if a resolution passes, this is meaningless.  No one cares what the SBC resolves, not even most SBCers.  In fact, the broad majority of southern baptists are probably naively unaware that any such resolutions are even being discussed at the convention.  Many people forget that the convention has absolutely no control over its churches.  As such, resolutions instructing churches to do anything are absolutely meaningless.

2.  The video and resolutions present a false dichotomy.  They present the biblical choice for parent involvement through home schooling vs. the unbiblical choice to remain absent and send your kids to public school.  First there are absentee methods of home schooling.  Second, there are ways to be involved in a child's education even if they are at public school.  Check out Ray Bakke's book Urban Christian.  He provides some great tips for doing just that (it is a great book in all regards and should be read even if there is no interest in the school issues).

3.  It is based on fear resulting from trumped up evidence.  Their idea is that if you send your kid to PS then he will become a humanist and if you HS he will be a saint.  This simply is not the case.  Voddie cites the track record for HS but I am not sure where he is finding this figure.  From personal experience, I have know many HSers who turned out to be licentious atheists/agnostics and many PSers who have turned out godly.  From the HS circle I grew up in, for those who actually stayed the course, the majority have walked away from the faith or have a Christianity that is more folk religion than it is biblical.

4.  It is borderline humanism.  To teach that sending a Christian kid to a non-Christian school will make them walk away from the faith is the same as saying that it is the surrounding environment which corrupts (biblically, we are born with sin into a fallen world: there is no Village).  Environment is the source of corruption comes straight out of behaviorism and humanism.  While the protection mentality sounds biblical, it betrays incipient humanism.  Ironically, while trying to avoid the culture, they espouse some of the most dangerous ideology.

5.  It neglects regeneration and the Daniel factor.  Do we not trust the Holy Spirit?  Ironically, many of the folks in the FIC groups are reformed.  To them I ask: do you not trust God to keep your child?  I am not in favor of throwing children to the wolves.  However, when one is truly regenerated (and that is the problem with many HSers and regular church goers alike, they buy the Christian worldview without the relationship and regeneration) evil influence and even indoctrination are not an issue.  Look at Daniel.  He was taken as a mere boy and placed into occult classes.  Did that warp his "Christian" worldview?  On the contrary, his surroundings were not the source of his power--he was not a humanist.

6.  It feeds the idea that we can pull out of society, out breed and out educate, and that this will restore Christianity to our country.  A friend of mine addresses this trend in Europe.  This is a failed strategy.  As I referenced in my previous post, we are already seeing the failing effects here.  It is a broader problem than just the FIC and the HS crowd.  To be honest, most of our churches have a similar strategy which leaves them only evangelizing those who show up at church.  But the FIC and HS crowd has officially turned this into a strategy.  The not too distant history teaches us that this is failure in the making.

{addendum:  I am not against homeschooling.  We are currently homeschooling our little girl.  I just think that the reasons that many state are based in misinformation, fallacies, and even "vain philosophies" not rooted in Christ.  On the other side, I do believe that there are many missional reasons to utilize and engage the PS system.  If on wants to HS they must take precaution not to adopt and pass on a village mindset-the parents have to model this through missional living}

do you have to be born into a christian home to hear about jesus?

Recently, in a very prominent article, Newsweek chronicled the decline of Christianity in America. Al Mohler, President of Southern Seminary, was part of this discussion and had his own thoughts on the issue. From a completely different angle, Voddie Baucham has examined the rise of Islam in France and compares the birth rate between the native French and the immigrants from across the Muslim world. Voddie’s answer: Christians should have more kids. I believe that there is a connection between the shrinking western family and the decline of Christianity in the west. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the church is in decline any more or any less due to how much or how little we are evangelizing.  Said another way, the decline of Christianity has more to do with the shrinking size of the family than it does evangelism {and this is a travesty}. 
The logic goes like this:

1. Church’s methodology centers on evangelizing those already in the church. The majority of baptisms come from the children of those already attending the church and not from outside the church network.
2. couples are having fewer children than in yonder days
3. therefore our evangelism numbers our down and the church is in decline.

So I pose the question, does one have to be born into a Christian home to hear the gospel?

It appears to be the case. This is a multifaceted issue, especially the way I have linked the decline of the church, in part, to the decline of the family. Unlike Voddie, I am not prescribing that the answer to the rise of Islam or the decline of Christianity has anything to do with family size or family integrated church (FIC). I am not prescribing that we should stop evangelizing our children. I do think it is a shame, however, that it appears that unless you are born into a Christian family you are destined to hell. We certainly should evangelize our families {and perhaps even have more children. In the new “immigrant America” we appear anti-family to most other cultures, and, not to be vulgar, weak and unmanly—its true}.

I was talking with a friend about all of this the other day. He is part of an FIC church, and he suggested that this was the way that it ought to be. God designed the family to carry down the gospel. I agree that the family is an ideal form for passing on the covenant, new or old, from generation to generation. We are even instructed to do so. This was how the old covenant was passed down. The problem was that Israel forgot that family, though important, was not the end in itself. Israel was to be a “light to the nations” {Isa 49:6, 51:4}. The covenant was for them and their children. They were to faithfully past it down from generation to generation. But they forgot that they were to be a blessing to all peoples {Gen 26:4}. Again, I do not suggest that we remove this element, only that this method by itself is insufficient. It seems that churches intent on reaching their own and the whole FIC crowd have also forgotten this.

Extended families, in many cultures, are the fastest venue for transmitting the gospel. But the gospel must jump from clan A to clan B, and from B to C, and so forth. Right now, churches are only reaching the people who are already there or people who are inclined to come and seek. It is the exception, not the rule, to find people who were saved outside the context of the immediate family or church attendance. The average church, not to mention the FIC crowd, seems to take this description as a prescription. Since, they think, most people are getting saved at a young age, or as a result of family, then this is obviously how God intended it and we should schedule our resources accordingly. On the positive side, this means that our children are getting saved. On the down side, it appears that unless the lost are our children, they will probably never hear the gospel. As our country becomes less “Christian” and as our families become smaller, we will see Christianity shrink since we are only reaching our blood kin. Again, this is not the result of more or less evangelism. Rather it is because we have reduced strategy to family only and we happen to be having smaller families.

So I leave you with the question, how do we get our churches to remedy the travesty of only reaching those who are culturally Christian or are directly related to our membership? In your circle, are people outside of your genealogy hearing about Christ, or is it only your children?

All of that said: I am grateful I was born in a christian home; but we need to reach out to those who aren't.