Why Apologetics Fails at Brainwashing: The Focus on the Family Guide to Childhood Indoctrination Pt2

In this video I examine some apologetics that Focus on the Family and Natasha Crain suggest will be helpful for parents who want to ensure that their children maintain belief in God.  In the process, I discovered that - no surprise - the arguments were not only weak but incredibly predictable canned responses most evangelicals would hear just hanging around their friends from church.  On top of that, we start to see that, however open parents pretend to be, trying to use these apologetics on their kids send some counterproductive messages.  When you tell your kids that questions about God are easy and will lead straight to specific answers, you encourage lazy thinking and communicate an expectation that your kids need to arrive at those answers.  When you come to your kids pretending to hear them out but really fishing for questions about their "real" motivation for doubting, they will recognize your tactics and the disrespect behind them.  And when you make it clear you only want to hear the 'right answers" from them, you're going to rob yourself of the opportunity to share in their journey.

This is part two of two videos discussing a four part series Focus on the Family "sent me" in an email offer.  Last time I dealt with parts one and two of the series on the importance of apologetics and exposing your kids to "the world."  This time I finish up by addressing their videos about HOW to teach kids apologetics and the actual arguments their guest Natasha Crain thinks will work with them.

The Focus on the Family Guide to Childhood Indoctrination | Part 1: Why to Teach Kids Apologetics

Christian parents can be extremely neurotic about making sure their kids keep believing what mom and dad do.  Of course we all want our kids to share our values to some extent, but evangelical culture and the heaven-and-hell stakes proposed by Christianity give believers unique reason to see even slight deviations in belief as a threat.  This leads to extreme behaviors such as trying to shelter kids from "the world" or simply demanding they believe as you do.  But Focus on the Family proposes a different approach, which is to teach kids apologetics, tell them they're free to explore, and express confidence that this is all okay because it will inevitably lead to them believing in Christianity.  This sounds more open, but as I argue in this video, it's just the same expectation packaged in a murky way that creates confusion and distress for children.

This is part one of two videos discussing a four part series Focus on the Family "sent me" in an email offer.  Today I deal with parts one and two of the series on the importance of apologetics and exposing your kids to "the world."  Next week I'll finish up by addressing their videos about HOW to teach kids apologetics and the actual arguments their guest Natasha Crain thinks will work with them.

THE CATHOLICS ARE GONNA GET YOU!!!

The Prophet of Zod says: Have you ever wondered whether "666" is the number of the Pope?  Well wonder no more, because this week we'll see Dustin expound on how the Catholic Church shows all the signs of being the AntiChrist.  Or maybe he just shows how ugly fundamentalism and denominational sectarianism can make Christians be toward each other.  You decide.