Top Twenty Tips for Turning Christian Children into Atheist Adults

A note to Christian parents, pastors, and priests.

There is a special type of atheist that deserves your attention.

These atheists were raised in Christian families, and walked away from their faith almost as soon as they left their homes. Many of them are quite bitter about it.

In speaking with these atheists, I notice certain patterns popping up again and again. Things their parents said or didn’t say, things their Sunday school teachers told them, things their families modeled for them, issues their pastors or priests didn’t address.

These adult-child interactions were so spiritually detrimental it was as though these parents and pastors were consulting a manual on how to turn Christian children into atheist adults.

If such a manual existed, it would read something like this.

Top Twenty Tips for Turning Christian Children into Atheist Adults

1.    When your children ask difficult questions—especially questions you don’t know how to answer—just tell them God works in mysterious ways and leave it at that.

2.    Resist the urge to ever say “I don’t know, let’s look into that” to your children.

3.    If your children persist in asking difficult questions, make them feel bad about not having enough faith.

4.    If your children express doubts about Christianity, don’t discuss the reasons for their doubts. Just make them feel guilty about it.

5.    Don’t encourage your children to pray for boring things like faith, wisdom, and obedience to God.

6.    Avoid teaching or talking about science to your children.

7.    Tell them science is a tool of the enemy.

8.    Avoid talking about reasoned philosophical arguments for claims in the Bible.

9.    Ignore Paul’s admonition to test everything. Teach your children that all philosophy is vain and deceptive.

10. Don’t make a regular family activity out of reading and discussing the Bible.

11. If you insist on studying the Bible as a family, make sure it’s as boring and confusing as possible.

12. Don’t encourage or teach your children how to study the Bible on their own.

13. Don’t discuss the basics of Christianity with your children. Assume they picked these up through osmosis.

14. Assume that a superficial understanding of the Bible is the only thing children need to be prepared for life in a world desperate to turn them away from their faith.

15. Assume that vacation Bible schools and mission trips alone will prepare your children for the relentless challenges to faith they’ll face in the world.

16. Don’t consult outside sources for help in preparing your children for life as adult Christians. Avoid apologetics like the plague.

17. Focus on God’s perfect love and forgiveness, but not on sin and God’s perfect justice. Make sure your children know Jesus was a really nice man who tolerated everyone.

18. Focus on sin and God’s justice, but not on God’s love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Make sure your children feel like they have to work to earn salvation and God’s love.

19. Make Christian life seem as onerous and joyless as possible to your children. If it doesn’t feel miserable and empty, they’re doing it wrong.

20. Demonstrate to your children that you don’t take the Bible too seriously. Model for your children the idea that having faith in God and following Jesus Christ means making no sacrifices, no difficult decisions, and no real efforts to maintain their faith.

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Obviously, the goal is not to make atheists out of our Christian children, but to strengthen their faith and make them impervious to attack.

I know many of you are already doing this. Yay, you! May your efforts be greatly rewarded.

Some of you want to help your children this way, but don’t know how.

Some of you think it’s not necessary to prepare your children, because they’re going to go whichever way they go regardless of what you do. Or maybe you’re fearful that too much study or discussing difficult topics will only introduce or strengthen doubts in the minds of your children.

The truth is, we don’t help our children by under-preparing them in their faith and overprotecting them from exposure to the strategies and tactics of their spiritual enemies.

Think of it this way. Many of you are involved with youth sports teams. You probably wouldn’t tolerate a coach who failed to prepare your children for competition. If a coach never made your children learn and practice the skills they needed to succeed, you would find a new coach. If a coach avoided games against tough teams because he was afraid your children would be discouraged, you would complain that your children weren’t being prepared for the big game at the end of the season. But some of you are letting this happen to your children spiritually.

Whether in preparation for athletics, adult life, or the spiritual struggles they will face throughout their lives, children must be made ready for adversity. I know this sounds harsh, but I believe strongly that Christian parents and clergy are failing their children as badly as the worst possible coaches when they leave young Christians defenseless for the religious battles they will eventually face.

I know many of you are aware of the challenges ahead and are motivated to help your children and other young people around you. And I know that sometimes young people walk away from their faith regardless of how hard everyone around them tried.

But try we must.

I believe the vast majority of young Christians can ultimately be helped to stay the course—or to be won back to faith, if they’ve already walked away.

So, take heart. As the Bible tells us, the war has already been won, all we have to do is claim the victory. We’re in a golden age of apologetics, with a multitude of resources designed to help you coach your children to do just that.

I will be recommending several books and courses to you in future articles. Today I recommend starting with the books of my friend, J. Warner Wallace. Read them and equip yourselves to help your children and other young people around you. For younger kids, Wallace has “kid versions” of some of these books.

(Fun fact: I served as a scientific consultant on a couple of chapters in God’s Crime Scene. It’s one of my all-time favorite apologetics books!)

Cold Case Christianity: “Written by an L. A. County homicide detective and former atheist, Cold-Case Christianity examines the claims of the New Testament using the skills and strategies of a hard-to-convince criminal investigator.”

God’s Crime Scene: “With the expertise of a cold-case detective, J. Warner examines eight critical pieces of evidence in the "crime scene" of the universe to determine if they point to a Divine Intruder. If you have ever wondered if something (or someone) outside the natural realm created the universe and everything in it, this is the case for you.”

Forensic Faith: “Forensic Faith will help readers: • understand why they have a duty to defend the truth • develop a training strategy to master the evidence for Christianity • learn how to employ the techniques of a detective to discover new insights from God’s Word • become better communicators by learning the skills of professional case makers. With real-life detective stories, fascinating strategies, and biblical insights, Wallace teaches readers cold-case investigative disciplines they can apply to their Christian faith.”

Person of Interest: “In Person of Interest, Wallace carefully sifts through the evidence from history alone, without relying on the New Testament. You'll understand like never before how Jesus, the most significant person in history, changed the world.”

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Next week: Part 3 of The Christian roots of modern science.