Give Them Something

"This is not what I believe at all!”

Those eight words tumbled out of an eight year old mouth from the back of a third grade classroom.

The students had started a new science unit that day, and the topic: “Evolution”.

The first part of the lesson included a discussion about the earth’s age.  When her teacher announced the earth to be around four and a half billion years old, something did not sit well with one little girl on the last row.  This was not what she knew to be true.

Her hand shot instinctively up into the air.

When her teacher called on her, my daughter gave that eight word rebuttal with all the conviction of a tender hearted child who loves God.

The teacher invited Evie to come up to her desk at the end of class and share her thoughts.  After class, at her teacher’s desk, Evie explained that God created the world and that the earth can only be thousands of years old, according to the Bible.

My child’s teacher kindly looked into her eyes and said, “I believe in the Bible too, Evie, I just can’t teach that in here.”

For me, as a Christian parent, this served as a wake-up call.  The teaching of evolution in our public school system is a reality, and as my daughter’s teacher relayed this story to me, I realized the necessity in providing my children with biblical answers when their belief in creation is questioned.  Along with teaching them to stand for the truth, I need to also empower them with a ready defense.

The indoctrinating of our children with the theory of evolution begins at a very young age.  I have watched television shows with my children and heard friendly cartoon characters talk about gigantic dinosaurs that roamed the earth “millions and millions of years ago”.  I have heard monkeys referred to as our “primate relatives”, and chickens described as “cousins” of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.  I have read countless excerpts from school textbooks that place global events on a billion year timeline.  As harmless as these phrases may sound in and of themselves, they create a foundation in our children’s minds for accepting the humanistic view of the origin of life, a view that completely leaves God out of the equation.

One of my missions is to prepare my children so that when they are attacked with the theory of evolution they will have the ability and the confidence to fight back.  In order to remain focused on this mission, there are three steps I keep in mind as I endeavor to effectively arm my children: 

1.      Teach The Truth.  The first, and most important step, is to teach my children the truth as it has been delivered to all people through the Word of God.  It is my responsibility to fill them with Bible knowledge.  As I tell them the true story of creation and read to them the account of the flood, I am already outfitting them for battle when they are confronted with ideas and theories of evolution.  Their faith will grow as they hear the Word of God (Romans 10:17), strengthening the shield that will quench the fiery darts thrown at them in the form of scientific “facts” and humanism.

 

2.     Point Out Error.  The second step involves “calling out” ideas related to evolution when I see or hear them being presented to my children.  I remember watching a cartoon with my children as toddlers, when the main character began a conversation with her young audience about dinosaurs by saying, “Millions of years ago…..”  Immediately, my husband called out from the kitchen, “That’s not what the Bible says!”  I laughed a little at the unexpected voice that came out of nowhere, but it started a practice in our family, of “calling it out when you hear it”.  We don’t let those little snippets of error slip by unnoticed.  We call them on the carpet and then remind each other what the Bible teaches differently. 

 

3.     Give Them a Righteous Defense. The final step is to give them a factual defense for creationism rooted in scripture and according to the biblical timeline.

 In talking with Christians about defending creation, I have heard these statements on occasion: “I don’t understand enough about it to make a good argument”, or “I can’t figure out the whole dinosaur thing.”  I have also been guilty of making comments like those and I cannot help but think of the words recorded in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”  We have to educate ourselves so that we can help educate our children and in doing that we provide them with hope for the future.

I must realize that my children will be challenged on their belief in creation, and it is my responsibility as a parent to make sure that when it happens they are ready with a logical, factual, biblical defense.  I do not want to let them stand under fire and not have anything to say about why they can know that God is The Creator.  I need to give them something!  It is essential that they are able to say, “I believe that God created the world”; it is equally vital that they are able to continue on to say “…and this is why...”

I cannot tell you how proud I was of Evie that day for declaring her disbelief in evolution:  One small voice speaking out for the truth.  It leads me to wonder…..what if Christians everywhere collectively raised our hands and emphatically proclaimed to those who push the humanistic agenda, “This is not what we believe!”