by David G. Hagopian
Christian pollster, George Barna, reports that only 2% of all born-again American teens have a biblical worldview. This means that 98% of Christian teens lack a Christian worldview! How did we get here? Before we can answer this important question, we first need to understand a little bit about worldviews. A worldview is a set of assumptions we hold about the world and our lives in it that shapes what we think, say, and do. We get our assumptions from many places, most notably at home and in the classroom.
While we pray for God to transform Christian homes to impart the Christian worldview from one generation to the next, the hard reality is that many Christian kids today appear to be shaped by what happens in the classroom which, in turn, shapes how they think and live off campus. Put differently, a definite connection exists between the education our kids receive and the worldview they develop.
For nearly 25 years, the Nehemiah Institute (NI) has documented this connection, and, sadly, NI reports that Christian students at public schools and traditional Christian schools have continued sliding away from biblical Christianity toward secular humanism. According to NI, the average Christian kid in public school today actually has a secular humanist worldview. Read that sentence again, and let it sink in for a while: The average Christian kid in public school today actually has a secular humanist worldview. NI also tells us that if current trends continue, Christian kids in public schools actually will fall out of the secular humanist worldview and into the socialist worldview in just 10 years, while their counterparts at traditional Christian schools are only four years behind them in their downward spiral!
Since 85% of Christian kids are educated in public or traditional Christian schools, NI warns that unless something is done soon, within 15 years, “the Christian church will have basically lost her posterity.”
At the other end of the spectrum, NI reports some very encouraging news at two types of Christian schools in particular — classical and principled Christian schools — where a distinct emphasis was placed on Biblical worldview understanding both in curriculum selection and with in-service training of faculty. At classical and principled Christian schools, the average student actually has a distinctively Christian worldview.
This news really should come as no surprise since the whole point of a truly Christian education is to train Christian students to think like Christians, live godly lives, and excel for Christ. So the connection is more than obvious:
Give our kids a secular humanist education and watch them develop a secular humanist worldview, or give them a distinctively Christian education and watch them develop a distinctively Christian worldview.
In light of this connection, may we all, by God’s grace, train our kids to think like Christians, live godly lives, and excel for Christ all day long, including 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. If we do so, we will enable our kids to surf the internet, read magazines, watch television, or listen to CDs like Christians not only as teenagers, but also for the rest of their lives.