You are a fear-monger!

No one said it. They probably weren’t thinking about my work when they wrote it, but I heard it anyway. “You are a fear-monger!”

A Twitter friend posted a link to an article by Glenn T. Stanton and the Gospel Coalition titled, FactChecker: Are Your Kids Likely to Lose Their Faith?

The author states: “A handful of Christian authors have created a bit of a cottage industry peddling the scary news that the odds are not good that our young people stay strong in their faith into adulthood.”

I have often cited the Barna Group’s 1996 survey (read it here) that reported that “most twentysomethings disengage from active participation in the Christian faith during their young adult years.” I’ve read the apologists for and the critics of Barna’s research, but that’s not why I’m writing.

I understand the limitations of survey research, but I am not writing to argue that Barna’s survey can or cannot be generalized to all Christian students. Though when I write about it, I always follow Barna’s statistic with the phrase, “if that survey is accurate and if its findings have anything to do with the instruction in college…,” I am not writing to apologize for using Barna’s statistic.

I am writing because I fear. I have a Hebrews 4:1 fear of Psychology professors. I fear that (some, many, or most) professors use psychological research and theories to promote their evolutionary naturalistic atheistic worldview -- in the guise of science. Glenn Stanton suggests “important, effective and relatively simple things parents and Christian workers can do to substantially increase the likelihood our young people will retain a thriving faith into and through their adult years.” But I’m not writing to agree (which I do) or disagree with the suggestions. I’m writing because I fear there is more we should be doing. If there is a specific threat that we know our children will face in college, shouldn’t we prepare them for it? Psychology 101 is that threat. If that makes me a fear-monger, I’ll live with it.