Their own devises

If your small child was about to unknowingly run out onto a busy freeway, would you stay silent? I mean, maybe they'll realize before it's too late and if they don't, it's their life. Why should you meddle in it?

Sounds ridiculous, right?

Sadly many fellow Christians are now taking this attitude. I'm encountering more and more Christian friends who will not take their children to church, allow them to go to Christian preschools, share the gospel message at home, or otherwise risk “indoctrinating” them.

These people say things like “I want them to come to their own conclusions” or “who am I to dictate what they believe?”.

Now, whether or not you're a Christian, I think the strangeness of this idea is clear. These very same people will, in a heart beat, state in no uncertain terms that Christ is really the only way to Heaven. So would someone please tell me why they would be so opposed to sharing that knowledge with their children? That's like saying, “I have the cure for my child's illness but unless they a) realize they are sick and b) look long and hard for a cure, I am not going to offer it, nor am I going to let anyone else meddle in their lesson in self-discovery”

I want my children to come to their own conclusions about God. After all, my faith alone will not do them any good in the afterlife. But I also will not hide my faith from them. I want them to know what I believe in hopes that they, too, will make the decisions I made.

But what if I never say much about my faith? What if they grow up searching, but never figure out where to look? What if they assume that my faith obviously is not the answer since I don't feel it's important enough to share with them?

So, instead, my poor subjugated children will have to grow up in Church, hearing the Gospel Message at every turn at home, and endure faith-based schooling. I want them to spend eternity with me and if I believe Christ is the only way to accomplish that, then I will do everything in my power to ensure they know all they can know of Christ. Maybe they'll resent me for it, but more likely they'll thank me for it. After all, even the scriptures say “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”