Humanism is anti-biblical through and through. It permeates today’s schools, media, and political debates. Almost daily you can read or hear something that provides an opportunity to point out to your children how it differs from the Bible. This may be difficult at first if you have not practiced it yet. Humanists are skilled at communication. They make their views sound so good that Christians can be lured into agreeing. Watch for the tricky use of words like dogmatic or intolerance. Watch for political or societal issues that your children can understand well enough to compare with the Bible. After the news or other opportune occasions, point out something unbiblical and have a brief conversation about it…
The roots of humanism go back at least to the beginning of anti-God religion – to the people who believed the serpent’s promise that they could become wise like God. That religion spread everywhere. The Greeks embraced it in their thinking. Plato, Socrates, and other famous philosophers though they could find truth by their own reasoning. They asked important questions like what is mind, what is soul, and is there life after death. What is the origin of man? What is evil? Greek philosophers tried to solve those big questions by human reason alone. This sharpening of the human intellect was a major aim of Greek education, and modern humanism descends from those Greek roots.
On its way to us from ancient Greece, humanism passed through the Italian Renaissance. The Italians coined the name humanism. Latin umanisa was equivalent to “classicist” or “classical scholar.” History textbooks present this humanism of the Renaissance as a major turning point in western civilization, and this thinking still lives today.
To bring this humanism into Christian education is to try to merge paganism with Christianity. Humanist thinking opposes biblical thinking and unless we can push it back, our children’s generation will be promoting it even more stridently than ours.
– Ruth Beechick
from “Worldviews to Match the Bible”
This is one of the reasons I feel God leading me to teach communication skills to the Christian community. The liberal left and anti Christian movement have used “communication tricks” in order to push their agenda. They are quite good at it. They have successfully changed the meanings of words like tolerance. Christians need to understand this and begin to learn how to communicate effectively for the things of God.
How important we continue effective, appropriate communication of God’s truth to our family, our church, and our community. Thanks, JoJo!
“After the news or other opportune occasions, point out something unbiblical and have a brief conversation about it…”
UGH!
Just thinking about deliberately doing this gives me a gloomy, morbid feeling. I mean, it happens now and then…..I’ll find myself saying something “biblical” about a current event but I don’t do it on purpose. LOL
How about you?
Why gloomy and morbid? Why not hopeful and victorious?
I do enjoy talking about current events and pop culture with my children and asking them, What do you think God feels about this? What does the Bible say? My oldest son is especially interested in the news, and Princess enjoys exploring women’s issues. I find the conversations challenging and refreshing.
“After the news or other opportune occasions, point out something unbiblical and have a brief conversation about it…”
This is the part that I cringed at. Don’t you think that sounds gloomy?
It is fun to talk about current events….we just need to be careful about trying to figure out just exactly God thinks about them. We could be totally off in our assumptions. “What does the Bible say” is a tough question to answer. Ask two people what the Bible says about something and you will most likely get two answers.
There are beautiful ways to discuss current events. For instance, the tragedy in Japan. “Look for the helpers” “Look for the people who weep with those who weep” “Look for the love” “How can we help?”
I’m not saying YOU do or don’t do any of these things. I just wanted to throw some idea out for discussion…..hopefully its as refreshing and challenging as the ones you have with the kids! LOL
((hugs))
Again, her statement didn’t stike me as gloomy at all. But that is perhaps because of my worldview, a worldview I want to communicate to my children every possible moment. So we can discuss crime and punishement, wars and rumors of wars, society and its ills with a sense of hope: greater is He that is in us! And, like my husband and I were discussing over bedtime snacks with our oldest, we know from Scripture how it’s all going to end, and we’re on the winning side.
You are right: teaching this way drives a parent to the Scriptures to know, like the Bereans, whether these things are so. We can’t pass on what we don’t have.
You know, interesting article. The bit that especially hit me was “Humanists are skilled at communication. They make their views sound so good that Christians can be lured into agreeing.”
I’ve been agonizing a little over this since last night, when my Christian friend informed me she had bought into a humanistic speaker’s ideas from this weekend’s Home School convention.
I guess I’m pretty disappointed that he was even allowed to speak, but apparently there were others there with less Godly ideas as well, so I suppose it’s par for the course. He is a child-rearing expert who barely claims to be a Christian, but I won’t even dispute that, because I don’t know him, and it matters not because what I DO know is that none of his ideas are Godly, Biblical or about the Lord (from the info off his website). That’s what is sad. I guess, my friend’s husband, so distraught about his children’s behavior, is convinced the humanistic ideas of raising your kids looks good, and might possibly be under the guise that the speaker was coming from a Biblical perspective since he was at a “home school” convention. He certainly was “lured into agreeing” as Ruth Beechick said.
I think we’re at a point in time when compromise will run rampant and we just have to listen to 2 Timothy 4: “2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in ALL things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” I say this because we have to remember that we’re seeing the humanism unfortunately leak into the church as well.
That’s right, Kelly. This is an example of why we must teach our children godly discernment and to compare every teaching with God’s Word.
Lea Ann, I believe that as topics come up in the news, books, radio, magazines, sermons, etc, that parents can and do take those opportunities to instill their values and beliefs into our children. It’s not as heavy, consuming, and serious as the quote makes it seem. You interpreted her quote a different way. I found the quote less of an encouragment. That’s okay, right? I mean, I’m not here for a debate, I’m here to give honest feedback.
Yes, as believers we know how things will turn out, it is a happy thing. We are safe in His hands, always and forever. We can trust Him, we can be thankful in all circumstances. We are encouraged to live a life of love for Him and for one another. This hope is communicated to our loved ones as we talk to one another through our journey. It is such an encouragement.
And I so appreciate it. I never looked at it from that perspective. I really like knowing how other people see things a little differently.
I wonder if perhaps part of the problem lies with my lifting only one section of an entire book. I would recommend you read her book sometime. While I don’t agree with every single jot and tittle in it, I am very encouraged by so much of it. And I’m getting to know Ruth Beechick better. : )
In the totality of the book, she does share how simple and easy it is to train at home. She does not at all want to lay a heavy burden upon mothers, but rather to show them “You CAN do it!”