Catching Counterfeits

The story is told that the way that the FBI teaches its agents to recognize counterfeit money is to simply have them handle real money. The idea is that if they get used to the genuine, the fake becomes obvious. The moral of the story is this: If you train your children in the truth of Christianity, they will have no problem recognizing the falsehoods of other worldviews.

It's a nice story ... as far as it goes. And I don't know if the FBI method is accurately represented. I do see a problem with the concept. It sounds like a good method, and it certainly lets parents and churches off the hook in fighting off competing philosophies, but it seems to me that it doesn't pass the primary test -- the test of Scripture. According to Peter, we are to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15). Recognizing a lie is not the same as defending the truth. That's a problem.

Still, it seems to me that we Christians have largely bought that approach. As we raise our children, we educate them in reading and writing and arithmetic. We teach them right and wrong. We tell them the basics of Christianity. And we consider that "prepared". We intentionally avoid the counterfeits because, well, I suppose there are several reasons. We don't know how to handle them. No one ever taught us how to deal with this stuff. In fact, we've largely been told that faith and reason are distinct and, mostly, enemies. And, to be honest, it's just too much work with our limited time schedule to deal with all that. And we think we've prepared our kids to stand up for Christ in the world.

Having stripped off our responsibility to teach our children how to analyze the world from a biblical worldview and how to counter false beliefs, we then step into today's morass -- the one where we fail to actually make disciples. Our idea of teaching them the truth is largely a shallow approach, as for all Christians, that doesn't really push too far into the Word or deal too much with matters of faith. We'll have nice book studies, I suppose, and watch a few well-intentioned videos, I guess, but it's just too much work to really teach all that Jesus taught (Matt 28:20).

Now we have our young Christians with no tools to evaluate and combat false ideas and no real depth in the truth and we wonder, "Why do so many young people leave home and lose their faith?" I don't know about you, but it's not a real "head scratcher" for me. It's because we're failing them as parents and as the Church.

It is important, in catching counterfeits, that we know what the genuine looks like. It is also important that we know how to deal with the counterfeit. Too much of the time today we are not passing on to our children either of those aspects. Is it any wonder they struggle with the world's competing views?