Yes. You are reading that title right. Christian parents should not want good, happy, safe kids. Where do we get this idea from? Pastor David Prince has written an excellent article over at the Ethics & Religious Liberty website that I think will be worth your time.
He starts by writing:
“I cannot believe that you would do that!”
That incredulous assertion is an all too familiar response from parents (including myself) who discover a child has sinned. But for Christian parents, such an assertion is anti-Christ because it constitutes speaking as if the gospel is not true. It represents the response for a parent who desires to rear a religious Pharisee. If a parent’s goal is to keep up appearances and maintain an external image of righteousness, then it is right to myopically focus on outward performance. After all, we too often reason that we are not like “those people” who do things like that. We are the “good people.” Such parenting is not cruciform even if the parents are Christians.
So what’s wrong with wanting good, happy, safe kids?
It seems the modern American evangelical parenting manifesto is: Be nice, be happy and be safe—no matter what. The problem is that none of those assertions represent distinctive Christian values. In 2005, Christian Smith and researchers at The National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took a close look at the religious beliefs of American teenagers. They found a faith they described as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism,” which can be summarized as a belief in a God who exists if needed, and who wants to help people be nice, happy, safe, and if they are, they will go to heaven when they die. I fear that this is a theological worldview they learned from observing what their parents really value and prioritize on a daily basis.
Pastor David ends the article by sharing what he fears will be the result parenting for good, happy, safe kids. He writes:
I fear that in the name of nice, happy, safe children many Christian families are practically abandoning “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Affirming the gospel message with our lips but parenting on a daily basis as if it is not true will have disastrous consequences. Adults who believe life is about being nice, happy and safe do not joyfully commit their lives to take the gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 5:41). In fact, when they hear about someone self-sacrificially suffering for the advance of the gospel they may woefully respond, “I cannot believe that you would do that.”
You can read the whole article here.
