By Jeff Keaton
“The soul’s deepest thirst is for God Himself, who has made us so that we can never be satisfied without Him.”F.F. Bruce
Over the last three decades, I have been fighting for the souls of our children through the two church ministries I led and now through the ministry of RenewaNation. I knew things were not going well thirty years ago as I walked through the halls of public schools in Broward County, Florida, but I couldn’t imagine what our children would face today. The attacks against them come from every angle—education, media, entertainment, technology, and peer pressure. As Christian parents who want to see our children grow up to love Christ and all His ways, it can be absolutely overwhelming.
Many Christian parents have a deep desire to raise godly children but are not exactly sure what that involves or requires of them, or perhaps they’re not highly confident they’re on the right track. Over and over again, parents and grandparents have approached me with tears in their eyes and told me their stories of children and grandchildren who have completely abandoned the Christian faith.
I wrote Saving Our Children In a World Gone Crazy so that you never have to experience the grief of losing a child to Satan’s lies. The message in this book will help you make decisions that could save your child’s life and their eternal souls. You will be challenged to think at a very deep level about who you are allowing to have influence in your child’s life.
To say we live in a world gone crazy is an understatement. The things children are getting caught up in are so absurd that if we were to have written a book thirty years ago predicting where we are today, no one would have believed us.
I’ll never forget the phone call I received from a hysterical mother whose seventeen-year-old son had just walked into their Christian home and announced he was going to become a woman. They hadn’t seen any signs of this happening. He made this decision seemingly out of nowhere. As they resisted his desire, he told the school and hospital that he was going to kill himself because his parents’ Christian beliefs would not allow them to endorse his decision. After his father endured hours of threatening discussion with a hospital employee, the state took this young man away from his parents and placed him in the home of two lesbians who allowed him to live however he desired. That’s pure insanity and a parent’s worst nightmare. Lest you think this is an outlier, several states have so-called “gender-affirming care,” and the state of California just passed a law that gives the state the authority to take children away from parents who do not allow them to transition.1
Our children are addicted to screens, porn, and video games in record numbers, and they are anxious, depressed, and suicidal like never before. In the fog of the battle, it can be very difficult to understand where the attacks are coming from and how to combat them. We often get lost in the smoke and don’t know what to do. I want to begin by helping you understand from a worldview perspective what we are up against and why you must see the big picture in order to win this fight for the souls of your children.
Clash of Belief Systems
At the root of the struggle for the souls of our children is an underlying clash of belief systems or what we call worldviews. A worldview is simply the core set of beliefs a person has accepted as true that guides his or her thoughts and actions in life. Several times each year, I have the privilege of speaking at conferences where George Barna is also a speaker. In one of his speeches, Barna states that after forty years of researching young people, he has now concluded that the worldview or core set of beliefs a child has developed by the age of thirteen is statistically the worldview they will die with.2 Each time I hear Barna make this statement, I am reminded of the importance of investing in the worldview development of our children from the earliest days of their lives.
Senior saints often approach me and ask, “How in the world could these kids believe what they believe today?” I tell them it’s pretty simple. They were taught certain presuppositions that led them to carry out unthinkable actions in their daily lives. What may seem crazy to Judeo-Christian thinkers seems perfectly normal to them.
For example, on September 11, 2001, nineteen young men flew airplanes into buildings and killed thousands of Americans. We’d like to believe these young men had a mental illness or some other reason to do something so evil that would exclude them from guilt. However, as I have studied their actions over the years, I have concluded they did exactly what they wanted to do for one simple reason. Their minds were molded into believing a completely false worldview from the time they were small children. Adults instilled in these children the belief that if they killed infidels, God would be pleased with them and reward them greatly. They lived out their worldview to the fullest degree possible.
Every child represented by those of you reading this book is in the process of developing his or her worldview (core set of beliefs). The question is not, “Will my child develop a worldview?” The question is simply, “Which worldview will my child develop?” Foundational beliefs are being developed right now that will determine the decisions your children will make and how they will live. If we fail to teach our children the truth, the devil will make sure someone is there to tell them his lies, and they will end up living destructive lives and falling short of the meaningful life God has intended for them.
All worldviews are simply attempts to answer the greatest questions of life. Questions like: Who has ultimate authority in this world? Where did we come from? What is our purpose in life? Who makes the rules, and what rules should all humans live by? What does it mean to be human? What makes up a family? Why is there so much evil? Is there any way to fix what is broken in this world? Life’s questions go on and on.
We define a worldview by how it answers these questions. Again, all worldviews, including atheism, have some kind of answer to the major questions of life. The devil and the people he controls in this world are determined to shape your children’s worldview or belief system in a way that will forever lead them away from God and His truth. This is a life-and-death battle that we must not take lightly.
A biblical worldview understands reality within the context of God’s good design, as discovered in God’s Word, the Holy Bible. An unbiblical worldview rejects God’s truth, and a hybrid worldview adopts some of God’s truth along with unbiblical ideas. Many of us have a hybrid worldview, meaning we implement God’s truth into our daily lives in certain areas but embrace unbiblical ideas in other areas because of secularized influences. We experience much difficulty in the areas where we do not know or live out God’s good design as laid out in the Bible.
I am passionate about giving children a biblical worldview because I have become fully convinced that the biblical worldview is the only worldview that works out well in the real world. For example, God created males and females and said they should get married, stay together for life, and produce godly offspring. This is God’s good design for the family, and when followed, it works out beautifully.
Worldviews have real-world consequences. When our beliefs are false, we will make decisions based on those beliefs that cause tremendous pain and suffering. When my wife was twelve years old and her brother was only five, their father rejected God’s good design by abandoning his family for a life of sensuality. Thankfully, my wife has had the love of my father and family in her life since we met as young teenagers. Her dad’s decision to reject God’s good design has had a much more negative impact on her brother’s life, and I can honestly say that he has never gotten over this devastating experience.
In our world today, millions of children identify and approve of the transgender movement. It’s hard for truth-based thinkers even to fathom the foolishness of this worldview. Yet, children who have been lied to and taught an unbiblical view of sexuality and gender are embracing and living out these utterly destructive ideas.
If we want to save our children in a world gone crazy, we must become passionate and intentional about helping them develop a biblical worldview—a belief system that is fully aligned with truth. When we teach our children to live in harmony with God’s good design, they will experience peace, productivity, harmony, and a taste of the paradise lost in the fall.
This article is based on an excerpt from Saving Our Children In a World Gone Crazy, a new book by RenewaNation founder Jeff Keaton, available at shop.renewanation.org.
Jeff Keaton is the founder and chairman of RenewaNation. Over the years, he has pastored two churches, planted multiple churches, founded a local Christian school, assisted with launching many schools nationally, and begun several other ministries. Jeff is passionate about seeing lost people come to know Jesus, encouraging Christians to surrender completely to Christ, and helping children develop a biblical worldview. He is the author of The Life of Radical Faith and Saving Our Children In a World Gone Crazy.
ENDNOTES
1. “CA Law Would Help Children Get Gender Transition Surgery Without Parental Consent,” Family Freedom Project, Accessed October 9, 2024, https://familyfreedomproject.org/ca-law-would-help-children-get-gender-transition-surgery.
2. George Barna, Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child's Heart, Mind and Soul (Arizona Christian University Press & Fedd Books, 2023), 22.