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Public Schools: What Christian Parents Need to Know, with Andy White

Back in June, I started a three part series on educational choices for Christian families. The first episode was called, “Public, Private, or Homeschool? Thinking Through Your Child’s Education [Part 1].” In that show, I talked about several principles every Christian parent should consider when thinking through their child’s education, and then I shared my thoughts on homeschooling in particular.

Then, in August, I did a second part to this series called, “Christian Private Schools: What Parents Should Know.” I presume the title is self explanatory.

Today, I’m thrilled to share the final part of the series…this one on public school. My guest today is Andy White, who has been a public high school principal for 19 years and is also a Christian. He has a wealth of inside knowledge on the public school system, which he shares in this episode to help Christian parents whose kids are in public school understand what concerns they should be aware of and how they can respond. I personally learned so much from Andy, and I know you will too.

And even if your kids are not in public school, you should understand the system and what concerns Christians have today. I recommend listening to this episode no matter where your own kids currently are (or even if your kids are grown or if you don’t have kids but want to be equipped to share this knowledge with others in your community!).

To listen, search for The Natasha Crain Podcast on your podcast player, and be sure to subscribe! If you don’t have a player because you don’t normally listen to podcasts, you can always listen to my episodes in your browser here.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Summit Ministries. Summit Ministries’ Student Conferences are two-week sessions held in Colorado and Georgia each summer that give 16- to 22-year-old students reasons to trust the biblical foundation you’ve laid for them. Students have the opportunity to wrestle through the hard questions of their faith with world class speakers like Sean McDowell, Greg Koukl, J. Warner Wallace, Frank Turek, John Stonestreet, and many more. If you’ve not been able to do a lot of apologetics and worldview teaching with your kids, this is the perfect opportunity to give them a deep dive. And even if you have, this is the perfect opportunity for your kids to hear it from someone else, because at this age, that’s important…and that’s why I’m sending my own kids this summer! Registration is opening very soon for Summer 2024, and they’re offering my readers and listeners a $200 discount if you use code natasha200. Financial assistance is also available to those in need. Go today to www.summit.org/natasha, where you can click the button that says, “Be the first to know.” Fill out the form, and they’ll tell you as soon as registration opens!

How to Have Better Conversations with Nonbelievers, with Greg Koukl

Many Christians are finding that it’s getting harder and harder to engage in faith conversations with nonbelievers. With culture becoming increasingly hostile to Christian beliefs (particularly on morality), it’s natural to want to just slink away…but that’s not what we’re called to do. The good news is, it can be easier than you think to have fruitful conversations. Today on The Natasha Crain Podcast, I talk with Greg Koukl, president of Stand to Reason, about how Christians can learn to engage more effectively simply by asking good questions. We’ll show you how.

MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:

Greg’s newest (must-read!) book, Street Smarts: Using Questions to Answer Christianity’s Toughest Challenges
Greg’s organization, Stand to Reason
Greg’s recent podcast episode, Decision Making and the Will of God

Andy Stanley Has Gone Off the Cliff (and Why It’s Important to Talk about It)

Andy Stanley heads one of the largest churches in America, with over 38,000 people in attendance each week across eight locations. For years, he was considered by many to be a biblically sound teacher. But in more recent times, there have been concerns that he is shifting to more progressive views. Because of his past credibility, however, many people have wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. In this week’s Unshaken Faith episode, Alisa Childers and I talk about new information that should make it reasonably clear where Stanley stands. It brings us no joy to do this episode, but, for reasons we explain in it, we believe it’s important that people know. Also, I don’t normally do a blog post like this for new Unshaken Faith episodes, but I felt this was important to highlight as a subject.

For those who are newer to my ministry content, I want to clarify that I have two podcasts. I have my personal one, which is called The Natasha Crain Podcast, and I publish new episodes roughly every two weeks right now (these are the episodes I normally feature in blog posts). I also do a joint podcast with Alisa Childers called Unshaken Faith, and we publish new 15-minute episodes every Wednesday.

With that said, I’m highlighting this week’s Unshaken Faith episode in today’s post, but there’s also a new episode out this morning on The Natasha Crain Podcast. It’s called, “Living Counter Culturally Can Make Your Kids Resent Christianity.” Raising kids in an increasingly challenging world means we have to be intentional in raising them in a counter cultural way. But if we’re not careful in how we do it, it can lead to our kids’ resentment of Christianity over time. In today’s short (10 min) episode, I talk about four ways that can happen and how to avoid it.

When You Have Trouble Believing the Bible, with J. Warner Wallace

Even Christians struggle with believing what the Bible says sometimes. We want to believe it’s God’s Word, but there can be doubts that nag at us. Can miracles really happen? If they can, why should we believe some of the stranger miracles in the Bible, like a talking donkey? Why would God leave enough uncertainty around what the Bible says that people can come to such different conclusions about it? Even if we believe that the Gospels report some true things about Jesus, how can we be confident that we should believe everything the Gospels say?

Today, cold-case homicide detective, national speaker, and bestselling author J. Warner Wallace joins me on The Natasha Crain Podcast to discuss these questions and more, in honor of the release of the updated and expanded version of his modern classic, Cold-Case Christianity.

NOTE: If you listen to a lot of podcasts in the apologetics/worldview space, you’ve probably seen that Jim is doing a lot of interviews right now on the release, but we intentionally focused here on a different subject (how evidence changes the way we process doubt) so it wouldn’t be a repeat of what you’re hearing on other podcasts. In other words, you aren’t going to want to miss this! We talk about a LOT of interesting questions.

Search for The Natasha Crain Podcast in your podcast player and be sure to subscribe! If you don’t have a player because you don’t normally listen to podcasts, you can always listen to my episodes right here in your browser.

Also, Alisa Childers and I are back today from summer hiatus on the Unshaken Faith Podcast! Every Wednesday, we drop new short-form episodes (about 15 minutes each) talking about cultural issues from a biblical perspective. In this first episode back, we do a roundup of some of the big things that happened while we were on break. We talk about a drag queen taking the #1 spot on Christian iTunes, Oliver Anthony going viral with a modern day protest song, the Barbie movie, the Taylor Swift Eras tour, and the strange Christianity Today article that praised Barbie and Taylor Swift for bringing us all together. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player or listen in your browser here.

And finally, don’t forget that our next Unshaken Conference is in Tucson, AZ, next week! Alisa Childers, Frank Turek, and I will be speaking at Calvary Chapel Tucson on September 23rd. Get your tickets at unshakenconference.com! Tickets are also available now for the November 4th date in Nashville.

A Christian Response to a Viral Deconversion Post

Social media has been a popular place to share deconversion stories over the last few years, and sometimes so many people resonate with those posts that they go viral to some extent (being liked and shared by thousands of people).

There’s one that’s being shared all over Facebook right now, written this week by a lady named Myndee Mack. At the time of this writing, it has 8,000+ likes/loves, 7,000+ comments, and over 3,000+ shares. Clearly, Myndee’s post is compelling to many.

I’d like to offer a response.

While it’s possible Myndee will come across this article, I’m not writing it primarily for her, but rather for the thousands of people who find her post to be a compelling assessment of Christianity and for Christians whose friends are sharing it and want to have a thoughtful response to share. The reason I say I’m not writing it primarily for her is that a one-on-one response would be more relational and personal in nature and tone—like a letter. My purpose here is to help those challenged by her words with a more direct response to the reasoning and theological clarity/accuracy of what she wrote.

Her words will be in bold italics. Mine will follow each section in regular font.

“I used to be Christian. I prayed without ceasing. I spent time in the word. I asked. I sought. I knocked until my knuckles bled. My heart was pure. My faith was at least as strong as a mustard seed. I went to Christian elementary school. I prayed the sinners prayer at 6 years old. I would beg my mom to take me to church. I had pages and pages of notes from sermons and from my own studies. I hosted women’s groups. I went to Bible college. I attended church retreats from childhood all the way through young adulthood. I taught at children’s church. I believed I was a sinner in need of a savior, and I accepted Jesus as that savior.”

Myndee sets up her post by making it clear she wasn’t a new Christian rejecting her faith. She wants us to know that she has spent many years involved with the church and presumably seeking God. We have no information on what kind of churches she was part of (certainly something I’d be curious to know about if I met her in person), but the main point here seems to be that she doesn’t want the reader to be dismissive of her.

And I think it’s important to not be.

Christians often are dismissive of deconversion stories, saying, “If they walked away, they weren’t truly saved anyway.” Regardless of your view of the assurance of salvation, this is not a helpful response. When people have genuine questions and struggles that they share, we should be ready and willing to offer answers both for them and for those looking on across social media.

That said, I can’t help but note a brief sentence in here that relates to much of what she goes on to write regarding the nature of sin: “My heart was pure.” From a biblical perspective, no one’s heart is “pure.” More on that shortly.

“I was also trapped in a vicious cycle of self hatred, shame, guilt, and repentance. Bible verses such as ‘your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked’ combined with ‘you are fearfully and wonderfully made’ gave me spiritual whiplash.”

It’s quite easy to pull any two verses out of the Bible and think they are in conflict if you aren’t looking at them in the context of the whole. The same could be said for virtually any book in the world. In this case, there’s a very important distinction that is missing between being fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and having a deceitful and wicked heart (Jeremiah 17:9). The fact that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” is a statement about our design and value: We are not the process of blind, purposeless chance, but rather a purposeful creation who has been given value by our creator—even made in His very image (Genesis 1:27). The fact that we have a “wicked heart” is a statement about the moral choices we are inclined to make. Anyone who is a parent can look at a child and agree that they are both of extraordinary value and make bad choices. It’s the same with every human. This isn’t a matter for “spiritual whiplash” once you understand the crucial distinction between value and morality.

Furthermore, it’s likely that this conflation of value and morality led to the “vicious cycle” she felt of self-hatred, shame, guilt, and repentance. Knowing that you are inclined toward sin should not cause you to hate yourself. The Bible is clear on our value as image bearers. God so loved His creation that He gave His one and only Son to die for us. We should value ourselves as highly as God values us.

But God is also holy and just. When we sin—transgress a moral law—we rightly feel guilty because we are guilty. If someone intentionally kills an innocent human being, most people would say that person should feel guilty because they did something that is objectively wrong; guilt is not a bad thing, it’s a healthy thing that signifies a functioning conscience. It draws us to repentance, both to the person(s) wronged and toward God.

Therefore, sin, guilt, and repentance are not a vicious cycle. Sin is an ongoing reality in a fallen world, guilt is an appropriate response when we’ve done something wrong (against God’s standards), and repentance leads us back to God. As Christians, we should then accept that Jesus has forgiven us. Self-hatred is not a biblical part of that equation.

Christian Private Schools: What Parents Should Know

Today I released part 2 of my episode, “Public, Private, or Homeschool: Thinking Through Your Child’s Education (Part 1).” In this part, I talk about the widely varied types of Christian private school options available to parents, breaking them into four general categories: progressive Christian schools, nominally Christian schools, committed Christian schools with a mainstream educational philosophy, and committed Christian schools with an alternative educational philosophy. Additionally, I answer questions listeners submitted online, such as:

How do you prevent your kids from being in “Christian bubble” if they aren’t in public school?
How do you discern if a “Christian” school is really Christian?
How do you prevent your kids from being jaded by the nominal Christianity they are likely to encounter with classmates at a Christian school?
What should you do if the administration and/or teachers at your current Christian school are leaning leftward?
How much does a school’s denomination matter?

I originally said I would also discuss public school in part 2, but due to length, I’ve made this a stand alone episode. Part 3 will discuss my thoughts on public school and is forthcoming.

Mentioned in this episode:

Episode 9 of the Unshaken Faith podcast: How to Discern a Church Website

Battle for the American Mind by Pete Hegseth

Understanding and Responding to Transgender Ideology, with Frank Turek

In today’s episode of The Natasha Crain Podcast, we are going deep on a subject that I’ve long been wanting to address on this show: understanding and responding to transgender ideology. You’ve probably noticed that it seems everything is about transgender issues today. Why, exactly, is that (spoiler alert: it’s not a fluke)? Why is everyone talking about transgenderism in particular? Why are we seeing an explosion of people identifying as trans? What’s even involved in the transition process, in particular for the growing number of teens who are pursuing a gender change? What about the popular claim that if we don’t support transitions, people will commit suicide? How, as Christians, do we respond to all of this in truth and love?

There’s much more to this subject than the question of pronouns.

Author, speaker, and radio show host Dr. Frank Turek is joining me today to talk about all of these questions and many more—including a bunch of personal questions about transgender issues that were submitted by people who follow my Facebook author page. This is a long episode, but if you want to better understand what’s going on with this huge movement, it’s going to be well worth your time.

Frank is the author of several books, including the award-winning Legislating Morality and I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. As the president of CrossExamined.org, Frank is a dynamic speaker who presents over 100 times per year, often at secular college campuses. He has a large social media presence, a weekly TV show, and a radio show/podcast called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist that is broadcast on 180 stations twice each week.

Frank has just released the third edition of his book Correct, Not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism. He’s updated it with a brand new section dedicated to addressing the transgender topic specifically. In the book, Frank shows that the quest to obliterate all sexual distinctions is self-contradictory, and the march to transition children is producing horrific and irreversible consequences.

Listen now on your podcast player (search for The Natasha Crain Podcast and be sure to subscribe to be notified of new episodes as they’re released)! If you don’t normally listen to podcasts and don’t have a player, you can always listen to my episodes right here in your browser.

As a reminder, Alisa Childers, Frank Turek, and I will be doing our next Unshaken Conference on September 23rd in Tucson, Arizona, and tickets are now available! We’ll also be in Nashville on November 4th. Get tickets for either date here.

Also, as I mentioned in my last post, if you’re waiting on part 2 of my podcast on “Public, Private, or Homeschool,” I haven’t forgotten! I’m planning for that to be the next episode. In the meantime, don’t miss this great conversation with Frank Turek!

Mentioned in the show:

Why Does Culture Think Men Are Toxic? with Nancy Pearcey

I am honored to have on my podcast today Nancy Pearcey, who is one of my all-time favorite authors. We’re talking about her brand new book, The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. It is an absolute must read.

If you don’t already know about Nancy, she is a bestselling author and speaker. She’s a former agnostic and was hailed in The Economist as “America’s pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual.” She is currently a professor and scholar-in-residence at Houston Christian University. Her books have been translated into 18 languages and include Total Truth, The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, Finding Truth, and Love Thy Body.

In her new book, Nancy explains how secularism has villainized the concept of masculinity. For example, one researcher analyzed more than 2,000 mass media portrayals of men and found that more than 75 percent of those portrayals made men out to be “villains, aggressors, perverts, and philanderers.”

The question is, how did we get here? How did we get to the point where men are seen so negatively that they’re literally considered by many to be “toxic”? And what does the Bible say about what it means to be a man? That’s what we dig into in this new episode of The Natasha Crain Podcast.

Be sure to subscribe to my podcast in your podcast player to be notified of new episodes as they’re released. If you don’t have a player because you don’t normally listen to podcasts, you can always listen to my episodes right here in your browser.

Public, Private, or Homeschool? Thinking Through Your Child’s Education (Part 1)

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to record a new episode of The Natasha Crain Podcast due to some unexpected circumstances, but I’m really excited to finally share today’s show with you. This is a subject I’ve given enormous thought to over the last several years, and I know many of you have as well: How can we, as Christian parents, make the best educational choices for our kids?

How you educate your child should be a very intentional choice…certainly not something you default into just because you haven’t considered the various options available. But making that decision can be difficult and confusing. In Part 1 of this episode, I walk through 6 key principles to keep in mind, followed by my thoughts on and experiences with homeschool in particular. In the next episode (Part 2), I’ll go on to talk about Christian private school and then public school. I hope to post Part 2 next week.

Some points of interest in Part 1:

I discuss why your philosophy of education is absolutely critical to get right as a Christian parent (and how I had it VERY wrong as a younger mom with preschoolers).
I discuss why your educational choice in and of itself does not dictate your child’s spiritual direction.
I explain how I would have done things differently (and why) if I could have done them all over again.
I share why homeschool has the POTENTIAL to be the most amazing thing you can possibly do with your child…and also several reasons why homeschool isn’t ALWAYS the best choice for families.
For those who are curious, I talk about why our homeschooling time has come to an end.

There’s a lot more in the episode, but this is just a sneak peak.

School Shootings and the Mockery of Thoughts and Prayers: A Christian Response

In response to the latest tragic school shooting, social media is on a warpath against anyone who dares to offer “thoughts and prayers” for the situation. As a few examples:

David Pakman, a progressive talk show host, wrote on Twitter, “Very surprising that there would be a mass shooting at a Christian school, given that lack of prayer is often blamed for these horrible events. Is it possible they weren’t praying enough, or correctly, despite being a Christian school?” (The tweet has since been deleted.)

Investigative journalist Brian Krassenstein tweeted, “Your ‘thoughts and prayers’ aren’t working. Praying only works if you make the changes to help.”

Mervyn Warren, a film composer, tweeted, “The people at that Christian school in Nashville prayed that their children would be safe. How did that work out?”

Scrolling through waves of social media posts like these, I can’t help but wonder how many people who make such comments understand the Christian worldview and the role of prayer within it. The online commentary often reflects a serious misunderstanding of what Christians believe. In this article, I want to clarify the Christian view for both Christians and non-Christians.

Let’s start here: The phrase “thoughts and prayers” lumps two completely different things together.

The “thoughts and prayers” verbiage became part of our cultural lexicon because people wanted a way to request help and/or care from a mixed audience of religious and non-religious listeners. But just thinking something—no matter how charitable those thoughts may be—does nothing. This is something that Christians and non-Christians should all be able to agree on. “Sending thoughts” is simply an expression of solidarity with no practical consequence.

Now, some people would say, “There’s no difference between those inconsequential thoughts and prayer. Thoughts do nothing and prayers do nothing. That’s the point.”

If God doesn’t exist, then that’s true. People are praying to a supernatural being who isn’t there. By saying, “I’m sick and tired of thoughts and prayers because they don’t matter,” you’re basically just stating you don’t believe God exists. Fair enough. In that case, it makes more sense to just say, “I don’t believe in God, so I don’t pray as part of my response, but here’s what I think we should do…”

However, there’s no reason to be resentful of Christians praying to the God you don’t believe in unless you hold the faulty assumption that Christians see prayer as an alternative to other actions and you’re resentful of that presumed choice. That leads me to the next point.

Christians expect to pray and take other action.

When Christians say, “We’re praying about this,” it doesn’t mean we don’t think anything else should be done. We don’t, for example, say we’re praying over the school shooting and therefore we don’t need to have discussions about gun control policy, about how to provide for the financial and physical needs of victims, or about school security. Commenting on how prayer won’t do something, but (fill in the blank) action will, betrays the incorrect assumption that Christians think only prayer is needed. The Bible clearly demonstrates that God asks Christians to pray and take other actions as we’re able in our world.

So what do Christians pray about in a situation like this? A number of things, such as comfort for the victims’ families, that God would bring some kind of good from the tragedy, that those who are injured would heal, that the families of the kids who survived would know how to get the help they need, and much more. But for purposes of this article, it’s more important to understand what Christians don’t pray for…

Christians don’t pray expecting God to rid the world of free will.

Christians believe God created humans with the ability to make morally significant choices. We can use that free will to do good or to do evil. If God had chosen to create us without free will, we would simply be robots. Given this nature of our world, it doesn’t make sense that God would choose to eliminate school shootings specifically—through prayer or anything else. Would He make it so that every time a troubled youth enters a school for such a purpose, they change their mind? Or would He make it so they accidentally break their gun on the way in? Or would He have them fall and break a leg? Or would He make a vicious dog appear out of nowhere to attack them?

It would be a bizarre world where God completely eliminated the free will to conduct a specific type of evil. Christians don’t pray expecting that as an outcome of prayer because it’s inconsistent with the basic nature of the world we believe God created.

The continuation of school shootings literally has nothing to do with whether or not God exists and whether or not God answers prayer.