← Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Raise Kids to Think Critically, Love Biblically & Stand Firm Against Culture | @mamabearapologetics
01:11:01
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- [00:00]
A
There isn't a shred of evidence that God exists. Why do innocent people, and especially children, die or get hurt?
- [00:07]
B
If our assumption is that God's purpose for us is to have a happy life here in this earth, then that would not make sense. This world reflects exactly what it would look like if God said, I'm going to give you your way. I'm going to allow sin into the world, and you're going to see how jacked up everything gets.
- [00:24]
A
The Bible never mentions homosexuality.
- [00:26]
B
Sometimes you say what something is for. You don't have to go through everything, all the things that it's not for. We'll say a spatula. Let's go through all the things that a spatula shouldn't be used for. If we're going to make it for making food, should we use it for cleaning up vomit? Well, do we need to put that in the instructions? This should not be used for cleaning up vomit.
- [01:09]
A
Your kids are familiar with the Bible. They understand that Jesus, death and resurrection paid the price for their sins. So they should be safe in their faith. Right? But what happens when they come across claims and evidence that challenge everything they've been taught? Like suggestions that Jesus never existed, the resurrection didn't happen, or that the Bible is full of myths? Suddenly, the simple answer of because I believe or because my parents said so might not hold up. If your child starts to have doubts or ask tough questions, that's actually a positive thing. It means that they're starting to think critically about their faith and are no longer just accepting it because of you. And here's the good news. There are answers. Apologetics isn't just about arguing for the sake of winning. It's about helping you equip your children. While your faith might feel solid, your kids are still building their understanding of what is true. They can't inherit your relationship with God. They need to come to know him for themselves. That's why I'm sitting down today with Hilary Farer, author of Mama Bear Apologetics, a resource that helps parents guide their children to develop their own biblical convictions about what is true and. And what is right. Please welcome Hilary Farer from Mama Bear Apologetics to culture Apothecary. We talk a lot on this show about feeding our children's bodies with goodness, but it's more important to also discuss feeding their minds with goodness. What is Mama Bear Apologetics?
- [02:40]
B
Yes. So Mama Bear Apologetics is. You know, churches are so good with teaching the Bible and teaching the gospel, but what they don't realize is, is we have certain Things in culture that are undermining kids ability to either, number one, understand the gospel or for the gospel to even just make sense in the beginning. Because if, if you have a kid who's truly steeped in postmodernism that doesn't believe that absolute truth exists, why are they going to believe that this part of reality, this part of that God exists, that Jesus exists, that he came and died on the cross, why should they believe that that's absolutely true? Instead of believing, oh, you're just sharing your truth with me. Which is one of the things we talk about in the postmodernism chapter is you'll have a kid that dutifully nods their head, goes to church, does all the things, and then you find out later, this whole time they thought you were just telling them your truth. And at that point the gospel just kind of crumbles. So if we want to just break up the term Mama Bear apologetics, just Mama Bear. One of the things that I noticed was there was a woman in my parents church who had never been interested in like any kind of apologetics, any kind of philosophy. Her kids raised up really well. They went to Awana, they were involved in youth group, went off. One of her kids even rededicated his life in college. And then his first job out of college, his boss says that Jesus is Santa Claus for adults. And for some reason that stuck with him. And he came home and said, I don't believe in God anymore. And she said, what are you talking about? And so she all of a sudden started doing all these things that she would have never done for herself. She started studying just philosophy and apologetics and saying, what are your questions? Whatever your question is, tell it to me and I'll study on it. And I thought that's something that we don't normally see. Mama Bear is someone who does something that she wouldn't necessarily do for herself, but when she sees her kid being threatened, she will rise up and do whatever she needs to do. And I thought we need to direct that instinct towards protecting the faith and defending the faith, not just explaining the faith. Kids need to, yes, they need to know the what behind the gospel, but they also need to know the why. And the why I should believe it. Why is it this way? And why is this trustworthy? How can I trust the Bible? There's all these beliefs that are going along in culture. Things like, I can only true know truth if science says it, or truth doesn't actually exist, or it is more, it shows that I am more intellectually Honest, when I question everything. Well, no, like, I think it's Chesterton who says, you know, the purpose of having an open mind is to finally close it around something. That's true because it's, you know, having just an open mind for the sake of open mind. Your brains fall out, kind of like the mouth. The purpose of opening the mouth is to close it around good nourishing food. And if you think anything that's closed is therefore closed minded. Yeah. Well, then Christianity again, that's also not going to make sense because Christianity does claim to know truth. And if you say, oh, that's close minded, this is another one of those just kind of subtle lies that can undergird the gospel. So when I first started this ministry, it was just kind of about doing classic apologetics. How do we know that this is true? Very soon, like I think within a year, I'd had a publisher asking me to write a book. And I thought, well, I don't want to do the books that everybody else is doing. So I went and I collected the books that kind of consisted of a bunch of questions that the kids would ask. And so I put all those questions out on a board and I said, there's a philosophy that's undergirding each of these. And if we actually address the philosophy that birthed these questions to begin with, we can actually prime kids to be able to think through the faith in a very rational way, in a way that reflects reality and reflects a Christian worldview, as opposed to trying to, I call it play whack a mole, where it's like this question comes up and that question comes up and you're not getting to the root of the issue. I mean, kind of like what you do on this podcast where you're looking at what is the underlying root cause of maybe behind some of the diseases that we have. We could sit there and we could spot, treat the symptoms, or we could figure out what's the source, what's polluting the body in the first place that is causing these diseases. And so that's really what we're focused on, Mama Bear is we're trying to say what is the thing that has come in that is eroding that foundation to begin with and how do we fortify that to where then the gospel really can stay firm in the child's heart and they can be fully convinced this is the truth? Not my truth, not your truth, but this is objectively true.
- [07:05]
A
And is Mama Bear apologetics only for moms?
- [07:07]
B
Oh, no, absolutely. So one of the Beautiful things about our book is I've heard from so many people that kind of. They almost whisper it to me. They're like, this isn't just for moms. I'm like, no, it's not just for moms. I've had pastors say that they preached whole sermon series on the books. Because a lot of the stuff that we see going on in culture, well, guess what? Our kids are living in the same culture that we're living in. And so if our kids are being exposed to that, then the adults are being exposed to it. So I would say not only is it not just for moms, because I don't know if some of the people know. I myself don't have kids, but we have. We have our auntie bears, we have our Nana bears. We have just anyone who's interested in helping to really help fortify the faith of the next generation can be involved in this. And even. And a lot of times people will say, well, this isn't just for kids in the sense of something I can teach them, but this is something I'm learning. They're correcting misconceptions that they had in their own heart first. And that just kind of goes back to. We can't impart to kids what we don't already have ourselves. So sometimes we have to fix what's going on inside, fix our own beliefs and our own worldview before we can help shape theirs.
- [08:15]
A
And you said that there's this common underlying philosophy that is kind of at the root of kids having these questions. What is it?
- [08:24]
B
Oh, no, there's a bunch of different ones, I would say, in the chapter that we go through. So, like, I'd say the. One of the ones that we're seeing the most right now is this idea of critical theory of that everything can be explained in terms of who has power and who doesn't have power. And if you're looking for all the criteria to fall into these two dichotomous things, the people with the power and the people without, you can find it everywhere. So this is one of those also big misnomers, this idea of what science says, that you don't have science say anything. You have scientists who say things. And what they have to do is everybody's interacting with the same data, and then how you interpret that data will determine what conclusion you come to. So if we have our kids with all the same data, but they're coming from this perspective of what does this worldview event mean? Well, if I'm looking for ways that someone's being oppressed. I'm going to find some ways that someone's being oppressed. However, if I'm looking for, hey, God said he created things perfectly and that the man sinned and everybody kind of is basically selfish at their, at their base, then I'm going to say, wow, sin has really messed things up. And that's going to fortify the Christian worldview of the idea of original creation, sin, the fall and redemption. How we interpret the world around us is going to be based on what our starting assumptions are. And what this book does is it says, what are all the different starting assumptions that people can come to the, the world with and how would they interpret that? And how can that steer them either away from a biblical worldview or towards a biblical worldview?
- [10:03]
A
What is the percent of youth that leave the church after college?
- [10:07]
B
Oh, goodness, there's so many studies. It can be anywhere from 60 to some. Some have shown even up to 90%. And then you have some that maybe kind of trickle back and, and then you have to look at not only who are, who is living the church, but if you've not, I mean, I'm sure you've noticed there's a lot of churches that are not preaching the Bible anymore.
- [10:27]
A
Oh, don't even get me started.
- [10:29]
B
And so it's like, even if they claim to be Christian, what Christ are they following? Which Christ are they following? Which parts of the Bible do they actually believe are true? So one of the other things that we look at is not just who's claiming to be Christian because we already know somewhere between 60 and 90% walk away from the faith and, and some percentage of that never come back. But even the ones that do believe, what do they actually believe? And you'll have things like that Jesus was not the son of God, or that the Bible is just one source of information about Jesus, or that Jesus didn't actually rise from the dead. And I'm thinking, wow, if, if Jesus didn't actually rise from the dead, we, we all need.
- [11:10]
A
This is, well, this is, I mean my experience, my, one of my ex boyfriends, this is a whole thing he swore up and down he was a Christian. I knew he wasn't, but he would say, you know, I would say, well, do you believe that the Bible is like the inerrant word of God? Well, I think that it's, you know, kind of like myths and fables and I don't, you know, Joan and the whale. That was just like a fun story that didn't actually happen. And so him and I both, you know, greatly disagreed on that kind of stuff. And I was like, okay, so this is what I'm talking about. But it was interesting. He was very. I mean, he was adamant. He was a Christian.
- [11:46]
B
So people don't even know what it means to be a Christian. And those are the ones that are claiming Christianity, the ones that say, I'm not a Christian. We can be pretty certain that they're probably not a Christian because they're saying they're not. So I'm not even looking at the number that are walking away from the church. I'm looking at some of the ones that. The ones who think that they're Christian. What do they actually believe? And I think it was Barna that said there's a couple different studies. One of them said that Maybe, like, only 4% of Christians have a truly Christian biblical worldview. And I think it was 17% were the ones that would agree to some of the major tenets of the Christian faith. And so we have our work cut out for us in so many different ways. But apologetics, a lot of times, people get the idea that apologetics is arguing someone into the faith, which very rarely happens. Apologetics. I think the primary job of apologetics is keeping people who are already Christians from leaving the faith. As my husband likes to say, we like bringing people in the front door, but we haven't bothered to close the back door. And so our kids are the ones that are leaving through the back door. So we need to make sure that they have a faith that they say, I can base my life around this. I. I feel convinced that this is actually true and not just some, like he said, some fable, some story. Because who's going to die for a fable and a story? I mean, there's no point.
- [13:03]
A
Why do you think college is that time where kids leave the faith at record rates?
- [13:09]
B
Yeah. So what we have found is they have actually left a long time before. In fact, there's a lot of sporting companies that realize this, that who the kid is a fan of in third grade will be the team that they're committed to for the rest of their life. Wow. And same thing. We've had different companies come in and studying some of the academic performance of kids, and they're predicting how many prisons we need by some of the behaviors of the third graders. So what we're seeing is usually around third grade, third to fifth grade, is when kids start asking the questions, but they may not know how to articulate them, or the parents just kind of, oh, you know, that's not a big deal. I'll just, you know, let's go get pizza. Make them think about something else. The kids are starting to question around third grade and sometimes even younger, depending on their exposure to different things. We have the Internet, we have movies, we have all the different media. They're having these questions. College is the first time when no one's making them go to church. And so that's the time when they say, well, I'm 18. I've always been told I can do what I want when I'm 18. That's when I'm actually going to leave. But the seeds were planted much earlier than that. And so I think if we look at just college, this is where they're exposed and where it becomes will say they can create their own kind of, you know, their own family, their own tribe. You kind of create yourself in college. You find out who you really are apart from your family, apart from the town that you grew up in. You can kind of become the youth you always wanted to become before you had the ability to kind of part ways from your nuclear family and just the place where everybody knew you to begin with. So college is where we're seeing the fruit of that. But that seed was planted a long time before.
- [14:51]
A
So then you really have, I mean, from early childhood to about third grade. Third grade. To really help solidify your child's faith.
- [14:59]
B
Yes.
- [14:59]
A
That is not a lot of time.
- [15:00]
B
That is not a lot of time. And so I would say, and people.
- [15:02]
A
I think most parents think like, okay, when they're like 12, 13, 14, that's when we can start really talking about why we believe what we believe.
- [15:09]
B
Yeah.
- [15:10]
A
Does a lack of understanding, apologetics correlate to deconstructing one's faith?
- [15:14]
B
Oh, absolutely. So I. And like, I would say this, I can just share my story. My story is. Is kind of why I do what I do. And that's. I was. I was exposed to apologetics probably when I was 12. I had a pastor who went through, I don't know if you're familiar, the liar, Lord lunatic, trilemma. Although I would say that we have a quadrillema. I don't know what you would call it. Liar, Lord lunatic and legend now. So he went through. Who was Jesus, you know, liar. Was he a liar? Was he just a lunatic? He thought he was God, but he really wasn't and he was just deceived. Or was he actually Lord? And so he went through that. Then he went through the evidences for the resurrection of what is Any other possible explanation that would make sense with the historical documents that we have from that time. And it kind of like, I came away with the idea of, like, wow, it would be a way bigger miracle for Jesus not to have been raised from the dead and have history play out the way it did. It makes a lot more sense for him to have been raised from the dead. It explains the data best. And then the final one was the reliability of the New Testament documents of have these been changed over time. And so when I had those three things, I would say that was the foundation of my faith, that no matter what I felt, no matter if things didn't make sense, I. I couldn't unknow what I knew. And so I felt like I had to check my brain at the door if I was going to walk away from the faith. Now you'll have different people with different personalities. I kind of generally put them into the thinker, feelers and doers. And what these are, are. Is what kind of evidence do they value most? So for the thinkers, the. The evidence that they value most is going to be, does this make sense? Is this historically defensible? Is this philosophically defensible? Well, then you're gonna, you're gonna have the people who are the feelers who they say, does this relationally make sense? Is God good? Like, they need to be convinced of the goodness of God and not just the truth of God. And then you'll kind of have the doers that they say, well, does this work in the real world? Because we can have this really great, really good idea. And if it doesn't explain reality and if it doesn't work in the real world, well, then what's the point? And so we kind of. And even in the Gospels, you see Jesus coming with different types of evidence, two different types of people. People. I would say Mary Magdalene, that was very much. She needed to feel that love. She needed to have that acceptance. And that to her was the ground on which she stood in order to follow Christ. And then you have someone maybe like Thomas, who he needs to have. He needs to have the facts, and then you'll have other ones where they. They need to know. This explains all the prophecies in the Old Testament. So maybe that would be someone like John the Baptist. When John the Baptist was doubting, it happened kind of in a very public way. And Jesus didn't say, oh my gosh, did you, did you not just say, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world? Did you not see the Dove the descended upon me. He answered what John valued. He told John's disciples, go back and tell John what you've seen and heard. The, the, the lame are healed, the blind see, and good news is being preached to the poor. Those were messianic prophecies. That's what John valued. And so this is part of getting to know your child. What are the things that value, what evidence matters to them, and it might be different for different children. And so we're trying to find all the different ways, all the different evidences that will matter to children in order for them to say, I know that, I know that I know. And even when it's unpopular, I'm still going to stake my life on this.
- [18:48]
A
Where do you stand on the should children really have to worry about being salt and light argument?
- [18:54]
B
Salt and light never has to think about being salt and light. I think sometimes parents want to say, oh, my child is a missionary to the people around them. Unless your child has decided that they want to be a missionary, that may not be happening. So there's something this guy named David Kahneman, who's a psychologist, he has a book called Thinking Fast and Slow, and he has a statement in there that says the brain has a hard time to distinguishing between what is familiar and what is true. So if you have kids that are still in the process of trying to figure out if something's true, they can't always be a testament to that truth. That's putting a lot onto them. And so we need to be able to solidify them first. And then it's like they're not going to feel like salt and light. They will be salt and light if they are salt and light. In fact, I like what we look at the properties of salt and light is to prevent decay and to expose.
- [19:50]
A
So then on that note, do you think that we need more Christian kids in public school or do you think it's okay that most Christian families are opting to homeschool now?
- [19:58]
B
It really depends on the kid. This is what I say whenever I get this question, all the time when I speak. And I say, you need to choose your hard because it's really, really hard to combat to combat the eight hours of day of familiarity that's being taught with a lot of the critical thinking that's going on. And you have to be able to combat that at home. And I know moms that are really good with doing that. One of my mama bears, Amy, is so good with just constantly having conversations with her kids to where her kids, they can Call out nonsense in the classroom real fast. It has not made them popular with the teachers, but I'm always cheering them on. So you'll have some kids like that that can handle it. But then there's other kids who are the ones that are really. They're kind of like the, the frog and the kettle. Your hard might be deprogramming them after that time, or maybe your heart is having to do homeschooling, where, I mean, homeschooling is hard, but deprogramming your kid is hard. Homeschooling your kid is hard. Sending them to a Christian school where they think they're a Christian, they're actually not. Having to then get them back to understanding how to interact with people who aren't Christians, that's hard. You have to pick your heart. You have to know what your child is praying prone to, and don't assume that the way you want them to be is the way they are.
- [21:11]
A
How can people be sure to train their children in the instruction of the Lord?
- [21:16]
B
I think first off that they have to really have it themselves. And this is one of the things that Mama Bear really focuses on, is equipping mom so that she can train her kids. I, and, and I would say I do that with the moms. It doesn't mean that the dads aren't as important, but research has shown that when kids have questions, they go to mom first. Like, I've, I, I kind of say this joke in a lot of the things that I talk at. The kid will walk straight past dad, who's sitting on the couch watching tv, and go straight into the bathroom where mom is in the bathtub shaving her legs to ask mom the question. And everybody's sitting there going to testify. It's like all these moms, they know this happens all the time. So equipping the moms, having them understand not only this is what the Bible teaches, but this is why we can believe it's true. If that. You can't. Like I said, you can't impart what you don't have. And sometimes, you know, just we. We've said it on the podcast. Sometimes learning apologetics isn't for your own faith. It's not. You're not trying to defend the faith for yourself, but you have to be able to impart this to your kids, anticipating the questions that they're going to ask, knowing the what and knowing the why. They have to know the basics. Like, if we were to look at how kids were discipled, basically in biblical times, you had the time where they were just dumped full of knowledge of the Bible. And I think a lot of times we think that just having a Bible Bible story here and there is going to do. We had kids, I think, in Hebrew school, they memorized the entire Torah and could spout that out. Now later on, now they have to say, how do. How do all these different pieces of the Bible interact with each other? Because there's knowledge is knowing that what wisdom is knowing the when. So there's sometimes there's certain parts of the Bible that we are going to. You know, there's certain times when we need to speak up, but there's other times when we need to be quiet. Do we know the difference between those two? So imparting that wisdom of the Lord, I think, is really making sure the kids know what the Bible says and then how it interacts with everything they're seeing around them. Are they able to make sense of the world?
- [23:20]
C
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- [23:34]
A
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- [23:35]
C
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- [25:55]
A
The thing that I'm always told is that, well, if you train a child up in the way that he should go, you know, even if they leave the faith, they will eventually come back.
- [26:05]
B
Yeah. And that, that's actually one of the things that one of my co writers in here, Julie, is, says one of the lies is we've depended on our kids being boomerangs. Number one. There. There's. There's some debate on whether or not trading up a child in the way he should go. There's some other interpretations are train up a child according to their way. And so this is where you know how your child naturally thinks, how they naturally act. So I would say my father saw in me that I had a gazillion questions, and I loved thinking and he nurtured that in me. I would say my sister, I remember talking with her once, and she had taken the kids, they lived in Colorado at the time, to a soup kitchen to serve. And they asked her on the way back, mom, when can we do that again? I said, you need to pay attention to that. That tells me what they value. Start Pouring into that. So you're looking at how, how God created your kids to be, and then how can you then nurture the way that they are? Along the lines of the Gospel message I've heard people talk about when we're saying we want to be like Jesus, we're not looking at some external person that we want to be. It's take the character and the attributes of Jesus and what would he act like and what would he do if he had your exact personality, your exact aptitudes, and your exact interests? Wow. And that is what we need to be doing with each of our kids, finding out what is their. Their personality, their aptitudes and interests, and how do we then bring the Bible into who they are? And when you start to have the goodness and the fruit and the attributes of God within the way that you were created, and you feel affirmed in the way that you were created in terms of aptitudes, interest, and personality, that is a very fortifying, solidifying kind of thing, that it's hard to then later separate who you are apart from Christ. Because as long as we make Christianity something I put on top of who I am, then I can just as easily separate that.
- [28:04]
A
So how do you do that? How do you fortify those two things together?
- [28:07]
B
I think it's. It's figuring out the things that they value and then showing how the Bible has addressed those, Those better. So if you have a kid who is really, really concerned about the poor, then we need to be looking at, how does the Bible describe mankind? So that I. I find that a lot of times people know, they. They think that you just tack a verse to something and you've taught a Christian worldview. And that drives me nuts, because that is not how the Christian worldview works. It's something that is integrated into everything. So, for example, you have kids that are really, really concerned about how to love people. Well, we need to really cement into them the idea that people are not born basically good, but they do have what's called the imago dei. They do have ways that they reflect Christmas. So the way that you go about serving people, if I know that the inclination is usually going to be evil, but there are pieces of them that will be drawn to Christ. How can I draw out that image reflector, as opposed to thinking all I have to do is put this person in the right environment and suddenly they're going to be good. Those are two different worldviews that are competing with each other. And if we can train that child up into service and love and Showing how that's the heart of Christ, they will make that part of who they are. Now, similarly, if we have a child who is constantly like me asking why. It's like my mom gave me, I don't know if your mom did this. When I finally got married, she gave me like all the things, all the old report cards, all the things that she was tired of saving throughout the years.
- [29:36]
A
Yeah.
- [29:37]
B
And she's like, they're yours now. But I went through all of those. And if you look at in kindergarten, the, the things that my teacher said is asks lots of questions. My parents met some of my grad school professors. The first thing he said to them was, wow, she asked a lot of really great questions. How are you fostering those questions and saying, hey, guess what? The Bible has answers to this. Because if we just drop everything, if I'm, you know, if I'm a parent and I'm not a thinker and I say, well, you just have to have faith.
- [30:03]
A
Yeah.
- [30:04]
B
That then you're going to have an 8, 8 year old that says God can be stumped by the questions of an eight year old. They have not integrated the Christian worldview because they now believe the Christian worldview has nothing for a person like me. Or if you have a kid who's a total doer, who they just said, you know, stop talking about all the things. More doing, I want to go out and do all these things and you're sitting there and you're pounding in them. You have to memorize all this stuff. Then they say, Christianity is just for, it's just knowledge. It has nothing to do with the real world. I can then separate from that. So you're learning how they are and saying, how does Christianity integrate with how you are created? And this is really hard for parents, especially when you have kids that are very, very much not like you because you want them to have the impact of the evidence that impacted you in the same way when they could be a completely different kid. And this is, I think a lot of times is we have a lot of churches with a lot of feelers in them. And so they keep preaching more and more about the love of Christ. And then you have this whole, whole group of people that say, I have questions and I want to know intellectually what's going on. And the church doesn't have a place for me. So I'm going to go make friends with all the skeptics and with all the atheists. And I become that by default because there was nowhere in the church that dignified how I was.
- [31:23]
A
What do you say to somebody who's not a Christian? And they say, okay, you are teaching parents how to indoctrinate and brainwash their kids.
- [31:31]
B
I would say that basically there's a certain amount of time of imprinting of kids that it doesn't matter what you do, it's all brainwashing. Because basically you. I. It's like kids will just. They're like sponges. It doesn't matter what you put them around. So, okay, I can put them a spun in a sponge around secular beliefs, or I can take a sponge and put them around Christian beliefs. It's like we're all indoctrinating our kids. So stop acting like, you know, Christians are all special doing this. Kids are basically. They just absorb what they have or what they're around. So I would just say you're saying.
- [32:03]
A
There is indoctrination happening with your kids, whether it's from. Or it's from who, their school, their school, their friends, whatever. It's happening. So you might as well let it be you and, you know, your Christian worldview.
- [32:15]
B
It's happening either way. So I would, I would ask them what they mean by indoctrinating, because a lot of times they have a different definition. It's one of those things where we're supposed to emotionally react to this word. It's something that we talk about in the book called Linguistic Theft, where someone takes a word and they redefine it. So if. If the idea of teaching kids means that I'm imparting all the knowledge that they're going to be, that they need, and they're a sponge either way. Well, I can call that indoctrinating. But indoctrinating is really where you're teaching someone this. This is the way it is, and there's no alternative. And you're not allowed to ask questions. Indoctrination means you're not allowed to ask questions. And unfortunately, Christians have a history. When they don't know the answer to something, then they just shut down the questions. And that's not a good look on us. There is some sort of indoctrinating going on when you're not allowed to ask questions. But if you're teaching kids how to ask questions and how to challenge things and how to wrestle with how these things work with the Christian worldview, that's not indoctrination. And that, in fact, that's really what we do with Mama Bear Apologetics, is we're trying to get kids who know how to ask the right Questions and then show how the God of this universe is really sufficient for those questions that he has explained. He has explained reality, he created reality, he can explain reality. But it just takes a lot of times higher order thinking that maybe a lot of times people especially, and this is where it's really hard with moms, where when you're just trying to keep these kids alive, you're trying to make sure that they don't die and that they have healthy food and that you're feeding them the things that don't have chemicals, and they get to soccer practice on time and they're being respectful to their coach and all these millions of different things. Sometimes it can feel like, when do I have time to do all the rest of those. Those other aspects of integrating?
- [33:56]
A
Does defending your faith mean that you have to be prepared to do all the talking?
- [34:00]
B
That is a great question. I would say a lot of defense is knowing how to ask the right question. So I'll give you an example. I was on the beach and just sitting with a friend. And then we. We asked some college girls that were nearby to take a picture, and we just kind of got in conversation with them. And of course, we started talking about Christianity. And they were saying along the lines of we shouldn't have bias, we should look at things without bias. And I just kind of asked the question, I said, do you think we should have a bias towards truth? And she was like, well, I never thought about that. I was like, because if something's true and something else is false, shouldn't I have a bias towards that? And she was like, well, that's actually a really great question because we. People keep liking to use these words like bias and indoctrination and. And act like it's only one group that has this. When judgments are good, there's bad judgment and there's good judgment, you know, judging, hey, I shouldn't walk on this in the dark in this alleyway with this strange man that I see coming towards me with a hoodie that I, you know, that's looking down, maybe not a good idea. That's a judgment that I make, but that's a good judgment. But people will take the word judgment and make it like it's all bad. So, no, you don't have to be the one to always do the talking. I would say finding out what they know. A lot of times you can uncover people with incongruent beliefs that they've never said it out loud. And once they say it out loud, they realize, yeah, that sounds kind of funny. So sometimes just exposing what they actually think can be a really good thing. Now, if they have specific questions, that's. That's a good time to be able to answer some of those questions. But I would say most of the time, knowing how to think through things will take you way further than knowing just some dump truck full of facts.
- [35:46]
A
I just am curious. So these college girls that were coming over to take your picture and you said, well, we ended up talking about Christianity, how?
- [35:54]
B
I think I started asking them about what they were doing, what they were studying, and then I knew that there were certain hot button, maybe cultural questions. I say, well, how do you make sense of that? You know, I think there was one of them that was doing marketing. I was like, ooh, marketing? That would be really hard. What do you do, like, when you're having to market something that you know is a bad product?
- [36:13]
A
Wow.
- [36:14]
B
So this is the kind of thing that Christians should be thinking about. If I'm going into marketing, what do I do if something's a bad product? Product? How do I act? How does a Christian act differently? Or there was one that was really interested in social work. And so I was saying, oh, oh, wow, that's really interesting. What are some of the things that you've seen? And just hearing some of the stories and some of the frustrations that she's had with maybe people who had the chance to help themselves but just didn't.
- [36:40]
C
Right.
- [36:40]
B
How do you. Do you think it's a good idea to just keep propping someone up if they do? Sometimes people need to hit rock bottom before they actually start helping themselves. Huh. How would you. How would you recommend going about that? And she just kind of stopped and thought, well, I never thought about it before. Christians should be the most thoughtful people on the planet with all these different questions. Because we're being told, this is how you do social work. I mean, told, this is how I do marketing. I'm being told this is how I do medicine. But are we taking that back to how Christianity teaches? So one of the things that Christianity teaches is that the body was designed. We cannot have health unless we know what something was designed for. So if someone doesn't even believe that there is design, well, how can they get back to what a healthy, functioning body is? These are all these questions where you get people thinking, and sometimes you don't need to defend anything. Or, for example, there was a. There was a plane flight I was on. I was reading a book called Cold Case Christianity by one of my favorite people, J. Warner Wallace Jim is just such. He's a genuine, genuine man. I love him. She started talking to me, and she started saying, well, I'm in college and I'm in a theater program, and I have a bunch of friends who are homosexual, and I don't know what to do about that with Christianity. And so I know she expected me to go off on some like, well, here's what the Bible says about sex. But what I said was, well, you know, you say you're a Christian. Do you actually believe that? That Jesus died, that he rose again, and that the Bible is trustworthy in what it says? And she said, well, I don't know. I said, you know, what if Jesus didn't live and he didn't die and he didn't rise again? It doesn't matter what the Bible says about homosexuality. It doesn't matter what the Bible says about sexuality in general. So she had to go back and grapple with what the actual question was.
- [38:33]
A
I like that pivot. I like that pivot to, well, what? Well, what do you think as a Christian that the Bible says about homosexuality? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then. And then asking like, well, does it matter?
- [38:42]
B
Does it matter? It does not matter what it says if it's not true. We need to figure out if this thing is true first.
- [38:51]
C
Flossing is that thing we're all supposed to do but always forget to do. But listen, I just realized that I've been putting plastic. Yes, plastic between my teeth for years. How did I find out? Well, you know those natural flosses that they sell at Whole Foods and places like that? I bought a pack, thinking, you know, I'm being so eco friendly, only to find out it was made from polyester, which, if you didn't know, is basically just a microplastic bomb waiting to explode on your gums. So great, right? Well, that's when I discovered zebra floss. And it's a total game changer. The stuff is silk. Yeah, silk, peppermint oil, xylitol. Not plastic, not polyester, not anything that you can't pronounce. It's actually healthy for your gums, and it's so much better than anything that you're probably using right now. Plus, zebra is free from all the gross chemicals like pfas, which some other natural flosses still have. Yikes. You will not find that in zebra. Just a clean, silky experience that'll make you feel like you're flossing in a spa. If you want to floss the right way, go to.
- [39:47]
B
Yay.
- [39:47]
C
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- [40:32]
A
It feels like it is.
- [40:33]
C
That's where Toothpillow comes in. So Toothpillow has partnered with airway dentists to create a virtual dental program that gets to the root of these problems before it's too late. You start with a virtual assessment and then they help guide you and your child through the process of correcting these issues. So go to toothpillow.com click is my child a candidate? And use code Alex Clark for a free video assessment. Today it's time to help our kids breathe, sleep and grow the way they're supposed to. No more band aid solutions. We're going to fix it from the inside out. That's toothpillow.com code Alex Clark.
- [41:07]
A
Okay, so how do you teach a child to defend that the Bible is the true word of God?
- [41:15]
B
There's five things that I think everybody needs to have in order for the gospel to make sense. The first is that truth exists. And we go through that a lot in the book. Truth exists, and if it does, says who? So truth exists, that God exists, that Jesus as a person existed, that sin exists and it's real, and that I'm a sinner, and that the Bible is reliable. If we don't have those five things and be able to feel like these are absolutely true and I know how to defend them, then it's going to be hard to defend anything else. So this idea of truth, who decides what is true? This is one of those things that we need kids to understand that absolute truth exists and it can be known and we know where it comes from. Because people want to say, well, you know, that's where you just have to have faith. Everybody has faith on where they think the ultimate Truth comes from. Pick your faith. Don't say I have to have more faith than you have. You're still having to pick where your faith is coming from. If your faith says that, it all comes from the human mind. And I decide what's true. Okay, well, there's a lot of people in prison who've lived their truth and did what they thought was right. Do we really believe that people come up with good things? That's something now we can talk about. Or that truth itself, Truth exists. You would be surprised at how many people say truth doesn't exist. Okay, well, can I fix diabetes by eating ice cream? No, because there's a truth that I need insulin. I have a bias towards insulin and any of that. So anyway, the idea that truth exists, the idea that God exists, going through. There's a. There's a bunch of books out there on just the evidences for God. Personally, people ask what my biggest reason for believing in God is, other than the fact that I think the Christian worldview makes sense of everything. Proteins. I was a. I was a biology major. Looking at the way proteins are constructed through DNA, there is no way that happened by chance. That had to. It shows that something was designed. So does God exist? Was Jesus a real person? And if so, which Jesus are we talking about? And then the. The one that I think is interesting that really, I mean, golly, like 80s and before no one ever questioned is the idea of whether sin exists. Everybody. It's like we've turned it into this whole stay exactly as you are. Everybody just has their unique little flavor. And there's no such thing as good and evil. We do need to know that sin exists, because if it doesn't exist, there's nothing I need to be safe from. And then just that the Bible is reliable. And that's like a real basic look at. I mean, there's so much evidence for the historicity of the Bible that that one is, you know, you have to know a lot of facts. But once you start comparing all ancient manuscripts, all of a sudden you're like, that would be stupid to believe in the other ones and not the Bible. There's such a mountain of evidence for scri.
- [44:04]
A
When it comes to teaching your kids how to spot danger in culture and avoid it on their own. You teach the Roar method.
- [44:10]
B
Yes.
- [44:10]
A
What is roar?
- [44:11]
B
So the Roar method, it comes from the idea of first recognize the message, offer objective discernment, argue for a healthier approach, and then reinforce. So this idea that we have. Christians a lot of times like to polarize things that things are either all black or all white, or it's all good or all dangerous. But if we look at any lie that's coming, most lies will be wrapped in partial truths. And so if there's a lie coming that's wrapped in a partial truth, we need to be able to separate that truth from the lie. Because what happens is, if you reject that whole thing, the people that are holding on to that partial truth say, wow, that person just rejected this partial truth. They're stupid. How can they not see this when they don't realize it's the lie that it's wrapping that you're rejecting? So what we're doing, we're teaching Keith kids do, is that everything has a message. Can we recognize what that message is? And so this would be either with ideas or with, you know, movies and stuff. I like to give the example of the movie Sing. The first time I saw the movie Sing, I was just absolutely aghast at how the main character lied consistently for, like, the first 15 minutes of the movie. Oh, the check's on the way. Oh, I'm telling them on my way. Oh, you know, I. I already booked her. She has. I'm like, this guy's just like a chronic liar. But the message of the movie, Singh, if you were to boil it down to that, is that anything is permissible as long as it's in service for your art, because the highest good is really great art. That's the best thing that you can attain. And anything you can do that really fortifies being able to make your art and be true to yourself with this art is permissible and is morally acceptable. That was the main message of that movie. So recognize the message. Offer objective discernment. So this is where we're separating the good from the bad, the truth from the lies. So a lot of times I have parents say basically, most. Most lies are wrapped in partial truths. We want to separate the truth from the lie, accept the truth, reject the lie. And this is something like they can do with their kids. So what people need to do is if there's something even politically, that I really disagree with, I have to recognize that there is some truth that someone's clinging to. Okay, can I. Do I understand what it is they're clinging to? So even. Even the idea of, say, you know, we. We go through this with all the chapters in there, Marxism, even Marxism has truths that we can claim to mainly. He really saw a lot of abuses of capitalism. We should be able to stand arm in arm and agree with the abuses of capitalism. Now we don't need to agree with the lie that we just need to take away all personal property. That would be the lie that snuck, you know, snuck in there. But until we see what that person, what value they're clinging to, what truth they're seeing, they're never going to have a conversation with us. And so our kids need to be able to see that the world is not an all or nothing kind of thing.
- [46:59]
A
And this really just, it's really finding common ground.
- [47:02]
B
It's finding common ground.
- [47:03]
A
Which is interesting that you say, start an argument like that or whatever because, or a debate that way, because that's what I tell everybody. You know, with abortion as an example, when I'm talking to a pro choice woman, you know, one of the first things, you know, I talk about and ask her about is, you know, do.
- [47:19]
C
You care about women?
- [47:20]
B
Yes. Yes.
- [47:21]
A
Okay, I do too. You know, and then it leads me into this, but establishing like, I really care about the health of the, of.
- [47:29]
C
The mother as well, not just the.
- [47:30]
A
Baby, because, you know, they're on the defense thinking I, I'm the only one that cares about the mother. You only care about the unborn baby. And I'm saying as a pro lifer, I care about both equally. But anyway, so that's interesting that you say that because, yeah, I always say, like, try to build that rapport, find that common ground in that sense.
- [47:45]
B
And so I had this conversation actually with a bunch of college students. And so I said, I want you to find what is the truth that the pro, the pro choice people have. And none of the guys could give it to me. They all say, well, that she wants to do what she wants, that she wants to have a career. I mean, yeah. And it wasn't until a girl that piped up and she said, well, maybe that she wants to marry a godly Christian man one day and, and he won't marry her if she has a child. And they all went silent because they all probably realized, oh yeah, I might think. And then she's like, and what about the fact that we have all these expectations placed on our body and once you go through a pregnancy, your body never looks the same. And then of course, the guys are all silent because they're all probably thinking of, you know, the girls that they haven't dated because they didn't think she looked good enough. And this girl just went off on all these different things about the fact that, you know, if, if I had a scholarship and I lose my scholarship and the scholarship Is only available for someone who's a freshman. You know, different things like that. So these are the things of ways that a woman would actually be harmed. Now that we have that we have all these things, wow, that's really hard. I can understand where someone's coming from. I can have compassion on that. And I confirm that those are all good things. Now we move to are there any of these that would require for someone else to have the death penalty in order for me to keep these things? Right? Yep. Because I like to give the example, especially for pro life things. We all were all aware, I can't remember which country it was that said that they eradicated down syndrome.
- [49:10]
A
I thought it was it Iceland or something.
- [49:12]
B
I think it was Iceland. I was like, it's one of the Nordic countries. Well, yeah, you can eradicate anything as long as you. As long as you kill off everybody that has them. Who out there would say, okay, we're going to fix this homelessness population. And the way we're going to do that is we are just going to kill all the homeless. And you're not allowed to speak of it, about it, against it, unless you're willing to personally take the homeless person into your home and provide for them. That is essentially what is going on with pro life saying, well, you know, you're only allowed to speak about this if you're the one that's adopting and you're doing all these different things to solve every single problem. You're not allowed to speak against an atrocity. Yes, we should all be able to speak out against the killing of innocent human lives no matter what. So, yeah, again, this would be. We're looking for the truth and the lie that is both there. That way we have that common ground and we have a place. Then you go for. Argue for a healthier approach. And this is where you probably do with the women that I believe that the pro choice, I'm sorry, the pro life position is more pro woman than the pro choice position is. And then you start saying, I'm arguing for a healthier approach. How has the bible actually taken this value that you and I both agree on and addressed it better? And that's where we. We start reasoning through. We need to hang on to this truth. And how does the Bible re reinforce that? And then the R is mainly for parents reinforced through discussion, discipleship and prayer.
- [50:37]
C
Got it.
- [50:38]
B
So the discussion, this is where we're talking about all the things, the discipleship, maybe. If we're doing the pro life, we're not just talking about all the arguments for it. But now we're going to serve at at a pregnancy place. Now we're actually being the hands and feet of Jesus. We're discipling our kids through that pro life position and then prayer. This is one of the biggest ones that I think that we need to realize that intellectual things need to be addressed intellectually, emotionally. Needs to be addressed emotionally. But there are spiritual forces out there that there is no arguing and there's no amount of love, there's no amount of anything that is going to defend defeat that spiritual stronghold. And unless we are praying through that spiritual battle, then we're just going to keep losing the battle.
- [51:25]
C
I am humbly coming to you with my tail between my legs. Do I ever admit that I'm wrong? Rarely.
- [51:32]
B
Ever.
- [51:33]
C
So you better enjoy this. I said I would never do it. But I am loving a certain skincare brand that does incorporate beef tallow.
- [51:40]
B
What?
- [51:41]
C
It's Primally Pure. They are my one and only exception for this because it is so dang good. And it just isn't only beef tallow. Primally Pure is all about clean, non toxic skincare that actually really works. Like I am blown away. No chemicals, no fillers, no synthetic fragrances. All of their products have ingredients that you can pronounce and I love that. They're sourced from regenerative farms. I love that too. Forest, I really love that.
- [52:08]
B
And fields, I really love that.
- [52:09]
C
And their products are as clean, clean as they come. The beef tallow. Okay, so here's what's interesting. Primally Pure animal based skincare has a unique makeup that mimics your skin's natural oils, making it far more effective and biocompatible than many vegan skincare options. These handpicked ingredients like emu oil or beef tallow for skin seamlessly absorb, balance oil production, protect the microbiome and minimize inflammation. All of their products are created with pasture raised, grass fed and ethically sourced animal and botanical ingredients to feed the skin a more nutrient dense diet. It's a biological match made in heaven. Primally Pure skin care supports a balanced lipid barrier, a critical component for fewer breakouts and fine lines, creating clear and healthy skin. So this is a huge green flag for me. My new cult favorite products from Primally Pure. Get ready. You're going to want to write this down.
- [52:59]
B
Write this down. Write this down.
- [53:00]
C
The dry skin cleansing oil. Oh my gosh. Use that before cleansing their non toxic vanilla almond body wash. Pour it on me. The plumping mist. Now this. I thought what even is this? It is something that I spray on before every serum. It is my new addiction. The smell, the way it preps my skin, the way it feels I cannot rave enough about. Also their natural dry shampoo which comes in options for light or dark hair. Primally Pure is one of the top clean skincare companies in the world. If you're ready to switch to something cleaner and more effective, head to primallypure.com check out the thousands of five star reviews from people just like you. From people like me. If they converted me, you know Primally Pure is good. Use code Alex Clark at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. That's primally pure.com code Alex Clark for 15% off. And I'm just going to warn you, you better block out some time because there's about a bajillion things on this website that you're going to want.
- [53:59]
A
Inevitably, there's going to be a day where your child completely stumps you with a really hard theology Question. Question. Your kid says science is fact based, but Christianity is just faith. Science and Christianity don't go hand in hand. How would you help Christian kids demolish these arguments with apologetics?
- [54:16]
B
First of all, I would want to look at the history of science. And it was actually from a Christian worldview that science was birthed. Before the Christian worldview when we had this idea of gods, they were all very, we'll say capricious. They were all they needed to be appeased. You couldn't predict what they were going to do. It wasn't until the Christian worldview that says we serve a God who changes not that has, that has moral laws, therefore we expect regularity in the world. And it was out of that Christian world view that we said we should be able to test these forces because we believe that they're going to be regular, that, that that argument only holds, holds water if you don't know the history of science. And I, that's one of the beautiful things that science attests to the glory of God. I, I have my master's in biology. I felt like I worshiped more doing that masters of biology than I did in any of the seminary classes that I did. Just because it's like I would say the physical world and the spiritual world just have so many kind of parallels to them. It's just this beautiful way. But I would also look at the number of scientists that have Nobel Prizes that are all Christians and all the early scientists, you know, the, the Kelvin and the Isaac Newton and the, the early scientific revolution. It was all birds out of their Christian worldview. So if someone wants to make the claim that science and Christianity are at odds, they need to defend that claim, because history does not defend it.
- [55:41]
A
The Bible never mentions homosexuality.
- [55:43]
B
There's a lot of things that the Bible doesn't necessarily mention. What God does is he gives us the design. Now let's. We can. This is where I have a recommendation where you play a game. We'll say a spatula. Let's go through all the things that a spatula shouldn't be used for. You know, like if we're going to make it for making food, should we use it for cleaning up vomit? Well, do we need to put that in the instructions? This should not be used for cleaning up vomit. No, because sometimes you say what something is for, you don't have to go through all the things that it's not for. And I would say the homosexuality. We do have homosexual behavior. What the person is going on is the idea that a homosexual is an identity as opposed to a behavior. And now you. You need to prove that my sexuality is my identity, because I think that's something that we can debate. But if we want to just go, does the Bible address sexuality? Does it express what sex was created for and deviations from it? There's a whole long list in, in Leviticus 20 and. And 18. And if someone was going to pivot and say, why does Jesus never speak out against homosexuality? It's because Jesus was speaking to people who already had the law. That would be like, why isn't anybody coming over here and telling me the good news of driving on the right side of the street? Well, because we already drive on the right side of the street. It's not something we question. It's something that we already know. So he didn't reiterate that. But you do look at the epistles that were written for Gentile audiences, and they all go specifically into sexuality issues. Because you had people that didn't have the law, that didn't know. So when it was an audience that already knew that already had the law, they don't discuss it. When it's an audience that didn't already have the law, then they do discuss it. In fact, there was a point in Acts, I believe, where they say, we have these people that are coming to us and wondering, what do we do with the law for these new Gentiles? And he said, there's four things that they need to pay attention to. Basically. No idolatry, no meat that was strangled. Don't stay away from Blood and don't practice sexual immorality. So that sexual immorality was one of the four things that they said. These are the things you need to pay attention to. And that's going to be defined by the way that the law was originally given.
- [57:58]
A
There's also like so many examples too, throughout the Bible of mentioning, you know, man and woman, the bride and, and, you know, as the church, and all, all these different things. I mean, so that to me is proving, you know, what the standard is supposed to be.
- [58:13]
B
Yes. And we have a whole book actually on this. So we have the Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality that's currently out. And then we have the Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality and Gender Identity where that. We're adding more. The gender identity that's coming out in the fall. So if people want to see more on that, then we've got some great resources for that.
- [58:31]
A
There isn't a shred of evidence that God exists.
- [58:34]
B
That's actually one of the titles of the book. Someone would really need to prove that there wasn't a shred, shred of evidence. That's called hyperskepticism. And you need to figure out what their, what their standard of evidence is because as we saw with one of the conversations with a guy named Bart Ehrman, he, he said my friend Justin Bass asked him what would it take for you to believe that what we see in the Gospels was what was originally written? And he gave a standard for evidence that is not. Does not exist for any ancient document ever. So that's what you call hyper skepticism. So someone says there's not a shred of evidence. They just, they haven't looked. That's someone who just doesn't want to believe.
- [59:14]
A
What about it doesn't matter who you worship or what church looks like for you, as long as you're doing something.
- [59:19]
B
One thing that people usually said that people can be sincere, but they can be sincerely wrong. Name me any other thing where it really doesn't matter if I truly believe that, you know, cyanide is good for me. It doesn't matter how much I believe that that's going to kill me. So this is the person who doesn't believe that there's actual truth and, and, and lies. They're just saying that this is all just preference. And so that's another issue. I hear these questions And I hear the 20, 000 questions underneath that we like kind of go through in here of where they came to that conclusion in the first place. That person doesn't even Believe in truth.
- [59:52]
A
If God existed, then why do innocent people, and especially children, die or get hurt?
- [59:58]
B
If our assumption is that God's purpose for us is to have a happy life here in this earth, then that would not make sense. However, if God's purpose is to cultivate a people who are going to live forever and never and have free will and never use that free will in all of eternity to sin, then they need a really good lesson on how stupid sin is. And they need to learn that lesson really good if it's going to last for all eternity. And so whatever other method you can think of for preventing this, it has to work on all teenagers. Oh, just write a book or just give rules. Oh, just show them a movie where something bad happens. Every single example we know people will still go and try to sin. This world reflects exactly what it would look like if God said, I'm going to give you your way. I'm going to allow sin into the world. And you're going to see how jacked up everything gets and what it means to have to take responsibility for actions, that your actions have meaning. Because if he just miraculously saved us out of every stupid thing that we ever did, then that's a person who doesn't learn how to not make stupid decisions.
- [61:07]
A
How do you know when to speak versus when to stay silent? When it comes to defending Christianity, I.
- [61:13]
B
Would look at is this a genuine question or is it not? I'd say if you're specifically asked about who you are and what you believe, then I believe you're always supposed to speak up. If it is someone who's coming at you with a thousand different questions because they're trying to just shut you down. We call that game stump the chump. And you don't always need to play stump the chump. And I would say, especially if a person has gone to what we call fight or flight, where they've gone into that real emotional part where their amygdala is triggered, their frontal cortex is down. That's when the conversation needs to end. Because usually, number one, they're not able to take in any kind of reason. And once you start getting into that fight or flight where you're getting emotional and you're not in your frontal cortex, you need to stop talking, too, because you'll usually say something stupid.
- [62:04]
A
If you are an adult who wants kids, but you're listening to this conversation and you're like, I am nowhere near where I need to be, you know, defending Christianity, should you have kids?
- [62:15]
B
Oh, absolutely. Well, I mean, I think first is you need to ask, has the Lord called you to kids? And if you feel like the Lord has called you to marriage, then I think you need to be say that the Lord has called you to the open the option of kids. You, you do need to know that you do what you can with what you have and then you give the rest to God. Because ultimately we can do all the right things and it still fail. Or we could do just one right thing and everything else is wrong and the Lord chooses to use that. That one right thing that we did. I would say don't let fear keep you from doing what God has called you to ever. Because if we think it's our actions that we're the one that's going to prevent everything from happening, then we don't really understand the God that we serve. I think he calls us to. He. He loves that we labor with him and he calls us to do all these things, but it's ultimately him that's responsible for the, for the. The final product.
- [63:09]
A
I guess a mom who has a kid in first through third grade who is looking at their child and going, I have not set them up to be an apologist. You know, and we're. We're approaching this third grade mark where you're saying a lot of their worldview is shaped. What should they do today?
- [63:26]
B
Number one, I really think you just need to read the book and see what kinds of lies might be coming in that they're not even aware of. And then have purse. I would say if there was one thing to do, have purposeful conversations. Have purposeful conversations and be able to look for different places. You don't have to know all the things. You just need to know how to think through things and know how it integrates with the Bible and ask your kids what they think. How would. How would. What decision would we make based on if the highest good was knowing ourselves? What decision would we make if the highest good was glorifying God? What would those two different decisions look like just asking them questions purposefully and talking about it?
- [64:06]
A
What has been the hardest theology question that you've heard of a kid asking that? You're like, whoa, that's a good one.
- [64:12]
B
We had one sixth grader who asked what the difference was between Gnosticism and Satanism.
- [64:17]
A
Oh, my.
- [64:18]
B
So he was definitely one that had access to the Internet. So he. But other than that, usually they're just kind of long answers and something that I. Some encouragement that I want to give to parents is there. There was. I'M trying to remember who it is. Out in Pasadena, what's the Fuller Institute? They did something called Sticky Faith and they found that one of the things that kids need is not necessarily having all the answers, but just having a place to express their doubts and express their questions that, that it's almost like it, it relieved the pressure. And so I would say be aiming for being able to think through these and give answers because I think kids are trying. We're going to decide whether or not my future question has an answer based on if any of my past questions were answered and if none of my past questions were answered, that I stop asking questions because I assume that there's no answer. But at the same time, if we are encouraging them and we're talking through it, it's going to relieve some of that pressure to where the more times that we do kind of answer things, they can say whatever the question is that's coming up in the future. If I think hard, if I find the right people to talk about this with, it's probably going to have an answer to. And that's really kind of the experience that we're wanting to give them is that questions do have answers if we find the right people in the right resources.
- [65:35]
A
If someone feels a nagging on their heart to start reading their Bible for the very first time, where do you suggest they start? What Bible do you suggest they get?
- [65:45]
B
I would say just get a translation that you like. Usually I would say niv, esv, New King James and then look at a bunch of different versions. It's like as you're reading, just become familiar. Your first step is just becoming familiar because.
- [66:02]
A
So you saying just start in the beginning at Genesis.
- [66:04]
B
Well, I would say start in the, the start in the New Testament, I think because the Old Testament makes more sense when you read the New Testament. But yeah, start in the New Testament, look at what God said and then just start going through and maybe put yourself like on a two year plan, read through the whole Bible every two years. Because what you're doing is you're getting familiarity. And once you start getting familiarity with all these different parts, you start piecing them together and you realizing how it works. The worst thing you can do is just start in the Old Testament and read it as if these are snapshots of what God wanted to happen. So when you realize throughout the history of the Old Testament how patient God is, that would be one thing. Also be asking the question as you're going through, what is God revealing to me about himself? Not what Is God trying to reveal about me necessarily make it about God? There was an interview I heard with a woman where she said that she read the Bible with looking for herself and came away hating God. And someone told her, look, read through the Bible again looking for God, and she came away loving God.
- [67:07]
C
What is the best tip to make.
- [67:08]
A
Sure that you're storing what you're reading in your heart and also understanding it?
- [67:13]
B
Know the difference between reading and studying? I would say that there's times when you're just called to be reading and that's where you're just kind of feeding on that word and knowing that just like I don't understand exactly how everything that I eat goes in and nourishes part of my body, I know that I need to still be eating in order to have that nourishment. Now there's going to be some times where I start learning about the Bible and I start studying the Bible and I start picking up on things that I didn't before. And that's just like all these extra things. But just knowing that sometimes, just saying, lord, praying beforehand, being open, lord, I'm going to read this. I don't understand the changes that you're doing in my heart, but I trust that you're doing something. And so I'm going to do it, even though it seems like a chore, but you are delighted in my obedience and therefore I choose to worship you with my obedience.
- [67:56]
A
If you could offer one remedy to helicit culture physically, mentally or spiritually, what would it be?
- [68:02]
B
I'm gonna quote my old professor Clay Jones with his one tip. If everybody was come away. One tip. Read the Bible and do what it says.
- [68:12]
C
That's good, simple, straight to the point.
- [68:14]
A
That's this episode, baby. You've got a bunch of books. Mama Bear Apologetics is my favorite. I absolutely love this book. So many of my mom best friends love this book. What are your other books that you also have?
- [68:25]
B
Yes, we have the Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality, which we have the update with all the gender ideas, identity stuff coming out. And then we have honest prayers for mama bears. And this is one of those things that we have incorporated scripture in everything that we've done. And a lot of times people say they don't even know where to start with prayer. And I think they think that they need to sound a certain way. And I learned that the most effective prayer I have ever prayed in my life was when I was in ninth grade and I was honest and I said, lord, I want to want you, but I just don't right now. So I don't want you, but I want to want you. And I watched the Lord increase my desire for him all four years because I think I got to the crux of the matter. And so in honest prayers for Mama Bears, we try to make it to where you're actually praying the things that are on your heart and what you actually believe, but then reorienting you towards truth. But where you can just let all the yuck out first.
- [69:15]
A
Where can people follow you on social media?
- [69:17]
B
So we are on Instagram, we're on Facebook and then just any of the mama bears that are just individuals you can find us on. Yeah, Facebook and Instagram. We're on Twitter sometimes but. Or sorry, X. We're on X sometimes, but there's just not a lot of discussion that can happen in with those.
- [69:33]
A
And you guys have a website?
- [69:34]
B
Oh yeah.
- [69:35]
A
Blogs and stuff.
- [69:36]
B
Thank you for telling me about my own stuff. Yes, we have a website that's probably the best place to go. It's www.mamabearapologetics.com and that's Mama M A M A Bear Apologetics. People spell mama and all sorts of crazy ways. So just look at how it's spelled on the book and that's where you can find us online.
- [69:53]
A
Yeah, and the book is great because I mean she does go in depth of all of the different things you can say for a bunch of different questions that you know, come up when people are wrestling with faith and, and all of that that you can not only I like the book because it helped me understand things, but also be great for children for you to help your kids. So Mama Bear Apologetics. Thank you Hillary for coming on Culture Apothecary.
- [70:13]
B
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
- [70:19]
A
If you like this episode, you're really going to like my episode with Seth Gruber from September of 2024. Please leave a five star review and tell others why they should listen to Culture Apothecary. We're on a mission to heal a sick culture twice a week, every Monday and Thursday at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, where a new guest brings a unique remedy. Subscribe to Real Alex Clark on YouTube and follow me on Instagram at Real Alex Clark. You can find merch for the show at tpusamerch.com code Alex Clark will get you off. And if you're looking for more like minded friends that love all the topics that we cover on this show, join the cute Servitude Facebook group.
- [70:53]
C
I'm Alex Clark and this is culture. Apothecary.