(Caleb has helped me immensely as I teach with these two compilations/scenarios. Next time: a few obvious, but timely, suggestions to help us stay in scenario 2.)
The first is a composite of several of the many stories I read (among the thousands that are available on-line) of deconstructors. Tom, a young man who grew up attending the services of the church and being active in the youth group, is doing research for a science paper he has been assigned to write for his high school biology class. He comes across an article that provides an argument for the common descent of chimpanzees and humans based on the fused chromosome that humans have. He doesn’t know what to do with this, but his confidence in the Genesis account is shaken. Not long after this, Tom finds out that one of his close friends thinks of himself as being homosexual. He asks his parents why they think that homosexual people are living in sin, and they have some vague sense that the Bible probably teaches against that, but they don’t know where in the Bible it is discussed. Tom has in his mind that his good friend must be pleasing to God, despite his homosexuality, so homosexuality could not be wrong. Later, Tom reads the accounts in Joshua of the Israelites driving out and killing the Canaanites. He doesn’t know how a loving God could allow that. He also reads that there is little evidence outside the Bible that the Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt. He talks to his preacher about it, who tells him to have faith in the Bible, but doesn’t explain any answers to these problems, and so Tom’s confidence in the Old Testament wears away. Tom tells himself that he still believes in Jesus. But then Tom goes to college, and in a religious studies class, he is presented with a book that argues that the New Testament text has been corrupted and is historically unreliable. So, Tom is led to believe that he can’t know what Jesus was really like. The final straw comes when Tom carefully considers the doctrine of hell. He thinks that it is impossible for a loving God to punish people everlastingly in hell. By this time, however, Tom is so unwilling to hear from people who are citing the Bible to him that he has distances himself from them and will not listen to them anymore. So, Tom thinks to himself, “I don’t think that Christianity is true anymore, and there may not even be a God.”
The second story is quite different, but it is also a composite of my experience with many faithful young people who grow up in the church and stay with the church. Jane is a young woman who also grew up attending the services of the church, and in studying the Bible with a friend of hers who does not believe in God, she is presented with an argument that chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor. She has never considered the evidence presented there, but she finds the article on the Apologetics Press Web site that presents clear evidence that the best explanation for human chromosomal fusion is not common descent, but common design. Jane is very aware of the LGBTQ+ movement, and she wants all of those who identify as being homosexual to be saved, but she also learns as she studies the Bible daily with her parents that God loves them too much to endorse their sin. Her Bible class teacher at church has made her well informed of the Bible passages that deal with the issue, and has even headed off the argument that these passages are cultural artifacts that are vestiges of patriarchy and are not to be taken seriously today. So she is too grounded in the Bible to be swayed by the Woke movement. Jane’s confidence in the Bible grows every time she sees archaeological support for biblical events, even though she understands that not every Bible event can be verified by secular archaeology. Her dad explains to her that there are those who think the Bible has been corrupted, but they they review the manuscript evidence for the New Testament, showing how well supported it is, and that we can know the original text with greater than 99-percent accuracy. Jane’s preacher addresses the topic of hell, showing how that God is the One uniquely situated to determine the appropriate punishment for sin, and that Jesus died as an expression of God’s love, so that nobody has to go to hell. With every potential crisis of faith, Jane’s confidence in God grows, because she gets the answers she needs.
Answer (begin researching and compiling information) important questions as immediately as possible. Involve your kids in the process. They love discovering the answers!