Over on the Challies blog, he’s posted a comment regarding Rapture Ready, a book written by “a secular liberal” who “immerses himself in Christian pop culture and uses this book to write about his experiences.” This post sparked in me a series of questions that I’ve been asking myself regarding parenting - I commented on the post, but I’m reposting my comments here as well…

I have a concern that I’m not sure how to put into words… but here’s my attempt. Does Bibleman and his ilk fulfill a real need in our culture, create a perceived need, or (please hear my heart) give us parents another excuse to not be the primary teachers of the Gospel to our children?

Our children do need heroes and I know it won’t do to bring in some example from our ancestors and how they didn’t need these fanciful creations sanitized for our evangelical sensibilities. But isn’t the machine of Christian pop culture simply responding to the perceived need?

I want Gospel-saturated children. But isn’t it me who has to saturate them? We have some Veggie Tales videos and my 4-year old daughter loves them… but while watching them with her, I get the nagging feeling that although they have some truth… they aren’t the Truth. The Bible stories are so sanitized as to be almost unrecognizable… what am I really teaching her through this? Is it just wholesome entertainment with some good lessons that I somehow hope will stick?

I’m not pointing any fingers (except at myself) but I’ve been wrestling through these questions (and others) as I try to raise Gospel-saturated culturally aware children. I was a youth pastor for 7 years and that experience did great (and necessary) violence to my view of child-rearing. The simply sanitary and politely pretty were children who could assent to the series of propositions taught to them, but few of them actually had a real understanding of the Gospel. Those children grew up watching Veggie Tales and Bibleman too… many of them aren’t even in church now. Most of the kids who still are… some of them watched those programs, many of them watched (shudder) “secular” programming - the common denominator in almost every case were parents who actively and consistently brought the Gospel to bear on the lives of their children. (There are always exceptions… but this is a generality borne out through experience.)

I am not saying you should throw away your Bibleman videos or your Veggie Tales videos. I’m just saying that the absolute most important thing we should be doing is bring the Gospel to bear in every part of life. They should see us in the Word and in prayer. They should see us set aside devoted time for Him. It is so critical that our love for God is echoed in every part of our lives. Children do need a hero… be that hero.

Addendum (4/23): With some sleep, I would make one edit to the above statement… rather than saying be that hero, I would say that if “hero” is a person who inspires us and we wish to emulate then we, as parents, should have Christ as our hero and that this is evident to our children so that they, too, view Him in the same light. Having said that, I don’t necessarily remove the concept of a child seeing their parents as heroic - but we’ll never be able to remain a superhero… at some point, they’ll see we’re just like them: frail and very human. It’s so very important that they see Christ as that superhero - transcendent and immanent. After all, all superheroes (comic book or otherwise) owe their mystique and awe to borrowed glory in that the aspects of their character that are so admirable are held perfectly in Christ.