License to Parent with Trace Embry

Yet the Bible contains things that are problematic for our increasingly secularized society such as a six-day creation, talking animals, a global flood, and an ark bigger than a football field built by folks without modern equipment. These are all tall tales or myths in the minds of a growing consensus of Americans today. So if we expect our kids to flourish and become spiritually mature by knowing the truth all while heeding the divine wisdom found in the Bible, helping our kids understand the problematic and controversial aspects of Scripture is a must. After all, every parent desires a pleasant child-rearing experience—both for their children and for themselves.

Since moving to America in 1987, Australian Ken Ham—CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis and the highly acclaimed Creation Museum—has become one of the most in-demand Christian conference speakers and talk show guests. Ken has made television appearances on Fox’s Fox and Friends, CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, ABC’s Good Morning America, and other media outlets. He became internationally known for his 2014 creation/evolution debate with Bill Nye, the Science Guy, which has been watched by an estimated 25 million people.

Ken is also the visionary behind a popular, full-size Noah’s Ark replica. The Ark Encounter opened in Williamstown, Kentucky, in July 2016, and in its first 10 weeks, drew over 300,000 awestruck visitors and 200 media. The life-size Ark is the centerpiece of this evangelistic attraction, and it is located about 40 miles south of the Creation Museum.

Why Parents and Kids Should Seek Wisdom and Truth in the Bible

Since the beginning of time, many kids from different places around the world have honored their parents and been well-behaved without instruction from the Bible. So why is knowing Scripture and understanding it cover to cover the big deal we make it out to be?

Well, most of us don’t have to read the owner’s manual to actually drive our cars—the owner’s manual is that little book gathering dust in your glove box, by the way. Many of us don’t need it to tell us how to use the different accessories on our dashboard, either. We tend to have the adequate observational skills and cursory knowledge of cars necessary to figure out most things—but not everything. We can even do maintenance on our car without the owner’s manual—to a point. That’s why we have owner’s manuals. But the human experience is a lot more complicated than our cars. And, just like our car’s owner’s manual, you can pursue God and how to raise kids without a Bible—and people have done it all through history.

But why would you want to do that? Our Owner/Creator has designed and built us. Why wouldn’t we use His manual, the Bible, to find out the right way to do things? Like our car’s owner’s manual, the Bible is the guide to set us straight on a lot of things—like raising kids. As spiritual as we might think we already are, without an objective source like God’s Word, it is easy to hear from the wrong spirit. Remember who the devil is—he is an entity disguised as the angel of light! The Bible is a tremendous tool for keeping all of us on the straight and narrow. And when it comes to raising our kids, Scripture helps parents with wise insights and tools for bringing up children; it also helps kids better understand what it means to be a good and wise son or daughter.

Will our kids stray from what they know to be right now and then? Perhaps. But don’t we all? At least we always have that objective and perfect source—our Divine owner’s manual—to refer back to for strength, encouragement, knowledge, wisdom, peace, guidance, precedent, and clarity.

When we read anything, we have to know how to properly interpret it and then disseminate the information. This is especially true for the Bible if our kids are going to get an accurate picture of who God is, how He interacts and operates in our lives, and what He expects with respect to a healthy parent/...

Yet the Bible contains things that are problematic for our increasingly secularized society such as a six-day creation, talking animals, a global flood, and an ark bigger than a football field built by folks without modern equipment. These are all tall tales or myths in the minds of a growing consensus of Americans today. So […]

But the outrage is that so many of these media outlets are vying for ratings as hard or harder than they are vying for the truth, making the truth much more tempting to twist, tweak, sensationalize, or lampoon for the sake of political gain and the bottom line. Consequently, it’s hard to really know what to believe anymore. When we don’t know what to believe, it makes it virtually impossible to pass the truth on to our kids.

Derek Hunter is the author of Outrage, Inc.: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood. He is also a columnist, radio host, and political consultant. Derek has worked at the Heritage Foundation as a health policy analyst, has worked on Capitol Hill as a press secretary in the U.S. Senate, was federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform, and was a co-founder of The Daily Caller. He is a contributing editor at The Daily Caller and host of The Daily Daily Caller Podcast. He previously hosted a nighttime and midday radio show on WBAL Radio in Baltimore for seven years and continues to guest host on various radio stations, including WMAL Radio in Washington and WCBM in Baltimore. He lives with his wife and children in Maryland, just outside Washington D.C.

How American Media Is Often More Focused on Opinion Than on Truth

We often talk about the frustration and hopelessness so many kids and parents feel today as they sort through a never-ending assault of information via any number of venues—digital and otherwise. So how do we teach our kids to discern the truth about all the information they take in every day?

Well, in terms of media content, there is a difference in knowing whether the information you are hearing is true and discerning what you should actually believe about the information. For example, I might believe that President Trump really did call a person a nasty name and that some news anchor called him a racist for doing it. That is the content, true or otherwise. But even if he really did call a person a nasty name, I don’t necessarily have to interpret or believe that he is a racist for doing it. And it doesn’t make me or my kids racists because we disagree with a news anchor who calls him a racist.

Too often, in today’s postmodern and relativistic society, whatever media source offers an opinion that aligns with a person’s presuppositions becomes the media source that person accepts as truth. That is the great liability of delivering news stories and offering opinion out of the same mouth. Often, our kids are now developing more of their presuppositions about life and morality from the 24/7 media and entertainment barrage than they are from their churches or their parents. By the way, one hour of church a week—or a token amount of time with parents—is no match for the other 166 or so hours of cultural indoctrination via public schools, entertainment, the largely liberal news media, and 300 social media friends.

All this gets warped and convoluted all the more when so many people in these information venues have agendas. It’s just hard to know who or what to trust anymore. That brings a tremendous amount of insecurity to the table, not just for our kids, but for adults as well. I think we do a terrible disservice to our kids, to ourselves, and to society at large, when we blindly accept everything that comes across the media screen these days.

Proverbs 18:17 says, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” We need to teach our kids to start challenging more of those “facts” and “opinions” in the media by asking all the right questions. The truth is too often sacrificed on the altar of political gain, ratings, and the bottom line, and we have also allowed feelings to trump facts. We should all be outraged about that. Sadly, though, I think it’s all turning more and more of us into a people who are just fine living in a mentally ill society—and that is never a good thing. Today,

But the outrage is that so many of these media outlets are vying for ratings as hard or harder than they are vying for the truth, making the truth much more tempting to twist, tweak, sensationalize, or lampoon for the sake of political gain and the bottom line. Consequently, it’s hard to really know what […]

As parents raise kids in our culture today, they should think about how spiritual problems can impede success. Maybe it’s time to consider how vices like greed or dishonestly can actually hurt our ability to truly succeed in many areas of life.

Dani Johnson is a successful entrepreneur and an international speaker, a coach, and a media host. She is also a bestselling author and has written several books, including Grooming the Next Generation for Success. Dani has not always been so successful, but she feels her her rags to riches story is one that can be duplicated if you know what to do.

How Spiritual Problems Impede Success in the Lives of Many People Today

We are in a spiritual crisis in America today, but we don't know it. I believe my experience at Shepherds Hill Academy has shown me that the intellectual, social, psychological, emotional, and behavior problems plaguing American kids today are coming as a direct result of simply growing up in a society rife with systemic moral problems and questionable moral values. The preeminent problem is a spiritual one, and part of the problem is we are no longer wise people.

I am often hesitant to link our systemic cultural problems with the word “spiritual” because that word is now seen as a fairy-tale word in the eyes of many people today, and remarkably, even in the eyes of many self-proclaimed Christians. “Spirituality” is viewed as a metaphysical construct by today’s secularized citizenry and, therefore, it is no longer deemed to be as credible as those empirical truths that can be observed with the five senses. But you can’t prove love, dreams, ideas, and other non-empirical realities either, yet nobody would argue against the reality of any of those things. Regardless of having no empirical evidence for those things, we all know that they are realities.

So how can the spiritual issues facing our nation today affect the success of our kids? Is it possible that things like greed, idolatry, dishonesty, and unforgiveness are actually hindering our kids from succeeding in some areas of life? Today, Dani Johnson and I continue our discussion about preparing children to succeed as we cover the following subjects:

An overview of Dani’s Story.

How trials can teach kids how to handle certain issues in life.

How the “perfect family” might not exist.

How putting up a “perfect family” facade can teach kids to lie about who they are.

What changes can parents make in order to guide the next generation?

How forgiveness is tied to success.

How idolatry infects American culture.

Why parents need to equip kids to carry their family values into every environment.

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As parents raise kids in our culture today, they should think about how spiritual problems can impede success. Maybe it’s time to consider how vices like greed or dishonestly can actually hurt our ability to truly succeed in many areas of life. Dani Johnson is a successful entrepreneur and an international speaker, a coach, and […]

While too many of us are unwittingly allowing our culture to be our kids’ “other parent,” largely via digital technology, that “other parent” has been doing a whale of a job sabotaging any success we may have otherwise hoped our kids would find. So instead of dooming the next generation for failure, today, we will focus on grooming the next generation for success.

Dani Johnson has taught hundreds of thousands of people around the world about business, money, and relationships. She leads and coaches with a passionate desire to see people not only succeed, but also thrive in the marketplace. As a seasoned entrepreneur, Dani has moved from rags to riches, becoming a multimillionaire in the process. She is a bestselling author, an international speaker, and a host for both radio and television programs. Dani is regularly called upon by major media outlets for her expertise in business, finance, relationships, and spirituality. Dani is also a devoted wife, and she has five children and seven grandchildren. She seeks to serve God both personally and professionally.

How Our Culture Can Make It Harder for Parents to Help Kids Find Success

On License to Parent, we often speak about how parents and their kids are now living in a culture that is nothing less than toxic—at least for anyone trying to live a pure, obedient, and fulfilled life before God. Today, we really do have to be a lot more intentional about preparing our kids to be the Daniels, Josephs, Ruths, and Esthers that they need to be to find the kind of success that Scripture calls the abundant life. The days of solely relying on church attendance to help build our kids’ character and spiritual well-being are over. This is especially true now that the internet is proliferating our culture’s “new-morality!”

Today’s Christian parents need to become serious and intentional about their faith and the spiritual well-being and success of their families—however one defines success. Otherwise, our kids are going to fall prey to the same vain philosophies, grand delusions, and appetites that have now permeated our entire society. After all, smoking weed, watching porn, and constantly playing video games rarely produces any lasting satisfaction or success—and they darn-sure rarely produce a paycheck either. Sadly, these things are becoming the new normal for kids and adults.

In our postmodern and relativistic world, we now pick and choose our realities, not by logic or where the objective evidence takes us, but by how something makes us feel. Consequently, today, everyone does what is right in their own eyes, including our kids.

Even if you don’t take into account all the biblical and spiritual principles, priorities, and values that America has abandoned in recent times, what ever happened to our logic and common sense? Anybody ought to be able to conclude that when one pro athlete's annual paycheck could bankroll a small city’s entire police force, fire department, and public school system, our values and priorities make no sense! But that’s the new American success story. And we have bought it all hook, line, and sinker. I’m looking forward to our guest helping us sort through this success thing for the sake of our kids, our families, our country, and the good name of our Lord. Today, Dani Johnson and I discuss finding true success as we cover the following topics:

How do we define success in the lives of our teens?

What does it mean to groom teens to succeed?

Was Dani’s transformation supernatural?

How has the cultural attack on fathers hindered fatherhood?

How is your child’s environment grooming him or her to fail?

Are we raising our kids for failure?

Are Christians succeeding in setting their kids up for success.

What is the number one thing Christians can do to succeed in our culture.

While too many of us are unwittingly allowing our culture to be our kids’ “other parent,” largely via digital technology, that “other parent” has been doing a whale of a job sabotaging any success we may have otherwise hoped our kids would find. So instead of dooming the next generation for failure, today, we will […]

Arguably, Scripture’s greatest sticking point for the secular mind—and even for an ever-increasing contingent of Christians—has been the veracity of miracles. Many scientists fail to include miracles as even a possibility for things they can’t explain. But when one’s presuppositions about reality refuse to allow for the possibility of miracles, well, what becomes of one’s take on the veracity of Scripture as a whole? The Bible, of course, is chock full of miraculous accounts. If these accounts are merely figurative or, worse yet, mere fabrications of imaginative or deluded minds, how does that affect what Bible-believing parents have always believed about raising kids?

Lee Strobel is the former award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and the best-selling author of over 20 books. His book, The Case for Christ, and its film adaptation are favorites that detail his conversion from atheism to Christianity. His book, The Case for Grace, won the 2016 nonfiction book of the year from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, and earlier this year, he released his latest book, The Case for Miracles.

For the last 25 years, his life’s work has been to share evidence that supports the truth and claims of Christianity and to equip believers to share their faith with people they know and love. He is currently a teaching pastor at Woodlands Church in Texas where he speaks multiple times each year. He also recently joined the faculty at Houston Baptist University as the professor of Christian thought. Lee and his wife Leslie have been married for over 40 years; they have two grown children and live in Texas.

How Doubts About the Veracity of Miracles Are Growing Today

When I was growing up, my family never went to church. But I still knew—by virtue of the predominantly Christian culture I grew up in—that God certainly did miracles and that He created the earth in six days. In my public school, of course, I was taught the earth was billions of years old. Miracles were viewed as something reserved for bible-times and fairy tales. Back then, this biblical-vs-secular contradiction was never discussed by anyone. We just seemed blind to any apparent contradiction.

These days, I actually think some of these contradictions are being discussed more openly than they were when I was a kid, but I’m not sure how effectively they are being discussed by the average Christian family. We live in the information age and in the day of the “New Atheists” who now use the internet as an effective platform to indoctrinate our kids with their sacrilege. I’m talking about guys like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Matt Dillahunty, and the like. My point is that while difficult objections to the Christian faith were largely reserved for seasoned theologians in the past, these difficult challenges are now being presented on the internet to anyone and everyone, by anyone and everyone. Our kids are seeing some strong arguments against the veracity of miracles and Scripture while not seeing or caring to see the strong cases for the veracity of miracles and Scripture. If they can be persuaded that miracles don’t exist, then what does that say for the credibility of the Bible as a whole? Consequently, parents and their kids now have to field questions that most of us are grossly ill-equipped to answer.

When I was going toe to toe with a prominent atheist named David Silverman, he told me that if I could name just one genuine miracle, maybe he would consider Christianity. Of course, he wanted to set his own parameters for what a miracle actually was, and he wanted to re-define terms and revise history. On and on it went. It was comical actually. But there’s an old saying that goes something like, “The mind can’t receive what the heart has already accepted.” I challenged Mr. Silverman that, unless he had a viable third answer for how life and matter came into being, he would probably have to concede his position on miracles by virtue of ...

Arguably, Scripture’s greatest sticking point for the secular mind—and even for an ever-increasing contingent of Christians—has been the veracity of miracles. Many scientists fail to include miracles as even a possibility for things they can’t explain. But when one’s presuppositions about reality refuse to allow for the possibility of miracles, well, what becomes of one’s […]