In 2017, Jack Gilbert—who teaches microbial science at the University of Chicago—published a fascinating book: Dirt is Good: The Advantage of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System.
As the title suggests, Gilbert challenges a core assumption of every nervous parent, namely that we must take every step humanly possible to protect our child from any and all forms of contamination. It seems that our kids can never use enough hand sanitizer or take enough baths or use enough Clorox wipes.
As paradoxical as it seems, argues Gilbert, some level of exposure to germs can actually be a good thing. It can help children develop their immune systems which, in turn, will protect them when they are older. Indeed, he argues, many health problems (including the rising rate of severe allergies) can be linked to a lack of exposure to certain bacteria.
Here’s the point: the germ-conscious parent may think they are raising healthy children when they may actually be raising vulnerable children—a vulnerability which will not become apparent until many years later.
Now, I am not a scientist and I can’t tell a parent whether they should wash off the pacifier when it falls to the ground. But I do think there is a parallel lesson here in the spiritual world.
As nervous Christian parents, sometimes we think our number one job is to make sure our kids are never exposed to any non-Christian thinking. We may be tempted to place our children inside a sanitized theological bubble, safe from all forms of intellectual contamination. But, just like germ-conscious parents, this may not be accomplishing what we think.
This topic has been on my mind quite a bit since the release of my most recent book, Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student On Keeping the Faith in College. In all of the podcasts I have been doing since the book’s release, one question keeps coming up again and again:
What can parents (and churches) do to help better prepare their kids for the intellectual challenges of college?
What’s interesting is that my book was not written to address that question. It is not a guide for parents or churches on how to develop the next generation. Instead, I wrote for college students who are already in college (or on the verge of college), regardless of whether their preparation had been good or bad.
Even so, all these different podcasts were still interested in the same question. What can we do to better prepare our children?
While there are many answers to that question, I think the lesson of Gilbert’s book can provide an important piece of wisdom. Perhaps Christian parents need to realize that some limited exposure to non-Christian thinking can actually serve to “boost” their child’s spiritual immune systems—a system they will need when they are older.
Put differently, parents and churches need to consider ways to introduce their children, at age-appropriate levels, to non-Christian philosophies, arguments, and criticisms, along with a proper Christian response.
That way, when these Christian students head off to college, they won’t hear these arguments and think, “I’ve never heard that before; why didn’t my parents (or pastor) tell me that?” Instead, they can say, “Yes, I have heard this before, and there are answers to these questions.”
Of course, this must be done with wisdom and care. No one is suggesting we dump a mountain of critical arguments onto a 12-year-old kid thinking that this somehow will help her. Likewise, Gilbert is not arguing that parents should take no cautions whatsoever about exposure to germs. Some pathogens are a real danger and must be avoided (a lesson we learned during COVID).
Moreover, every Christian parent faces a myriad of complex questions about their child’s exposure to a non-Christian world: Can my child watch that movie? Should I let them run in that crowd? Should I send them to that school? These are tough questions. And parents must be very careful about the things to which their child is exposed.
But, at the same time, let’s not think we succeeded as parents if our child turns 18 and has never heard a single substantive argument against Christianity, nor even met a single non-Christian.
We may think we’ve “protected” them, when in fact we may have stunted their spiritual immune system which they will desperately need in the years ahead.
Spencer says
It’s a simple truth about the nature of the heart. “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Matt 15:11
Unwise sheltering can produce the shallowness of ignorance and external righteousness (moralism).
Rachel Cullum says
I thought that we had prepared our children well for the world, communicating with them appropriately regarding current events and things happening in the culture. I was an educated, stay at home wife and mother who chaperoned and volunteered in church, school, and neighborhood activities. Their father supported the family well and led daily family devotions and was active in service in the church. Both children received a good public school education in an excellent school district and they graduated from high school in ‘98 and 2000, both receiving full academic scholarships to the University of SC Honors college. Both children were in SS, worship services and midweek church activities all their lives. They were leaders in school and youth church activities and one was a church camp counselor during summers while in college. They were never in trouble in school and were highly regarded by teachers and classmates. We knew their friends and welcomed them into our home life. We did all that we knew to do to raise godly, productive citizens in an increasingly secular world. Both graduated from University of SC, one in 3.5 years and one in 4 years. One child has been happily married for 21 years and has 10 children who are being successfully homeschooled. The other child committed suicide at age 36. Did we shelter them too much or not enough?
Anna Loughridge says
Quoted from this article, “Put differently, parents and churches need to consider ways to introduce their children, at age-appropriate levels, to non-Christian philosophies, arguments, and criticisms, along with a proper Christian response.”
I agree wholeheartedly…
And I think the above point is very different than, and easily confused with,
“Christian parents should allow their children to look like the world, talk like the world, dress like the world, recreate like the world, be entertained with the worlds entertainment…in order for their child to be adequately “prepared” for life in the real world. In my opinion that is a great way to instill hypocrisy, false professions of faith & as another commented ‘external righteousness’ (moralism). Great article. Will be checking out the author’s book mentioned in it.
Will Almeida says
I think this is especially true when you realize how the world’s desires and affections are all longings from God in the first place, perverted towards the self and sin.
This helps me when I have to have a conversation about “having to use preferred pronouns”. I can say that the longing and the humanity is understandable because of what God has revealed, and I can say how God perfectly fulfills that longing and that identity.
If I know the spiritual antibodies for one sin, it helps a lot with others.
Jim Pemberton says
Wise words.
As they grew, I slowly exposed my kids to different levels of the kind of thinking they would be exposed to in the world. I also understood with the increase in access to information that they would be exposed to a lot of it pretty early on.
I also understood that this exposure needed to be controlled, not by the amount of time they were allowed to watch certain things on TV or how long they were allowed to be on the internet. Rather, this control needed to be my (and their mother’s) involved guidance as they were exposed in ways that didn’t seem forced or contrary to what seemed natural. We prevented them from exposure to certain TV shows or movie franchises and intentionally turned the computer screen so that it was clearly visible to everyone in the house. We didn’t make rules as such, but set up our lives to make the rules we wanted them to abide by a natural part of life. This aided in the rapid internalization of the rules we wanted them to embody. As they grew, we would watch new shows with them and eventually allow them to see the ones that we had shunned as we ascertained that they could correctly understand the meanings in light of Scripture. To that end, we involved them in the ministries we were involved in where they were teaching the Bible that they were learning. (We’ve had a ministry to the South and Central Americas and my wife is the director for our local Child Evangelism Fellowship).
Perhaps you can call this a “holistic” approach, but the internalization of Biblical truths and application to interacting with competing ideas from the fallen world we are part of as Christians cannot be compartmentalized, and it cannot be presented contrary to how they live their daily lives or they will reject it. Christian parents must trade in positive discipleship many times more than negative discipline. Today my kids are grown. They are all Christians. They married Christians. All are active in the ministries of the Church in ways that appropriate to their gifts.