How long does it take
to lose a culture, from a
Christian perspective?
Actually, it takes only one generation.
The devil knows this, and of course God warns us about it.
Adolf Hitler understood this when he said, “He alone, who
owns the youth, gains the future!” 1
Over and over again in Scripture, God instructs His
people to make sure they train up the next generation.
For instance, when God miraculously enabled Joshua to
lead the people through the Jordan River, the first thing He
told Joshua to do was to take twelve stones from the riverbed
to build a memorial. But what was the memorial for?
Joshua explained, “When your children ask their fathers
in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you
shall let your children know ... the Lord your God dried up the
waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over ...
that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord,
that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever”
(Joshua 4:21–24).
The stones were to remind the parents to make sure they
taught the next generation about the true God. They were
instructed to pass on the knowledge and fear of God to their
children.
I think one of the saddest pages in the Bible is in Judges
2:10–12, “When all that generation had been gathered to their
fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know
the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel. Then the
children of Israel ... forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who
had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed
other gods from among the gods of the people who were all
around them.”
After Joshua and all the first generation of parents who
entered the Promised Land died, the next generation served
false gods! It took only one generation to lose the spiritual
legacy that should have been passed on.
What happened? In Deuteronomy 6:6–7 God had given
clear instructions to the fathers: “These words which I
command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach
them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when
you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie
down, and when you rise up.”
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Obviously the parents in Joshua’s day did not teach
their children as they should have—and in one generation,
the devil had those kids! While it’s ultimately a matter of
God’s grace that anyone is saved, God has given parents
an immense responsibility to do their part. Over and over
again, the Jewish fathers were told about their crucial role
but they shirked it (see Psalm 78).
It’s Happening to This Generation
Sadly, this same situation has already occurred or is happen-
ing now in Western nations once influenced by Christianity.
Many fathers today are not carrying out their God-given,
God-commanded role to be the spiritual head of their house
and to take the responsibility for training their children in
spiritual matters.
In England, two-thirds of young people now say they
don’t believe in God—in a culture where most people once
went to church. 2
In America, a major poll indicated that two-thirds
of young people will leave the church once they live on
their own. 3 Answers in Genesis commissioned America’s
Research Group to find out why this is happening and
published the results in the book Already Gone in 2009. It
clearly showed these kids were doubting and thus began to
disbelieve the Bible at a very young age.
We also established that around 90% of those who leave
church attended public schools, where by and large God,
creation, the Bible, and prayer (in other words Christianity)
have been thrown out. Atheistic evolution is taught as fact.
The vast majority of these students were not taught apologet-
ics (how to give a reasoned defense of the Christian faith) in
their homes or churches, so they don’t believe it themselves
and certainly can’t defend it to others.
An Aggressive New Agenda Against God
The public schools have been teaching their own brand
of apologetics: how to defend the idea of evolution and
history over millions of years, thus causing multitudes of
U.S. students from Christian homes to doubt the history
in Genesis. Doubts about Genesis place young people on
a slippery slide of unbelief that eventually destroys their
confidence in the rest of Scripture. Their trust in the soul-