In today’s episode, we’re excited to have Andrea Crum join us on the show! Andrea is a leader in biblical worldview, apologetics, and family discipleship, helping families navigate today’s cultural chaos with God’s truth. A wife and mom of two, she brings her passion for Scripture and family life together by leading Genuine Family Ministries with her husband, Matt, and hosting the Raising Christian Kids Conference.
As the author of Christ over Culture: Raising Christian Kids to Stand in a Postmodern World and a graduate of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, Andrea equips parents with practical insights and strategies to help their children stand up, stand out, and stand apart as followers of Christ in a confusing, postmodern culture.
Episode 12: Summary & Transcript
Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Episode Summary
This episode features Andrea Crum, an author and leader in biblical worldview. Crum discusses the challenges of raising Christian children in a postmodern culture. She defines postmodernism as a worldview where individuals determine their own truth, contrasting it with the biblical worldview’s foundation in God’s truth. Crums outlines the framework of postmodern thought, particularly its focus on oppressor/oppressed dynamics, and offers practical strategies for parents. These strategies include strengthening their own biblical literacy, teaching their children the four major worldviews as a tool for discernment, and understanding God’s seven principles of design as a foundation for an orderly life.
Episode Transcript
Elizabeth Stubblefield (00:00):
Welcome to the Upside Down Parenting Podcast from Summit Ministries. Parenting can often feel overwhelming and disorienting, but you don’t have to do it alone. We are here to walk alongside you, helping you raise children who embrace God’s countercultural truth, live in his upside down kingdom and stand confidently in a biblical worldview.
In today’s episode, we’re excited to have Andrea Crum join us on the show. Andrea is a leader in biblical worldview, apologetics and family discipleship, helping families navigate today’s cultural chaos with God’s truth, a wife and mom of two. She brings her passion for scripture and family life together by leading Genuine Family ministries with her husband Matt and hosting the Raising Christian Kids Conference.
As the author of Christ Over Culture: Raising Christian Kids to Stand in a Postmodern World, and as a graduate of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, Andrea equips parents with practical insights and strategies to help their children stand up, stand out, and stand apart as followers of Christ in a confusing postmodern culture. Let’s welcome Andrea to the show. Andrea, welcome to the show. Glad to have you on today.
Andrea Crum (01:14):
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (01:16):
Yeah, it’s going to be great. I’m looking forward to learning more about your ministry and your book, and I know that you’ll have a lot to offer to share with our parents who are raising kids in this postmodern world. So just to get us started, you have a book out called Christ Over Culture: Raising Christian Kids to Stand in a Postmodern World. And so I know that in your ministry, Genuine Family Ministries, you obviously address a lot of topics, but let’s kind of focus on just postmodernism today since that’s obviously something you have a heart for and a lot of knowledge about.
And so just opening with this statistic, it says, impact 360 Institute did some research and they said that 63% of Gen Z do not believe in moral absolutes and that 63% agree what is morally right or wrong depends on what an individual believes. And so that’s a very high statistic and indicative of our postmodern culture. But I think a lot of parents listening today might even say, I don’t really get fully what postmodernism means or what it is. So can you start us off just by even explaining, what is postmodernism?
Andrea Crum (02:32):
Yeah, absolutely. So postmodernism is really the idea that you are the creator of your own destiny. You are the one who is determining what is true, what is real, what is factual. And I remember seeing this even when I was in college, starting to come into the university. I remember my English professor specifically, we were reading a book for class and he would ask us, what does this mean to you? What does the writing mean to you? What do you think it’s about?
It doesn’t matter what the author’s intent was, it matters about how it speaks to you as the individual. And that’s really what postmodernism is. It’s all about you being the person who filters what every meaning has according to your own personal beliefs. And so it’s really no longer about the author or creator’s intent, and I think that’s obviously a really huge thing with us in Christianity and our faith and God because it’s no longer about what God created or what God intends.
(03:29):
It’s more about what it means to me as an individual and how I process life. So that’s really postmodernism. And then the other thing, as part of the postmodern worldview, you have really two things at play. You also have postmodernism with these ideas of feelings and perspective and my own ruling of the world. And then you also have critical theory, which is the power structures of the oppressed and oppressor. And you have these two different ideas coming into play in our culture and making up the postmodern worldview.
But I think it’s attractive to students because they’re the ones that get to decide what is true and what is real and what is right. And the idea that there doesn’t need to be a moral standard, that there doesn’t need to be something that we all adhere to is really promising to them because it means that they can do life the way they want to do it without any repercussions or feeling of shame or guilt if they don’t follow the right way, that sort of thing.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (04:29):
Yeah. Do you think that, you mentioned noticing this in college for yourself, and I would say the same thing really. It was in my college years that I felt like these ideas were really starting to take root or maybe the seeds were being planted and now their roots have gone deep.
Have you seen that impacting the church and even people our age, not only the young generation, because I think that’s helpful for us to stand back and look at because if I’m recognizing, wait, my kid doesn’t know what’s morally right or wrong, but I don’t recognize maybe in myself where postmodernism might have some roots in my own life, it would be hard for me to help them sift through that. So is that something that you’ve seen at all? And how have you seen it if so?
Andrea Crum (05:14):
Yeah, I would definitely say that’s even why what really started my journey into this ministry, even as God was opening my eyes to what was going on in culture and as I was talking to other Christian parents, specifically moms, I was definitely seeing that people were much more open to cultural ideas and thinking that they were right and they’ve been defending them, and it was surprising to me.
I was like, are they compromising their beliefs? Are they watering down their beliefs or do they just not know what they believe? And I think that that’s been one of the things that’s been really eye-opening is that I do believe that for a lot of us, at least growing up in my generation, that we did grow up with a water down gospel. And so there is a lack of biblical understanding and biblical literacy of, what do we actually believe and why do we believe it?
(06:05):
That is so important to us being able to walk out our faith and live it in a way that honors God. And so if we don’t really know what it is that we believe and why we believe it, then it’s easy for us to fall into these ideas that morality is something that I can decide, or I’m going to read scripture and I’m going to pick out what it means to me and not really look at what God’s trying to say in general, but what does it mean to me in my life? And to really even sometimes just switch around what the scripture say in order to fit whatever I needed to say.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (06:38):
I remember it was probably just after college for me, but in the single years of singles ministry and going to this, I mean, it was called a Bible study. It was a Bible study, but it didn’t feel very studious to me because they went around the circle and this was a solid Bible believing church, but it consisted of like, okay, let’s read this one verse. And it was in Romans, so it was this really meaty verse.
But then the study went something like, okay, tell me what do you think righteousness means? In those days, we didn’t even have, it’s not like we had smartphones. People weren’t ChatGPTing, what is righteousness, or Googling righteousness. Not that those answers would’ve been any better, but it was just a pool of, well, what do you think it means? Well, that’s what it means to you. This is what it means to me.
(07:28):
And everyone ran around the circle. It was just saying, this is what righteousness means to me. And they got to me and I’m just like, guys, it doesn’t really matter what it means to us. It matters what it means to God. And I left the study that day just so burdened because I was seeing exactly what you’re describing of this is Bible study, but we’re not seeing who God is or what God says or learning his character or his ways or his promises or his truth or theology. We’re just picking a verse and then discussing what we think it means.
And I think the people who were leading that, I’m sure were well intentioned. That’s not always the case. There are many people right in the church who are wanting to lead you astray in false teachings in churches that don’t teach the scriptures. I don’t think that was the case here.
(08:16):
I think it’s just like this is how we think we discover truth. And I think that probably in my generation has led us to where we are in this generation because everything is kind of just what does it feel like to you? What does it mean to you? And so what do we do now if a parent’s listening and they’re like, wow, that’s totally how I grew up. That’s my understanding of the Bible. What can they do now for themselves? And then that kind of leads us to how we can help our children. But what should they do today to start with that?
Andrea Crum (08:52):
I think really they start with everything we know to be doing. We know in our minds and our hearts that we’re to pray, we’re to read scripture. I think a lot of us too maybe grew up thinking scripture was hard. We didn’t understand it. We didn’t really understand what was being said. There are a lot of different types of writing. There are different authors in the Bible, Jews, Hebrews, Israelite, what do all these things mean?
So I think that there’s some kind of decoding sometimes or just realization of even the structure of scripture that’s important for us to understand if we understand the biblical worldview and the four parts of there’s a creator, a God who created us with intention and purpose. He created what was good and his intention for humanity is good. Then we had the fall and that goodness sin crept in and everything started to decay, even creation.
(09:46):
And then Jesus redeems that he builds back our opportunity to have a relationship with God through his blood on the cross. He reconciles us to God, and then Jesus is coming back to redeem all things and to make all things new again. I think having even an understanding of that, those four parts of this creation fall redemption restoration, it helps people to understand that there’s a storyline, if you will, throughout scripture.
I think understanding things like all throughout scripture, in the postmodern worldview, they talk about oppressed and oppressor. They put these two categories and say that this is what the world is made up of. But when you look at scripture, God says, the world is made up of good and evil. Basically it’s made up of saved and sinner. It’s made up of these categories. So whether he’s talking about the wise or the foolish, the left side or the right side, you’re always going to see that he’s really talking about these two groups of people.
(10:39):
And I think as you start to understand some of those decoding, some of those things, it starts to make the scripture easier to understand. So I think what we have to do as parents, and I had to do this in my own life because I definitely was a believer for many years, but had definitely got caught up in life and work and family and other things and was not devoted to the Lord, and I had to do this in my own life.
I realized that I didn’t even really understand what blood atonement was, so I really had to go back and learn what it was that scripture is even saying and what it is I actually believe. And I think that’s where parents have to start. If they’re not in that place, they need to say, okay, I’m going to take this seriously and start being intentional about it.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (11:20):
Awesome. Is there a resource that really helped you on that journey? Obviously the word, but was there a book or a course or something that helped you to learn how to decode scripture and understand the meta narrative and the big picture and the story of God in the world and our part in that story? Was there any resources you would recommend for that?
Andrea Crum (11:38):
Yeah, for me, one of them, one of the most powerful resources was going through the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. So that was a program that I went through about four or five years ago. And that was very helpful because it really did start to talk about worldview, which is not an idea or concept I had really considered before. And yet it’s so important in every part of our lives because it’s how we think about the world in general. And so going through that program was a huge help in my understanding. And then of course, just digging into scripture was what really did it?
Elizabeth Stubblefield (12:12):
Yeah, there’s no replacing just being in God’s word for ourselves, and there’s tools that can help it make sense, but the word of God really is living and active. And so when we’re in the word of God, it renews our minds and restores our hearts and strengthens us to walk and his ways. And so can’t take shortcuts, but sometimes we want them, we is there a fast food line for this, like a quick drive through download.
(12:36):
Just open their brain input, but we’ve got to kind of put in the work sometimes. So as we’re doing that, obviously as parents, and we want to be growing and need to be growing and understanding first what God says, and then understanding these big worldviews obviously help us to know how to even have the conversation with our kids. And I know you’ve mentioned before how postmodernism in a lot of ways, it’s kind of a framework that other ideas hang on and are built on. Can you unpack that a little bit and talk about that with the parents so we can know how to think about it?
Andrea Crum (13:13):
Yeah. The postmodern worldview, because it has such a strong foundation built in critical theory and some of the ideas that came out of that movement, there really is almost like a structure that you can see with these ideas. Whether you’re talking about feminism or you’re talking about gender and sexual identity, or you’re talking about the sexual ethic that we see out there today or the no sexual ethic that we see today, or you’re talking about critical race theory or you’re thinking about progressive Christianity.
They really are built on this structure of there’s the people who are the oppressors, these are the people with power in our society, and then there’s the oppress. These are the people without power, and we need to figure out what the social construct is, what is enabling these power structures basically in society. And so every time you’re looking at any of these social progressive ideas that we see out there today, they always have this idea of oppress and oppressor and that there’s some kind of system in society that needs to be destroyed because it is actually creating this oppression.
(14:20):
And so when you start to look at the fact that there is this framework, it’s easy to start spotting ideas. So for example, again, a press depressor, what is a social construct? What needs to be destroyed and what needs to be deconstructed? When you start to look at that, you start to see how these ideas are forming, and then you can even apply it to things in the news like Israel and Hamas.
You can start to say, oh, who’s the oppressed and oppressor that they’re suggesting in this scenario? What do they say to be deconstructed in order for society to be better and for certain people not to be oppressed anymore? So it’s like no matter what issue you’re talking about, you can use that framework to start identifying and calling it out to what it really is.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (15:06):
So even the pro-life or abortion conversation, it’s ultimately in that, what you’re saying, you can see how they’re saying women are being oppressed, which is why we need the solution. It’s who they make, the oppressor and the oppressed, not like babies are not the ones being oppressed, but women. And so is that kind of what you’re saying? You can look at the different situations and see how they twist it to sell that.
Andrea Crum (15:29):
And even with abortion, so for example, one of the big critiques on the postmodern worldview or critical theory in general is that the oppressor that is supposed to be giving up their power for the oppressed then becomes the oppressed. So the one that has been oppressed seeing then becomes the oppressed as the oppressed becomes the oppressor.
So even in the scenario you were talking about with the pro-life, the mother feels oppressed by society or by the traditional marriage and what they’re supposed to do and family and then takes the life of her baby and the baby taking that life is then seen as freedom, but in reality, it’s oppressing that child. So now that the child is the one who is actually really oppressed, if you want to look at it that way in that framework.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (16:22):
Yeah, it’s helpful I think to think of different examples like you’re saying to go, okay, this is where this thinking is affecting our well. It really is affecting us as well, but affecting our children. And yeah, because sometimes I think students, I have my own children, but then I also work with all of these summit students and have been in ministry with students and women for a lot of years, and sometimes they can come out with some stuff that sounds, like, pretty crazy, and it’s helpful.
I like the way you’re giving this framework to kind of back it up to go, okay, what are the roots of this ideology that they don’t realize that’s what they’re repeating, they’re just repeating something that they have heard. But how was this being packaged?
(17:10):
There was one guy I was talking to once and he was trying to talk about how murder was not, if I killed his mom, it would be okay because there was no right and wrong. It was no different than if I squished a pine cone, if I stepped in a pine cone or if I killed his mom. Morally it was the same, but his reaction would be different because to him it was valuable, but morally there was still no absolute right or wrong.
I was just kind of like, this is hard to even know where to go from here when you take it that far in your thinking. But I doubt what he really believed, but that’s what he was claiming. I would be upset, I would take action, but morally there’s no significance or distinction between a person and a pine cone, which brings us back to that worldview perspective and the importance of understanding a worldview, most of all a biblical worldview and in that case being made in the image of God, but if we understand a biblical worldview, but also the other major worldviews and now postmodernism to help us even know how to sift through these different conversations.
There’s probably a million different conversations these parents could have, and you can’t prepare yourself for every single thing that might come up, but I really appreciate how you’re talking about understanding the bigger ideas equip you for all the conversations that could hang on those ideas.
Andrea Crum (18:41):
Absolutely. Yeah. It helps you to start putting a picture and a name and a label to certain things. I think that’s what the most powerful thing is about learning worldview is that these kids have through news and social media and friends, and we have all these ideas that are coming to us as if they’re truth because they’re all from a person saying things as if it’s real and if it’s true, and if their experience is true and real, then it’s hard to counteract that against somebody else’s true and real experience. But if you start to put worldview in this framework in their minds, then they can start things in categories and realize that not all ideas are the same and not everything is truth, even if it’s proclaimed to be.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (19:23):
So what’s something as parents that we can do? What’s something you do as a parent to help? Just a practical way that you help your kids learn to think through these ideas and how to sift through the messaging they’re hearing so that they can stand strong?
Andrea Crum (19:39):
Yeah, I think one of the most practical things that we’ve done as a family is to train on the four major worldviews of naturalism, which is I would call the science worldview transcendentalism, which we call the spirituality worldview theism, which is what Christianity and the biblical worldview fall under, and which we call the submitted worldview, and then postmodernism, which we call the social justice worldview.
So because those are four major frameworks and there’s a lot of worldviews that are underneath them, but because of those four frameworks, we can then look at a movie or a book or something he went on and culture and my kids can identify what bucket it goes into and recognize pretty quickly whether it’s something they should give credence to or not. And I think that’s really helpful.
We just went and watched a play of Percy Jackson, and that’s about Greek mythology, and so you know that this goes into our kind spirituality belief system, and so you are able to put it into a worldview, and then you’re able to have conversations with your kids, okay, so what is the difference between these Greek gods and our God, and how would we look at those different, what are characteristics that the real true God has versus these other gods?
(20:56):
I was just thinking about how our true God is a holy God. He is a God that gives where all these other gods are. They’re wanting so much for themselves or narcissistic in a lot of ways, and they want sacrifice, and they want these things onto them versus God who wants good things for creation and for us to live in a good and holy way that honors ourselves and honors him. So I just think things like that can help you have those conversations, even when you’re looking at secular ideas or things from culture.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (21:24):
So you kind of teach them separately just at home in discipling your children, you’re teaching them these worldviews, and then when you go to see a movie, you’re reading a book or whatever, you’re unpacking it with them kind of just as you’re going. You already have that framework of big ideas.
Andrea Crum (21:39):
Absolutely. Yeah. It helps to give a framework to then drill down a little bit further.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (21:45):
So what do you do? Obviously this varies from parent to parent, how they’re going to handle it, but for your family, when your kids are like, I really want to watch this or read this, and you already know like, oh, there’s some ideas in this that we do not agree with. Are you on the, Hey, yeah, let’s read it together. Let’s watch it together and discuss it, or are you more like, nah, let’s restrain from that?
Andrea Crum (22:07):
I think it depends on what it is. There’s some things that I’m more open to and then there’s some things that I’m absolutely like, no, we’re not going there. So if it’s got sexuality, sex, sexuality, cursing, things like that, then I’m going to be on the know side of things.
But if it’s something where I feel like there’s a worldview conversation that can be had, because even with our youngest son who’s homeschooled, we’re doing worldview this year and we’re going to watch a movie from each of the worldviews so that you can start to talk about it and understand it more. And next year we’re probably going to read a book from each of the worldviews just again, so you can talk and discuss and really see where different ideas are coming from.
So I think that’s really critical in helping develop discerning children is not necessarily guarding them from everything, but giving them guidance in that conversation. But then there’s things where it absolutely is unholy and absolutely is something that I would say doesn’t fit with how I would want them to, cursing language and things like that, and sexual innuendos and things like that that, I wouldn’t want them to be getting into their minds and their hearts.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (23:22):
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And also, it’s easy as parents to think these are the things we need to protect them from, and we’re like, okay, as long as there’s not this list of things in this song or movie or whatever, then it’s fine. But we need to be really watchful and shepherding about ideas because that influences how we think determines our behavior. And sometimes I think it’s easy to just kind of go, oh, as long as we have it edited or we have the clean version or whatever, then we’re fine. But I love those opportunities for unpacking, but what’s being taught here, what are they wanting us to think is normal and what is normal and what’s good, and what does God say and how does God compare to Thor?
Andrea Crum (24:09):
Yeah, exactly. It’s huge because what you just said, it’s the ideas. When I think about parents, we’re so busy protecting our kids against porn and predators, which I think is critical. We need to do that.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (24:20):
It’s important.
Andrea Crum (24:21):
It is, the protection, but we’re not protecting them from ideas and we’re not protecting them from, and that’s why we are seeing such, I think a shift in a lot of, especially among females, social, progressive, radical feminist ideas. We’re not protecting them from those or at least teaching them how to think about them.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (24:42):
And I think if we only protect them from things that are the obvious, here’s the list of what not to do, then that can lead to being in a more dangerous place to be shipwrecked when they leave our homes. Because if they’ve been protected from things, but the ideas have all crept in and kind of become a blend of Christianity and postmodernism and they don’t realize it, then they get out in the world and there’s not a filter system in place to be able to distinguish between the two.
Andrea Crum (25:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (25:14):
So I love how you’re doing that with your boys. That’s awesome. Okay, let’s take kind of a quick breather and do a little speed round of some fun questions. Let all the listeners take a little break. We’re recovering a lot of heavy stuff and really good stuff, but I’m going to ask you some questions. You can give me a short answer, just kind of some fun things, and then we’ll jump back into a few more of our heavier questions. Okay. Coffee date. You could have coffee with a person from scripture this afternoon. Who would it be and why?
Andrea Crum (25:48):
James, probably James or John. John, I love because I just feel like he gives such a beautiful, he brings to life some of the gospel in such a new way and shares some things that I think are beautiful. I love at the end of John how he talks about, only some things have been recorded that Jesus did. If we recorded it all, there wouldn’t be enough room in any book. And I just think that’s such a beautiful thing. So I love John.
And then James, I’ve just been reading again and again and again because it’s so practical. I just find there’s a lot of practicality and just how do we speak, how do we think, how do we ask for wisdom? And I think that it’s helpful to have some of those real practical ways for life. And so I think that’s been probably one of those, probably John, if I was really going to have to pick.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (26:37):
A son of Thunder favorite. Okay. I love it. You’re like, John, can you tell me some more of the things that you didn’t write down exactly? Give me the tea. Yeah, yeah, that’d be great. You’re like, let’s have tea, not coffee. I want to hear everything.
Andrea Crum (26:50):
Exactly. All the things, all of it.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (26:51):
What spiritual discipline is the most life-giving for you?
Andrea Crum (26:55):
Praying. Prayer is just, it’s what refreshes my soul. It is so important to me, and I used to be the person 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago that I just felt like the prayers were hitting the wall, and that was really my experience, and then just really started to dig into that. I would hate it when people would say, if you want to have a better faith life, pray. I just hated those kinds of, it’s like when you’re hearing weight loss advice, diet and exercise re, I’m doing that already. Okay. And so it’s just you want the quick fix that we were talking about earlier, but prayer has just been, it’s been a restful experience for me and just a time where I can just commune with God, so it’s my favorite for sure.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (27:45):
Sweet. Is there a theology book that you have recently read that you loved, or if it wasn’t recent, it’s just your all time favorite? That’s okay too.
Andrea Crum (27:58):
Really, I was just thinking, Knowing God by J. I. Packer. That was one that I think was a really powerful one that I read. I didn’t agree necessarily with everything he said, but I loved how he talked about the character of God in that book.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (28:14):
That’s a great one. Okay. What about a fiction book? Just a fun one.
Andrea Crum (28:18):
A fun one. Gosh, I feel like I haven’t read a fun book in a long time. I mean, aren’t all theology and culture books fun?
Elizabeth Stubblefield (28:26):
That’s true. That’s true. But a fiction, specifically.
Andrea Crum (28:29):
A fiction, oh my goodness. I can’t even think of a fiction book that I’ve read recently. That’s sad.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (28:36):
You’re not a fiction, not a fiction reader. Okay, I have a great fiction recommendation for you, then.
Andrea Crum (28:40):
Please tell me.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (28:42):
Okay. It is called Theo of Golden.
Andrea Crum (28:46):
Theo of Golden.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (28:47):
And the author’s name is fleeing my mind right now, but it’s a new fiction book and it is, I read it recently. My mom gave it to me and I had been like, I’ve got a book list or whatever. I opened the first page, hooked me in, and it was just such a sweet, it was a very life-giving fiction to me where it was purely fiction but had a lot of good things to ponder and character to strengthen. So it’s a fun one. If you need to branch out and read a fiction one. I’ll commend that one to you.
Andrea Crum (29:20):
Thank you.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (29:21):
Allen Levi, that’s the author.
Andrea Crum (29:21):
I appreciate it. Actually, I like fiction better. Just I haven’t had time, so I need to.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (29:28):
I get it. I get it. Who in scripture do you most relate to?
Andrea Crum (29:40):
Probably, most relate to? It feels like it’s a pretty common answer, but Paul, I think I just relate to his desire to do the right thing, but not always do the right thing, but always kind of striving for that. I appreciate his view and philosophy and the way that he’s always commending us to really run the race, and I think that that is something that I desire to do and I don’t always get it right, obviously. And so I appreciate his humility and some of the things that he talks about too, and just talking about even his ideas for being content. I think I relate to him mostly in that maybe he inspires me in that way versus maybe saying I feel most like him, but he most inspired me.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (30:30):
Yeah, that’s good.
Andrea Crum (30:32):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (30:33):
Makes sense.
Andrea Crum (30:33):
I don’t feel like I’m Paul, let’s be clear.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (30:36):
Yeah, call me Paul. Yeah. Isn’t it funny there’s not more people named after Paul?
Andrea Crum (30:42):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (30:42):
I always find that fascinating. There’s not that many Pauls. There’s tons of Johns, Marks, Matthews, even James, there’s just not a lot of Pauls.
Andrea Crum (30:48):
Yeah, maybe it’s just, the bar is too high.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (30:51):
Yeah, maybe so. I guess so. Go-to worship song?
Andrea Crum (30:56):
Gosh, this is another one. I don’t listen to a lot of worship music anymore. I used to listen to it all the time. I know I used to listen to it all the time, but now even when I’m in the car, I just want to pray. It goes back to the idea of prayer, but anything filled with them, I’m pretty sure anything filled with them and I’m good. Okay. The battle belongs to you or something.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (31:19):
That’s good. Yeah, that’s good. I mean, how can you argue with like, sorry, I’m just praying, so that’s awesome.
Andrea Crum (31:26):
See, I’m trying to sell myself now.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (31:30):
I know. Look at you being your model mentor. That’s awesome. Okay, jumping back into our talk on postmodernism a little bit and just equipping parents. We probably could talk about this for a long time, but we just have a little bit of time left today in the show. So let’s talk a little bit about maybe some common mistakes that Christian parents make when they’re trying to raise children in a biblical worldview.
I think probably if a parent is listening to this, they’re wanting to raise their children to have a biblical worldview, and even if they’re not, many parents are wanting their kids, that’s why so many people, even they come back to church once they have kids because they think, I want my kids to be good people. And we would say to have a biblical worldview, but sometimes there’s just kind of a disconnection or not knowing what to do. And so how would you speak to that?
Andrea Crum (32:27):
I think that the thing that I see most prominently with parents is twofold, and it’s kind of the two opposites, I would guess, polar opposites. One is the overprotection, the idea that we were talking about earlier, which is wanting to really shield them from ideas and certain conversations so that they don’t, so keep ’em pure. I think the intention is really good. I just think it’s not really realistic and it ends up being harmful sometimes in the long run. Even conversations about at what age did you have sex? I’m always surprised that that is one that garners a lot of really big reaction from people.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (33:10):
Sorry? Do you mean to have the conversation?
Andrea Crum (33:12):
Yes, have the conversation about sex. Thank you for clarifying. Sex within marriage, man and woman, biological male and female, but yes, have the conversation about sex and teaching them what it is and all that stuff.
And so it’s always interesting to me even that I sometimes think there’s an over shielding, and I understand the desire to keep our kids pure, but I also understand that when we take ourselves out of the position of authority and all of a sudden they’re starting to hear from their church friends and starting to hear from their friends and all these other things about what is right and what is okay and what is good, then we lose our ability to speak into that.
So I think sometimes there’s this overprotection of just wanting to keep our kids so pure, not realizing that they’re actually getting this information from other places, and so we lose some opportunity there.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (33:58):
Well, I was just on that note, how do we get past the awkwardness, right? I might be listening, going, okay, but how do I start that conversation and when do I have that conversation? And my kid doesn’t want to have that conversation with me because now they’re 15 and I haven’t had it yet. What would you say to those parents? How do they kind of get past their own heads in that?
Andrea Crum (34:16):
Yeah, I think that it’s actually, you have to just kind of take a jump with it because it’s really awkward. I can think about, for myself, it was very awkward. I much less talked about it in the beginning with our first and much more with our second, and he just wants to put a blanket over his head, which is great. I love that reaction that he doesn’t really want to hear it, but I also want him to know that he knows he can speak to us and that we will tell him the truth and that sort of thing. I think it’s a little bit of jumping in.
I know for me, when I first had the actual conversation, I mean, I did a little research on YouTube and I was like, okay, how am I going to talk about this? Or you can go to resources, Christian resources and things like that that you can help get some ideas of how to start having the conversation.
(35:02):
But I think the more we normalize it, the better it is. I heard a lady say she was actually, it was a teenager who said it, we’re so afraid to talk about sex, but God created sex. So sex is good and sex in the right context and the way God created is good, but we treat it like it’s not. And so that’s a problem I think sometimes, especially with conservative Christians, and we need to make sure that we are making what is beautiful, what God has created as beautiful, and showing his boundaries and why that’s so important. So I think that’s really important.
You asked the question of if somebody hasn’t had the conversation with their kids like 15, I’ve seen things like that, and I would say you just go to your kid and you say, look, I’m sorry, I thought that I had more time to have this conversation, but I’m realizing maybe I didn’t share some things that would’ve been helpful for you growing up and that you need to know because your body’s gone through changes. Your friends might be talking about things, and I really want us to be a safe place for you to have a conversation with.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (36:01):
And that’s really true for other conversations too, right? You’re listening to this and you’re like, I’ve never talked about worldview or postmodernism with my kids, or it’s not too late to start, even if they’re college students, do some research first, study up yourself, learn some things and then ask questions. Be curious about what they’re hearing.
And as you ask them questions that will open up the conversation instead of coming in with a clipboard of like, I’ve learned these things about postmodernism, but just ask them questions like, hey, what did you hear at school? What’s this professor teaching? How are they approaching this topic? And that will open up those conversations with your kids no matter how old they are.
Andrea Crum (36:41):
Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s good. And then the other thing I see parents do on the flip side of that is give too much freedom, especially as it relates to technology and social media and things like that. And really I think there’s a lot of pressure that parents feel in that area, especially from their kids and wanting them to be relevant and wanting them to have friends. But there’s just some things that are just so dangerous and there’s so many kids doing so many things online that their parents don’t even know about, and I think that that is an unfortunate thing.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (37:12):
Yeah, truly. Well, how do you equip kids? I know your oldest son is in public school, you mentioned and you work with different students. How do you equip them to have conversations with their peers, to interact with their peers who have really different beliefs than them without being the constant conflict causers?
Andrea Crum (37:35):
Yeah, I think that sometimes conflict’s just going to happen. So I do think it’s important whenever there’s those conversations to understand that conflict may be part of it, but what we really talk about and train for is the position of our hearts, the posture of our hearts. Because if you’re just going in there to win an argument, then you’re going to probably lose a friend. I mean, that’s really how those conversations go.
But if your heart is really like, I want this person to know Jesus because I know that Jesus is hopeful, knowing Jesus, there’s hope, there’s grace, there’s love, there’s goodness in knowing Jesus. And if the heart posture is I really want my friend to know Jesus, then I think that conversation can be really beneficial. So I think a lot of it is checking your heart or checking our kids, checking their heart and their temperature, and then if they do go into a conversation and have conflict, I think as parents, we really need to be able to come alongside them and go, okay, how do you want to handle that moving forward? Maybe an apology is in order.
I know one of the things my son has done, he’s an evangelist, and so he is very open with sharing his faith at school, and he’s had to go to friends and say, hey, we’ll just table this for another time when it’s a better time for us to have this conversation and sorry if I offended you, or whatever. So I think just even helping them to know how to handle conflict is just a very valuable tool for life.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (39:01):
I love that. And just showing people that you care and you’re not there to win an argument. You’re there to love the person and show them Jesus. Yeah, that’s good. Good advice. Okay, so you in your book talk about the seven principles of God’s design. And you touched on this a little bit in how you teach the bigger picture first, but can you unpack for us a little bit about or outline for us those seven principles and how that helps to build a biblical worldview which then helps to solidify our kids against the lies of postmodernism?
Andrea Crum (39:40):
So the seven principles of God’s design that I outline are one that God is creator, so he is creator of the universe that two, he made us in his image, three that he made, the binary, the categories of male and female, four that he created, family, five that he created work, six that he created the church, and seven that he created us to be representatives of him in culture. And so that we have this kind of restorative purpose and culture.
And I think that those seven principles are really important. One, because they speak to a lot of the ideas that are coming out of culture today, of course, made in his image that God as creator made in his image, binary female, and helping us to understand that God is a God of order. I think that’s what’s really foundational about those seven principles. The post modern worldview is really about chaos.
(40:27):
It’s really about destruction. It’s really about tearing down moral standards, not having a standard for anybody. If you would think about playing a board game and everybody had different rules to play the board game, it would be absolute chaos. Everybody would be frustrated. It would be anxiety ridden, it would be depressing. It would be stabilizing because everybody’s trying to win at this thing that they can’t even figure out because they’ve got all the wrong rules and nobody’s playing on the same page.
I think that’s what postmodernism really ultimately develops, is this idea of chaos. And so I think that’s why we have such an anxious, depressed, the most anxious and depressed generation that we’ve ever had is because one, social media and all these things that play into that, but also they’re living in a very destabilized time where truth is whatever you say it is.
(41:16):
And that is not a secure environment to live in and grow up in. And so the principles, I think, really ground us in the idea that there is a fundamental way that God has led our lives and the way that he wants us to live. And it’s all connected because he’s the creator. He creates us as humans. He male and female marriage, family, we’re to work or to go out, we’re to church and be part of society and we’re to represent him, the creator, and it kind of goes back altogether and it’s this beautiful picture that shows this is how he called us to live and this is what it’s supposed to look like.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (41:54):
So good. And parents listening today, check out Andrea’s book, Christ Over Culture: Raising Christian Kids to Stand in a Postmodern World, and you unpack those seven principles there as well as other characteristics of God and other things like that to teach your children. So I’m sure that’s a super helpful resource for parents who want to learn more.
Thank you so much for joining us today, Andrea. It was delightful to talk to you and just to glean wisdom from you and to hear how you’re helping to equip the next generation and parents both to really understand what we believe and to stand firm in our faith, and he had to stand firm in a postmodern world. So thank you for all that you’re doing, and thank you for coming on the Upside Down Parenting podcast today.
Andrea Crum (42:43):
Thank you so much for having me. I loved our talk.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (42:45):
If today’s conversation spoke to you, we’d love for you to hit subscribe and leave a review. Your feedback helps other parents discover the show and join the conversation. We can’t wait to continue this journey with you in the next episode. In the meantime, remember, you’re not alone. Keep going. Stay faithful and keep guiding your kids towards God’s truth.