Our Essential Role in Teaching Youth Truth
By Tanania Reid
A school is an institution in which children are educated; a place for being taught information. As students are within a school, so youth in the church exist within a sphere of teaching and learning. Socially and culturally speaking, youth are passive students and natural disciples whose values, morals, and beliefs are shaped by those in authority, like parents and teachers, and enforced by social institutions like education, mass media, and religion.
In today’s society, our youth are navigating their early years of maturity, development, and the formulation of their belief systems and worldviews within the Technological Age, a day in which information is quite literally at their fingertips, accessible anywhere, from any country or place, and at any time. This accessibility to information through the travel of people and ideals from one country, society, or culture to another has been moved from the plane of impossibility to that of the possible through globalisation and the accompanying development of facilitators of interconnectedness like the internet and advancements in telecommunication. It has allowed the edification of Christian youth across borders and their participation in social groups, which has positive effects on their social, psychological, and spiritual development.
Though globalisation has its benefits, it also has its weak points. An increase in accessibility to information across borders has also seen neo-imperialism, where a dominant culture is imposed upon another, like “first world” countries upon “third-world” countries; leading to cultural erasure, the uncontrollable spread of misinformation, propaganda, half-truths, and an increased vulnerability to deception.
Christianity in Jamaica socialises youths re their beliefs about ethics, morality, virtues, and values—what is right, wrong, and morally acceptable. These beliefs are based on objective truth and the divine moral law of love presented within the Bible, the preeminent doctrinal and authoritative guide of Christian faith. Thus, Biblical truth, ideals, and principles, accurate information, sound doctrine, and interpretations and applications true to scripture characterise the teaching of a Christian teacher faithful to the Word of God.
What happens, therefore, when teachers who profess Christ also proclaim an objective to lead youth astray with counterfeit information? When the agendas of “Christian” organisations do not align with the agenda of Christ?
What happens when words asserted to be spoken on God’s behalf are spoken in opposition to the Word of God? When the homosexuality God condemns in His Word is affirmed and accepted by “Christian” teachers?
What happens?
Any deviation from God’s Word is an abandonment of morality, the truth, and ultimately Christ.
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Tanania Reid is 19-years-old and has been saved since 2020. She is a member of her church’s evangelism and youth ministry, and most recently, the women’s ministry, too, since, as she declares, “I’m now an adult!” Tanania says she has a voracious appetite for knowledge, so she reads the Word of God extensively and relies on the Holy Spirit to unravel its meaning for her.
Contact Tanania at [email protected], 876-873-3280 or 876-329-3542.
