I have always been grateful that I was raised in a home where daily prayer and weekly worship were central to our lives. I believe parents are only fooling themselves when they offer no spiritual guidance to their children.

"We’ll let them decide for themselves."

Sounds very liberated but in reality it is pretty stupid.

Psychological study after study has pointed out that the greatest influence upon any child is always the parent. Freud made a fortune with that realization! To think that a child or a teenager can make a decision totally independent of what we as parents have modeled is simply foolish. If we want our children raised in the richness of the Christian faith, we had better be sharing in it ourselves.

Having said all of that, I will quickly point out that we must also take a vital interest in what is being taught to our children in the church. It was in Sunday School that I learned of the terrors of hell. I listened in horror to a sweet little old lady as she described what awaited those who didn’t believe like her.

The concept of eternal punishment is irreconcilable with the amazing grace of God. To punish a child forever...with no hope or desire to change behavior...is to turn God into a sadist.

If that is part of our "old time religion" then to hell with it.