It’s challenging enough for parents to raise children who love God. It’s even tougher to raise kids who love God and the GOP, say frustrated pro-family leaders.
“A recent study reveals that moms and dads are off the mark if they think an occasional dinnertime reference to inflation and the cost of groceries will raise the next generation of Republican voters,” according to an article from the American Family Association, a nonprofit ministry founded in 1977 to fight indecency and pornography.
Parrish Alford
“Clearly, it will take more than that dismissive remark on the danger of boys playing girls’ sports,” wrote Parrish Alford, associate editor of American Family News. “You can’t look at your children and speak their faith — or their politics — into existence. What really matters to a parent has to be demonstrated — it has to be lived — if it’s going to be passed along.”
Moms for Liberty, a Florida group most famous for its nationwide school book bans, promotes “Raising Patriots” in its “Restoring Patriotism campaign.”
An ad proclaims: “Build the heart of a patriot in your children and grandchildren with this fun activity pack! Set includes a patriotic T-shirt, an adorably illustrated activity book and crayons with lessons throughout about patriotism and our country. Plus, each pack includes an American flag and a pocket-sized youth Constitution!”
But it turns out there are problems raising GOP kids.
The biggest problem is that the vast majority of parents allegedly lack the values and worldview needed to raise their kids properly. “Only 2% of the parents of kids under 13 in America have a biblical worldview,” Christian pollster George Barna said at the 2023 Pray Vote Stand summit, organized by the conservative Christian group, Family Research Council Action.
George Barna
“Most of the people attending Christian churches do not have a biblical worldview,” Barna reported. “Most of the senior pastors who are teaching in our churches by our research do not have a biblical worldview, and so we have people standing in the pulpit teaching things other than God’s truth under the label of God’s truth to people who are hungry to know that truth. And so we’re being misled always, the government is misleading us, churches are misleading us.”
Barna’s grim view of Christians’ worldviews has grown even more grim over time, according to his “American Worldview Inventory 2024.” Barna says the number of people with a biblical worldview — as he defines it — has declined in each of the last five generations, with the percentage of adults with that view plunging from 12% to 4%.
Barna is one of the leaders of the Center for Biblical Worldview, founded in 2021 by the D.C.-based Family Research Council, which was founded four decades ago by James Dobson of Focus on the Family. He says worldview training takes priority over introducing children to Christ.
“A person’s worldview is developed between 15 to 18 months of age.”
“We know that a person’s worldview is developed between 15 to 18 months of age and the age of 13, and that worldview is pretty much going to define who they are, how they live, what kind of experiences they have, the lifestyle they adopt, all these things and more,” Barna said. “Worldview is so critical because every decision that every person makes, every moment of their life, flows through their worldview.”
“If you are a parent, that is the highest calling that you have in your life, to ensure that your child or your children become disciples of Jesus Christ, and in order to do that we now know from the research that means that you start with their worldview,” he added.
David Closson
A second major problem for parents trying to raise GOP-friendly kids is that the “deck is stacked” against conservative parents, says David Closson, who works with Barna at FRC’s worldview center.
“Every single cultural institution in this country is a cheerleader for progressive causes and for the values that are pretty much now championed by the Democrat Party,” Closson said. “The values of progressive politics taught in the home by these Democrat-leaning and -identifying parents are the same values now that are (promoted) by almost every cultural mover and shaker and those who operate the levers of influence in our society.”
The American Family Association says boys fare better than girls in developing a pro-GOP worldview.
“Republican parents are likely to pass on ballot-box values to their sons — but daughters are another matter,” wrote Parrish Alford. “Democrats and Republicans, generally speaking, pass on their political views with equal effectiveness. But the child most likely to chart a different path is the daughter.”
Alford, who declined a request to discuss his article, cited a study saying 67% of young men raised in a GOP household identify as Republicans today, but only 44% of girls remain loyal to the Republican Party.
“Every single cultural institution in this country is a cheerleader for progressive causes and for the values that are pretty much now championed by the Democrat Party.”
D.G. Hart, a conservative Christian author and associate professor of history at Hillsdale College in Michigan, says young people remain idealistic and “allergic to conservatism.” He explained in an interview, “They haven’t been hardened by the realities of taxes, mortgages and marriage.”
Hart worries about Christian parents who try to form their children into political conservatives, in part because of the “inherent tensions” between conservativism and Christianity, a theme he addressed in his 2011 book, From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism.
“Evangelicalism has always espoused a form of religious and moral idealism that is profoundly at odds with political conservatism,” he writes. “Christians are called to be not crusaders but pilgrims.”
Hart recommends that parents focus on their kids’ theology rather than their ideology. As he wrote in his book: “Bottom line: if evangelicals want their children to grow up to be Christians, they will likely have better results if they spend time coaching in Little League or leading a troop of brownies instead of lobbying a member of Congress or giving to the GOP.”
Hart says Christian parents who seek to raise GOP-friendly kids may push too hard, thereby leading their children to abandon both faith and conservative ideology.
“If you try to control them, you can wind up pushing them away by the time they’re adults.”
Related articles:
Why your worldview might be both more and less than biblical | Analysis by Jacob Alan Cook
The dangerous worldview of Republican election deniers | Opinion by Robert P. Jones