American Council of Christian Churches
82nd Annual Convention, October 24-26, 2023
Faith Baptist Church, Kittery, ME
Resolution on the Protection of Children
Speaking of those who would harm children, Jesus declares in Matt. 18:6-7, “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!”
Jesus particularly notes: “It must needs be that offences come.” In this sin-cursed world, evil influences will seek both to damage and to damn children. God calls upon Christians to do everything in their power to protect children from such influences and to make sure they themselves are not the ones influencing children toward sin.
In our present culture, devilish forces determine to disciple children through the internet and entertainment industry, by teaching them to reject the absolutism of Christianity and to embrace the so-called “tolerance” of the day. Although individual predators do lurk behind children’s screens, the greater threat is an anti-God philosophy that is constantly influencing children as they, without any godly discernment or direction, browse the internet, watch movies and television shows, or simply take a trip to the library.
Secular education also threatens children. With no fixed moral foundation, education that is separated from God and the Bible spawns atheism and libertinism. This can be seen today in the teaching of sexual perversions in schools, even to the extent of encouraging children to question their God-ordained gender.[1] The effect on our young people is that a disturbing percentage of high schoolers now identify as LGBTQ.[2] As one evangelical theologian perceived almost 150 years ago: “A non-Christian training is literally an anti-Christian training.”[3]
Therefore, the American Council of Christian Churches at its 82nd annual convention, October 24-26, 2023, at Faith Baptist Church of Kittery, Maine, resolves to encourage families and churches to be aware of the insidious influences their children face and to actively seek to protect their children from them. This process begins with families saturating their homes with the Word of God (Deut. 6:6-9) and joining a biblically faithful church (1 Tim. 3:15b; Heb. 10:23-25). It continues by monitoring how much social media children partake and by giving children an education firmly grounded on the Lordship of Christ over all things.
Download this statement:
- Protecting Our Children
- Protecting Our Children – Bulletin Insert
- Protecting Our Children – Brochure
[1] https://www.nea.org/resource-library/legal-guidance-transgender-students-rights. The National Education Association, the public school teachers’ union, explicitly encourages transgenderism in its “NEA Legal Guidance on Transgender Students’ Rights.”
[2] https://thehill.com/homenews/education/3975959-one-in-four-high-school-students-identify-as-lgbtq/. The article noted specifically: “Among high school students, 12.2 percent identified as bisexual, 5.2 percent as questioning, 3.9 percent as other, 3.2 percent as gay or lesbian and 1.8 percent said they didn’t understand the question.”
[3] http://www.thecontinuingwitness.com/uploads/9/8/2/3/98238342/rld_secularized_education.pdf. The theologian is R. L. Dabney.
