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Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

Defending Your Faith in a Secular Culture

Defending Your Faith in a Secular Culture

Natasha Crain outlines the four pillars of secularism that are pervasive in the culture and challenges the church to recommit to a biblical foundation so we can effectively reach hearts and minds for Christ.
Original Air Date: November 7, 2022

Natasha Crain: Well I think that’s what’s happening for a lot of Christians, the pressures are coming in. And we’re not even realizing it because we don’t understand the nature of the culture. We don’t understand ultimately what secularism’s all about, and how these messages are in great conflict with the biblical worldview.

John Fuller: A sobering glimpse of American Christianity today, and how so many of us are caving into what the world says, instead of what God says.

This is Focus on the Family, and we’ll be diving deeper into that topic today. Our guest is Natasha Crain, and she’ll be sharing about how to defend your faith in this culture as you serve as an ambassador for Christ. Your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly, and I’m John Fuller.

Jim Daly: Uh, John, I think it’s clear that while many profess to be Christians in our country, uh, those of us who are Christians need to be better informed about what the word of God says. What’s the heart of God, uh, for us in this culture? And today’s culture is so hostile to true Christianity. And many believers are afraid to speak the truth of the Gospel for fear of being silenced or shamed.

Uh, recently I had a great conversation with Natasha Crain who will help us learn to stand up for our beliefs, lovingly confront the lies in the culture, and do so with the Fruit of the Spirit. We can do that. Uh, she’ll remind us to have confidence that God is with us as we engage with others. And I hope, uh, everyone will be challenged and encouraged by what she has to share.

John: I’m sure they will be. Uh, Natasha Crain is a speaker, author, blogger, and podcaster. And, um, she graduated from Biola University with a certificate in Christian Apologetics, along with an MBA from UCLA.

Now Natasha has written four books, including the one that really forms the foundation of today’s program. It’s called Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture. And it really is packed with amazing content. We have it at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Let’s go ahead and listen now. Here’s Jim Daly and Natasha Crain on Focus on the Family.

Jim: Natasha, welcome to Focus on the Family.

Natasha: Thank you so much.

Jim: So good to see you. I, uh, so appreciate the research that you put into your book. Uh, this is great. Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture. Um, I think right now this couldn’t be a more critical resource for Christians. Um, what motivated you to get here? Wh- why did you do this?

Natasha: Well, for a lot of years, I was writing about apologetics specifically for parents. So I was kind of in a very specific zone of writing and speaking. But in 2020 with all the social unrest that started happening, my eyes just really opened to how much was going on in culture that I hadn’t really focused on before. And I wrote this blog post called Five Ways That Christians Are Getting Swept Into Secular Worldview In This Cultural Moment. And this thing went crazy online. It was liked and shared over 277,000 times.

Jim: Yeah, it struck a nerve.

Natasha: It struck a nerve, absolutely.

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: Because I, I just was receiving emails from people for weeks saying, “I was having trouble putting my finger on what exactly is going on right now. It doesn’t seem biblical. A lot of these movements, a lot of these things that people are talking about, and things that are going on, but I didn’t know exactly what to do with it.” So I realized that there was this real need for people to understand more clearly the difference between a biblical worldview and a secular one. And so that’s really what led to me reading-

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: … writing Faithfully Different eventually.

Jim: And in fact you looked at a lot of research. Uh, a lot of the research is fairly new, 2018, 2019, about where Christians, or people who claim to be Christians, and where they’re at with their worldview, their perspective. Uh, we get down to terms like convictional Christian, once-a-month Christian. I, I don’t know how these researchers keep it all straight. But what shocked you looking at some of that research about Christians in the United States?

Natasha: Yeah, well according to the Pew Forum, who conducts a lot of this research on a large scale, and they track it over time, and call it the Religious Landscape Studies. And what they found, as recently as 2019, is that if you call people up and you ask them just a single question about what best describes their religious beliefs, or their religious affiliation, you give them a list of things like Mormon, Jewish, Christian, atheist, agnostic. If you ask people that question, 65% of Americans will say, “Huh, Christian.” And that’s kind of shocking because most of us who are Christians look around and we say, “Well it doesn’t feel like nearly two thirds of culture-”

Jim: (laughs) Right.

Natasha: “… are really Christ followers.”

Jim: Right.

Natasha: So that seems really surprising. We have to realize that in that kind of research really all it’s looking at is how do people self-identify. What kind of label do they apply to themselves? They can mean all kinds of different things by Christian. So what we really want to know is, how many people have a biblical worldview? In other words, how many people actually believe the core truths as taught in the Bible and seek to live accordingly? And for that research you can look at Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center. And they have, instead of just asking people how you identify, they give dozens of questions to people directly about what they believe and how they live their lives. And then the researchers are the ones that classify, okay, these people have a basic biblical worldview.

Jim: So they give them the, their behavior, and then the researchers say, “Okay, this is a convictional Christian,” et cetera?

Natasha: The behavior plus the beliefs. Right?

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: So they, they use, uh-

Jim: That’s good.

Natasha: … over 40 questions. Yes, it’s, it’s great research. And what they found is that only about 6% of Americans have a biblical worldview.

Jim: Uh, uh, how would you encourage us as believers to think about the postmodern culture? You know, I’ve often said recently, in the last few years, I mean, uh, with the pace of progressive liberalism that the United States is in a post-Christian environment. Um, you know, those Judeo-Christian values that the nation was built upon aren’t holding together like they used to. And you’re seeing that certainly in the universities. But h- how do we, as believers, uh, behave in a postmodern culture, and, uh, you know, encourage Christians particularly to become more Christian?

 

Natasha: Yeah. I, I think that what’s really important as a starting point for that is for Christians to understand the nature of the worldview that surrounds us. Because a lot of times it’s not so openly hostile in terms of, “Okay, there is no God.” When we hear that we know, okay, that’s in conflict with the Christian belief, obviously. But the cultural kinds of statements that we hear today are things like, “Follow your heart,” and “You be you, be your authentic self.” And Christians are not as in tune with what all of that means. And so the way that I summarize it is that secularism, overall, this worldview that surrounds us, is all about the authority of the self. In other words, it’s all about the individual determining what’s true about reality, what’s right or wrong, good or bad, for me personally. And of course, that’s at fundamental odds with a Christian worldview where God is the authority about what matches up with reality because he’s the Creator of reality.

 

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: And we look to God as a standard of what is right and wrong, and good or bad. So this is why our culture is so fundamentally at odds with Christianity. We’re talking about the authority of the self versus the authority of God.

Jim: Yeah. And that fits right in with that concept of the cancel culture. Uh, I’ve re- received some of that. You know, Focus, being at the tip of the spear in some ways with the idea of marriage, traditional marriage, et cetera, we get a lot of pushback. And, uh, people tried to cancel us, and our thoughts, and ideas. Speak to cancel culture and, uh, the abrasive nature of it, and the, I, think, uh, anti-intellectual nature of it.

Natasha: Yeah. I think cancel culture ultimately is, uh, at the very bottom level of it, is about saying that free speech is actually not the ultimate good. Because some speech is so harmful to oppressed groups that it’s not worth protecting. And if you’re gonna come out and you’re going to say something that we believe is harmful, that the idea itself is harmful to an oppressed community, if you’re gonna do that, then we’re not going to allow you to speak to anyone at all.

Jim: In this context of secularism, you, you mentioned four pillars in your book. What are the four pillars?

Natasha: So if we think about the authority of the self, you might think, “Well, that means that there are millions of people with millions of different worldviews.” But at the end of the day, if you’re the authority on everything, then there are some commonalities between all these individual authorities out there. And so I identify them as, number one, feelings are your ultimate guide. So if you don’t have anything external to yourself, then the one thing you have to guide you is your feelings.

Jim: How dangerous is that?

Natasha: It’s extremely dangerous. And this is where we get these cute little things like, “Follow your heart,” and “Be the authentic you,” and “Only you know what’s best.” Those sound a little innocuous at first if you don’t think about them. But they are very much the tip of an entire worldview iceberg of the authority of the self. The second one is that happiness is the ultimate goal. So if feelings are your guide, you have to ask, “Well, okay, where are feelings guiding you?” They’re guiding you to whatever you subjectively determine to be your happy place.

Jim: Mm.

Natasha: And I think this is why you see so much of this in culture, so much talk about, “Well, it made me happy.” And you see that as a justification for so many things. How many times do we hear, for example, women who are pro-choice, who stand up and say, “Well, I’m actually happier because I had an abortion.” They say this because the ends justify the means. It’s almost like the mic drop at the end of that story. Right? Everyone’s gonna understand that happiness made this okay. So that’s a very dangerous place to be too. When you are following your subjective feelings to your subjective happiness, you’re in a very dangerous place.

Jim: And all the reinforcement of those things through social media, the mainstream media, I mean it’s all about that.

Natasha: Absolutely. It’s coming from all directions to reinforce that these are the right ways to live. Don’t pay attention to anything that’s external to yourself, you’re the authority.

Jim: Let me … Yeah, I was gonna say, let me ask you a question and then we’ll continue on that train of thought. But when you look at it again, how does a Christian withstand that kind of social, cultural influence to not succumb to the very things we started with, with the research?

Natasha: Well, I think that’s what happening for a lot of Christians. The pressures are coming in, and we’re not even realizing it, because we don’t understand the nature of the culture. We don’t understand ultimately what secularism’s all about, and how these messages are in great conflict with a biblical worldview. Once we can understand that, then we can start to look at things through a different lens, and that’s how I hope that these pillars of secularism that I talk about in the book, I hope that they will help people to kind of give that lens for looking at things differently. That when you hear these things about your feelings, when you hear those key words about happiness, or the third pillar, judging as the ultimate sin, when you start to hear those things, then they should trigger you to think, “Okay, that is a worldview that is based on the authority of the self.” As a Christian, I have a biblical worldview that’s based on the authority of God and His Word. And no matter what I feel, no matter what makes me subjectively happy, I’m going with what God’s word says, because that is my authority. That’s the difference ultimately.

Jim: Yeah. So three is judging. What’s the fourth pillar?

Natasha: And the fourth one is that God is the ultimate guess. So in other words, secular culture is actually not totally godless. A lot of people think that secularism is synonymous with atheism, but that’s not true. Actually, 90% of Americans do believe in a god or higher power. But, what’s not okay is to believe in a specific god. As long as you believe in a generic god and it’s just a guess as to who that god is, or what he might want from us, or any of those things, secular culture is okay with that. You can thank God in general. But you cannot believe in a specific god who has actually revealed himself through something like Holy scripture. Because now we know who He is, and that there are certain requirements of us. People don’t like that.

Jim: Right. Definitive truth.

Natasha: Because that challenges … That’s right.

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: Because that challenges the authority of the self.

Jim: Yeah. And that’s … Yeah. People get uncomfortable with that. And I think younger Christians particularly, as I’ve looked at the research. Millennial Christians, they’re very uncomfortable talking about faith with people who have no faith, because they feel it’s inappropriate, or rude. Speak to that for a minute. I mean is that … H- how do we combat that as parents of these millennials and Gen Xers, and Zers.

Natasha: Yeah. There’s absolutely this cognitive dissonance going on for a lot of millennials, because the researchers found that about half of millennials say that it’s wrong-

Jim: (laughs) Right.

Natasha: … actually wrong to share your faith with someone in the hope that they will convert and share the same beliefs. Yet, 96% of millennials also say that an important part of being a Christian is sharing about your faith. Those things don’t really make sense together. On the one hand you’re saying, “Okay, it’s important to do.” On the other hand you’re saying it’s wrong. So they have really been influenced by secular culture saying that God can only be a guess. Who are you to come along and say anything whatsoever about what I should or shouldn’t believe?

Jim: And what a great scheme by the enemy of our souls to get people to do stupid things, to prevent you from pursuing a faith and a path with God. Right?

Natasha: Absolutely.

Jim: I mean, it’d just be exactly what Satan would do. Uh, let me ask you about this issue of equality. That’s big. You know? The equality issue. It sounds right. I mean, people want to be treated equally. That’s good. Uh, but outcomes, uh, it typically moves into that idea that we need equal outcomes for people with their labor, with their renumeration of labor, all those kinds of things. Describe the battle of equality and what it truly means. Or doesn’t mean.

Natasha: Well, this is one of those examples where if you want to get moral buy-in to something that’s different than what people have already held, you’re gonna have to redefine the language in some way. My background is in marketing, actually, before I ever got into writing and speaking. And so I can see right through this that actually secular culture markets a new kind of morality to us, which is quite fascinating to watch. And really that starts with redefinition. It’s redefining key words that people have a positive association with already, and now lumping your view in with that. So whereas equality used to just mean, okay, we all are of inherently equal value, which is by the way from a biblical worldview-

Jim: Made in the image of God. (laughs).

Natasha: Made in the image of God.

Jim: Right.

Natasha: Exactly. It comes from the biblical worldview that we can claim that humans are all equal. We’ve moved from that to equality being conflated with all kinds of other things, such as, okay, well you’re equal and therefore any of your moral choices are going to be of equal value also. Or you’re equal, so you’re going to have equal rights to all things. But we know that just because a person, all people are inherently equal, that doesn’t necessarily mean we all have the exact same rights. Children are equal but don’t have the same rights as adults, for example, in a society. So you see that this, that all of these kind of conflations of the word equality with other things that are going on. And then Christians especially feel bad. And they say, “Well, I’m for equality.” Of course we’re for equality. We’re for the inherent equality of all mankind. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to extend the concept to equality to all these other things like equality of outcome, for example, or equity as word is now used.

Jim: Yeah. Another, uh, firebrand in the culture right now is social justice. And what does that mean? Justice over all. And I think, you know, the, the Christian church has an incredible track record on justice. I mean, when you look at what the Christian church provided the world over centuries, whether it was hospitals or orphanages, those are things that were all started within the Christian community in 200, 300, 400 AD. And, uh, you know, those traditions carried through even to hospitals here in the US. Catholic hospitals, Protestant hospitals. And, uh, it’s been an incredible tradition, and most secularists don’t even understand the history of justice in that context.

Natasha: Right. And that comes down to the definition of justice. So we were talking about the redefinition of words, and justice is one of those redefined words. Throughout the centuries, just like you described, Christians have been passionate about justice. Christians have been passionate about justice from God’s perspective of taking care of the poor, and those who were marginalized by society, and those who needed the help. The, the Christians were taking care of the babies who were abandoned, and the widows, and the orphans, and building hospitals, and all of these things.

But today, justice means something very different. Instead of looking at people who are poor and maybe marginalized besi- by society in that way, they’re looking at groups of people and saying, “Do you feel oppressed?” So now you have people who say, “Well, I feel oppressed because there’s a gender binary,” for example. “I feel oppressed by you even claiming that there are, is some kind of biological reality to male and female people.” That would not be consistent with a biblical view of justice, because God’s justice is not the same standard as a human standard of justice, which is that I feel oppressed in some way. And so when we redefine these words, once again Christians feel like, “Oh, wow, I … Well, of course I want to be for justice.” But not everything the world calls justice is justice.

Jim: Boy, that is such a good point. As a parent, I have two 20-somethings. I met your 11-year-old daughter. She’s very sweet and kind. And, uh, you know, what do we do to combat that kind of infiltration into our children’s souls? How do we … You know, some … Often as Christians, we’re leaning on the church to do the training, spiritually, of our children. And if we’re that separate from our day-to-day life, as the research is showing, I can only imagine that in our parenting methodologies and approaches, we’re not getting the job done. What can we do in that drip irrigation of having our children 0-18 to do the best job we can do?

Natasha: Teach your kids about the culture. And this is an area of absolute passion for me, because I think one of the most misleading ideas that a lot of Christian parents have is that “I’m just gonna teach my kids truth. We’re going focus on the Bible, and they’re gonna be able to handle anything that they encounter.” And I think we see over and over again, and I hear the stories from parents, and we see all this bared out in the statistics, this just is not enough. Of course, they have to understand God’s Word, they have to understand Truth. But a lot of times, if they don’t understand the nature of the culture all around them, and why it’s problematic, and why it’s not consistent with a biblical worldview, then kids are going out, they’re hearing things like, “Well, yeah, I’m gonna follow my heart. Yeah, I’m a Christian too.” They don’t see how those things can’t fit together.

So what I do with my kids, one of the most practical things is we are always talking about current events. I will send them articles and say, you know, “Look at the underlying presupposition here.” Or we’ll talk about memes that I see on social media. I’ll pull them down and I’ll save them to share them with them at dinner, for example. I-

Jim: Yeah. Very active.

Natasha: Yes.

Jim: It’s good.

Natasha: Very much. I’m constantly bringing them examples from culture to show this is all about feelings being the guide, happiness being the goal, judging being the sin. See how this differs from what we would believe as Christians. So when our kids understand both truth and how truth compares explicitly to the secularism around us, they have a clarity so that when they go off to college, they’re already prepared to look around and understand that this is not biblical Christianity. And then they can be stronger in-

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: … in their faith.

Jim: Yeah, that’s really good. Um, let’s get practical. W- we’re in that direction. You mentioned four questions that we should ask to engage, uh, the unbeliever. What are the four questions? And let’s discuss them a bit, ’cause they’re really important.

Natasha: So these are four questions that I think are helpful for determining how do we go about speaking truth. The first one is, “Is this something worth speaking up about?” And I mean by that in any individual case that we see. So-

Jim: Let me, let me stop you for a second, because that almost feels like a little retreat. And I totally understand what you mean, but using discernment to know is this a hill to die on, or is this a little molehill? That’s what you’re saying. That takes a lot of thought-

Natasha: It does.

Jim: … and prayer.

Natasha: It does, because we can’t respond to absolutely every errant idea we see.

Jim: Right.

Natasha: Like, you, you just can’t do that. And we’ll drive ourselves crazy, we’ll become bitter and angry-

Jim: (laughs) Right.

Natasha: … ourselves, uh, dealing with all this, especially on social media. I’m kinda talking about it in that context. So for example, I’ve seen a lot of times where someone will post something celebrating Pride month, for example. And a Christian will come along and just pop in a comment that says something like, “Well, I don’t celebrate sin.” You know, i- in that context, I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that, but it’s probably not gonna lead to some kind of conversation. It’s like if we post a Bible verse and an atheist comes along and puts in a comment says, “Well, I don’t believe in God.” All you’ve basically done is state your respective worldviews and there’s no conversation being had.

So when we ask ourselves, “Is this really something worth speaking up about right now?” It’s not to say, “Oh, this isn’t an important issue,” for example. But it’s asking ourselves right now in this context of what this person is saying, “Is this the time to do it?”

Jim: Okay.

Natasha: So that’s the first question.

Jim: All right. What’s the second?

Natasha: So the second one is, “What is my motivation for doing this?”

Jim: Hmm.

Natasha: And this is where we have to really be introspective, because, and I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else, a lot of times we want to point out what’s wrong with, uh, the way someone’s thinking about something. We want to win an argument. Or maybe we’re really annoyed by someone, and we want to make them look foolish. There are all kinds of reasons why maybe we want to say something, not for the glory of God, but for the glory of ourself. So we have to check our motivations. And that’s not to say we have to be pure as the driven snow either, in order to say something.

Jim: But it’s humble.

Natasha: But it’s … Yeah. It’s, it’s a humbling to really look at yourself and say, “Okay, am I doing this for the right reasons right now?”

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Natasha: Because if we do say the right things but for the wrong reasons, sometimes those things don’t quite come out the way, the way that they could have or should have.

Jim: Right. And third?

Natasha: And the third one is, “Should I say this publicly or privately?” So this is a s-

Jim: (laughs) That’s always a good question to ask yourself.

Natasha: It’s a, it’s a hugely important question when you’re talking about social media and everything that happens online now. And I’ve had to learn this myself a lot because in my mind, just logically speaking, if someone posts something on social media, they should know it’s there for social consumption, and I have the right to respond socially.

Jim: Right.

Natasha: Right? But we have to check ourselves in that and say, “Okay, yes I have the right because this is that context. But if I’m saying this for the glory of God, and because I want to lead this person to some kind of knowledge of the truth, maybe it’s better if I do take this private.” Because if it would’ve made them look foolish, or if I would’ve made them feel uncomfortable for some reason, maybe the best thing is to not do what I supposedly have the right to do, because it’s a social platform, but to do what I should do by taking it private for a more productive conversation.

Jim: Yeah. It’s good. And then the fourth one is, “What’s the best way to say what I’m going to say?” I think that’s a great context to figure out how to say it.

Natasha: Yeah. There are all kinds of ways to say any given thing.

Jim: (laughs) Yeah.

Natasha: And to really think about what are we saying? How do we do that? And what I suggest is that the best way to start almost anything is by finding a point of commonality. Because that puts people in a more comfortable place. Rather than it seem like you’re attacking them and putting them on the defensive, it’s a way of saying, “Hey, you know what? I think where we both agree on this is that human rights are really important. But what I think we are disagreeing about is how to define human rights, and where those rights come from.” And then go on to talk about from a biblical perspective. And I always use that terminology because I want to make it clear it’s not just me saying this out of my own opinion like someone else might assume, as we were talking about before, but this is where I’m getting my view, from a biblical perspective, rights are given by God Himself. That we’re inferring this from our human equality.

And explain it from that perspective. “What I think you’re saying …” And then ask them, “Am I correct in assuming that you’re saying that human rights are …”  whatever the case in this conversation.

Jim: Yeah. Uh, Natasha, this has been so good. I mean, you have hit so many issues. And I’m looking forward to reading the book more thoroughly, and I hope other people will pick up a copy. They can get it here at Focus on the Family. But, man, uh, you have really done a stellar job of consolidating what we’re facing in the culture and how to move forward.

When you look to the future, and you have young children, how do you stay optimistic that, uh, you know, it’s not all going south? I mean, I meet a lot of people. I meet a lot of young Christians that actually, I feel, are very on fire. They may be a smaller number, but I think they’re a committed number. And I don’t share kind of the pessimism that a lot of older (laughs) Christians d- have, because I think God … You’re really questioning God then, “Did He put the right souls in this generation to really meet the challenge?” Right? When we start saying, “I don’t think these young Christians are gonna do it well.” I mean, you’re really saying, “God, you didn’t do it right.”

Natasha: Right.

Jim: (laughs).

Natasha: I think, uh, there’s a pru- there’s a pruning that’s happening.

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: I think … I’ve heard a lot of people use that terminology. I think it’s absolutely right. I don’t think that we need to hold onto that 65% of people so tightly and say, “We just need more people to label themselves as a Christian.” That’s not what we need. We need more people to be committed followers of Christ. And so if there’s a pruning happening where people are being forced to really contend with, “What do I believe? Who is my authority?” If they’re actually in this position of having to think through that more than maybe they had to in the past as a cultural Christian, that’s a good thing. And we know that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church.

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: And so we know how this ends. And that is a source of our hope and our optimism. Not in any particular battle, not in any particular movement or trend of today, but in what God has said from the beginning.

John: Well, such encouragement. And what incredible insights from Natasha Crain, reminding us about the importance of being salt and light, and spreading the good news of Jesus to this lost and hurting world.

Jim: Yeah, John. I certainly was inspired by this conversation. And I hope our listeners were, too. Uh, you know, it’s not easy to go against the grain in the culture. Whether it’s the workplace or in friendships, it can be hard to stand on your convictions. But we know that Jesus Himself wasn’t silent when it came to speaking truth.

So I urge you no matter how scary it might be, take that step to tell others about your faith in Christ, what you believe, and offer a refreshing contrast to the secular worldview that is so prevalent today. As the scripture says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” And when we share our faith and live it out, uh, that’s an important part. Uh, we’re planting seeds of the Gospel. And you never know when those seeds will sprout and lead to salvation and change someone’s life.

John: Hmm. Well we pray that that’ll be the case, and that you’ll start by getting a copy of Natasha’s wonderful book. It’s called Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture. And it’ll inspire you in your Christian walk.

Get your copy today when you make a donation of any amount to Focus on the Family when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. 800-232-6459. Or visit us online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: John, also as we begin to wrap up another calendar year of ministry, I want to urge our friends to, uh, give families hope by supporting Focus on the Family, if you would allow me to be so bold. Hundreds of thousands of people reach out to us every year with needs in their families, their marriages, and for help in representing Christ in the culture, “How do we go about doing this? “Focus is just a super resource center for everybody.

Uh, some generous friends have made it possible for you to double your gift to Focus through a matching opportunity. It’s done for fun just to inspire more giving. It’s a good cause. They’ll match whatever you give today, so please call us to donate and double your giving today.

John: Mm-hmm. And call today, our number is 800-A-FAMILY. And thanks in advance for your generosity.

Well, on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team here, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I’m John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.

 

Today's Guests

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Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture

Receive the book Faithfully Different and the audio download of the broadcast "Defending Your Faith in a Secular Culture" for your donation of any amount! And now through a special matching opportunity, your gift will be DOUBLED, dollar for dollar!

Recent Episodes

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Best of 2024: Establishing Clear Boundaries in Your Life

Driving is such a great illustration for life! We encounter people and circumstances that force us to make quick decisions all while trying to protect our family and ourselves. And we have to stay in the right lane to get to where we are headed. On this one-day Focus on the Family broadcast, pastor Kevin Thompson helps you learn how to navigate the roads of life—circumstances, situations relationships—by staying in your lane. By examining what belongs to us, what belongs to others, and what belongs to God, you’ll get a strong grasp on boundaries and how to apply them in your life.

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Best of 2024: Praying for Your Teen’s Heart and Future

Parents often face the teen years with fear because we often don’t fully understand what struggles teens are dealing with. Jodie wants to equip parents of teens to pray with confidence about dating, peer pressure, social media, conflict and more — using the power of God’s Word.

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Best of 2024: How to Experience Great Intimacy and Love in Your Marriage

Dave and Ashley Willis help husbands and wives rediscover God’s design for a “naked marriage” – where they can be emotionally, spiritually and physically vulnerable and transparent with each other. They share their own love story and describe how “love is not enough” to sustain a lifelong marriage; couples need to commit to serving and sacrificing for each other. They also talk about dealing with the past, balancing marriage and motherhood, financial struggles, and being faithful “in sickness and in health.”

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A Legacy of Music and Trusting the Lord

Larnelle Harris shares stories about how God redeemed the dysfunctional past of his parents, the many African-American teachers who sacrificed their time and energy to give young men like himself a better future, and how his faithfulness to godly principles gave him greater opportunities and career success than anything else.

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Accepting Your Imperfect Life

Amy Carroll shares how her perfectionism led to her being discontent in her marriage for over a decade, how she learned to find value in who Christ is, not in what she does, and practical ways everyone can accept the messiness of marriage and of life.