Persuasive Christian Parenting: A Q&A with Mike D’Virgilio
Author: Chris Castaldo
February 05, 2021
Mike and Sarah D’Virgilio used to attend NCC before they
moved to Florida nearly three and a half years ago. Mike has written a
terrific book on how to equip our children for cultural apologetics—how
to think and engage ideas of the day from a Christian perspective. It’s
called The Persuasive Christian Parent: God’s Provision for Building an Enduring Faith in Your Children. Here’s a Q&A I did with Mike.
Why did you write a book about parenting, and specifically about being a persuasive Christian parent?
In 2015 I read an article about a young lady who grew up in a
Christian home. She was deeply involved in her church, went away to
college, and promptly abandoned her faith. My gut level response to this
was, “This shouldn’t happen!” My wife and I have raised three children,
the youngest recently started college, and I was convinced this could
not happen to them. We read and hear stories of children from fine
Christian homes who are raised in the faith, and then head off to
college or life and abandon it. Many conclude from this that it can
happen to any of our children no matter what we do, but I don’t believe
that for one minute. Some Christians think such confidence is
unwarranted, but I do not, which is why I wrote the book.
I’ve encountered Christians who think I’m saying that if you do
parenting strategy x, y, and z, then you can guarantee that your kids
will endure in the faith. But we can’t guarantee anything, nor are we in
control of anything. Which is why we pray! Solomon in Psalm 127:1 says,
“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” This
Psalm is specifically about building a household with children. We build
because the Lord builds, and we must build as well as we can. These are
not mutually exclusive; it’s not either/or, but both/and. As I’ve heard
it said, work like it depends on you, and pray because it depends on
God. Also, the book isn’t about parenting per se because I’ve never been
a fan of such books, with dos and don’ts for raising successful
children. It is rather about growing in our own knowledge and confidence
in the faith, and then learning how to effectively teach and share that
with our kids.
In your nine sections, you preface each by “It’s All About . . . .” Why do you do that?
When I started writing, my first chapter was going to be, “It’s All
About Truth” because we live in a postmodern culture that denies
objective truth outside of us even exists. So, we encounter the absurd
notion of something being “true for you, but not for me.” We must fight
for the very notion that truth exists and convince our children that is
true! This is foundational to raising solid young disciples of Jesus in
our postmodern age. Then as I was writing the next chapter on parents,
arguing from a biblical and sociological perspective that parents are by
far the most important influence on their children, I realized that was
just as important as truth. It was the same when I wrote about
epistemology, or how we know things, or plausibility, or culture, or
gratitude; I realized they’re all equally important!
Why is this book so necessary at this time in history?
We live in a secular, post-Christian age, which only becomes more
obvious and more post-Christian by the day. When we and our children go
out into the world, whether that’s through a screen, a classroom, or any
encounter with the culture, the messaging is either actively hostile to
Christianity, or ignores it altogether. This is why I dedicate a
section to writing about faith and plausibility, or what seems
real to us. I’m confident that most young people abandon the faith not
because they’ve been argued out of it, but because it no longer seems real to them, no longer plausible. Some other view of reality than
Christianity becomes more plausible to them, usually some form of
agnosticism and skepticism, which does not have to happen. Therefore, I
spend another two chapters on a concept called explanatory power—or what
best explains reality as we experience it. Nothing can come close to
matching Christianity’s explanatory power. As I quote ex-atheist C.S.
Lewis on the cover, “I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has
risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything
else.” Or as I argue in the book, life without Christ is just puzzle
pieces, but with Him everything fits.
How did you come up with the sub-title, “God’s Provision for Building an Enduring Faith in Your Children”?
That question is critically important. As I referred to previously,
some Christians have a problem with thinking we can have confidence in
keeping our kids Christian. I wanted to make it clear that our
confidence isn’t ultimately in us, but in God alone, and in what he’s
provided to make that possible. The conclusion I came to after writing
the book was the conviction I started with at the beginning:
Christianity is so powerfully credible that my children should never,
ever want to leave it, or even be slightly tempted to do so. God has
revealed Himself in so many compelling ways that it is inconceivable
that a secular Western culture would be more appealing to our children
than Christianity. God has provided us an overabundance of resources to
make the Christian faith winsome, appealing, attractive, and compelling
to them. Thus, we should have every confidence that we can build an
enduring faith in our children.
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