At what age does God hold a person accountable for their sins? Evangelicals believe that all humans have a sin nature. This sin nature was inherited at conception from Adam, and humans have no say in the matter. From conception (or at birth) all humans become sinners. We don’t become sinners, we are sinners. Of course, babies and children don’t naturally understand this, so their parents and pastors must explain humankind’s inherent sinfulness. Children are taught early to understand the difference between right and wrong; that “wrong” is sin. Once these tender ones can parse the difference between right and wrong and know that their sin is an affront to God, they have reached the age of accountability.
Evangelical Calvinists tend to reject the notion of there being “an age of accountability.” No need, since God predestines certain people to be saved, with the rest of the unwashed masses predestined to Hell. There’s not one thing any of us can do to change God’s mind about our eternal destiny. Before the foundation of the world, God determined who was in and who was out. At what age children become accountable for their sin is irrelevant in Calvinistic soteriology.
Some Evangelicals believe that the age of twelve is when children become accountable before God for their sins. There’s no Scriptural foundation for this belief. Evangelicals who believe that twelve is the age of accountability don’t worry as much about their children’s sins. No need. God can’t judge them and send them to Hell until they are twelve.
I came of age in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. IFB churches and pastors take a very different approach to the age of accountability. They believe that children are accountable for their sins the moment they understand the difference between right and wrong; the moment they understand disobedience and rebellion, not only against God, but parents, pastors, and other authority figures.
Of course, children learn these things quickly in IFB homes. Sin, holiness, obedience, disobedience, and rebellion are often topics of discussion. The goal is to make children aware of their sinfulness so they can, at ages as young as four or five, understand God’s solution for sin — Jesus — and get saved. Children raised in zealous IFB homes typically get saved when they are young, and then as teenagers, they rededicate their lives to the Lord. While I was “saved” at the age of five, I use my rededication at age fifteen as my salvation date. Was I really saved at age five? I doubt it. I knew very little about the Bible or Christianity — just what I heard from my parents, pastors, and Sunday school teachers. While I certainly could have mouthed the IFB-approved plan of salvation, it wasn’t until I was fifteen that I truly understood what it meant to get saved (and later baptized, called to preach).
Why all this pressure to convert children as soon as possible? First, parents don’t want their progeny to suddenly die without being saved and go to Hell. Second, churches know that if children are not converted when they are young, it becomes increasingly unlikely they will be once they reach an age when they are developing rational, skeptical thinking skills. It’s easy to convince a five-year-old of an upright, walking talking snake. However, teens are not as gullible. Walking, talking snake, preacher? Sure. Early and frequent indoctrination and conditioning are key to keeping children in the church. Hook them when they are young and they will often stay (or move to a different cult that they think is less legalistic).
Churches have children’s church/junior church for two reasons. First, partitioning church services according to age allows children to be segregated from their parents. Kids have fun while being conditioned and indoctrinated with Evangelical beliefs, practices, and ways of life. Parents will not have to mess with their kids during worship services — ninety minutes of freedom from those demons God gave them. (For the record, I was not a fan of segregating children from their parents. Only one of the churches I pastored had a junior church.)
Second, splitting children away from their parents allows trained child and youth workers to use high-pressure methods to evangelize their charges. Scare the Hell out of children, and out of fear of judgment and death, they will pray the sinner’s prayer and get saved! For the record, I think such practices are child abuse.
What did your parents, churches, and pastors believe about the age of accountability? At what age were you saved? Did you get saved more than once? Did you fear as a child dying and going to Hell? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
My dear friend Zoe wrote a short post today about child-friendly faith. Zoe rightly questioned whether teaching children there is a Hell and that they will spend eternity being tortured by God for believing the wrong things is a child-friendly faith. Most Christian sects teach that there is a Heaven to gain and a Hell to shun; that the only way to avoid eternal punishment and damnation is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31) — trusting that he will forgive your sins, save you, and give you a home in Heaven after you die. Even the uber-liberal Episcopal Church, in its Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith, officially believes there is a Hell, and the only way to avoid Hell is to repent of your sins and put your faith in Jesus.
Evangelicals are what I call the Hell Party. Either believe (and do) the right things or you will go to H-e-l-l. While it is true that preaching on Hell is less frequent today, Evangelicals still believe that Hell is a real place, and that non-Christians will spend eternity there after they die.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
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We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
Evangelicals believe that humans are sinners by nature; spiritually broken, sick, and diseased the moment they come into this world. Through preaching, along with children’s church programs, junior church, Sunday school, and youth group, Evangelical children are frequently reminded of the fact that they are sinners headed for Hell unless they put their child-like faith in Jesus. From birth to death, Evangelical church attendees are told that Hell awaits those who refuse the saving grace freely offered by Jesus (Calvinists reserve salvation for only the elect). As an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years, I preached countless sermons on Hell. My churches’ junior churches and Sunday schools were staffed by people who understood the importance of scaring the Hell out of children. We believed that the sooner we reached children with the gospel, the better. It was not uncommon for church children to make professions of faith while they were still in kindergarten or primary school. The longer salvation was delayed, the greater opportunity Satan had to get his hooks into them.
One church I pastored, Somerset Baptist Church, had a large bus ministry. Every week, scores of children were bused to the church so trained workers could evangelize them. Hundreds of children made professions of faith — often repeating the act one or more times. In 2020, I wrote a post titled Should Parents Choose a Religion for Their Children?Here’s an excerpt from this post:
In the type of Baptist churches in which my wife and I grew up, children are sent to Sunday school and children’s church so they can be exposed to the church’s teachings on Heaven, Hell, Jesus, salvation, death, and God’s judgment. Children are often emotionally and mentally coerced into asking Jesus into their hearts. Children’s church teachers will often ask their young pupils: do you want to go to Hell when you die? or how many of you want to go to Heaven when you die? What young, immature and impressionable child doesn’t want to avoid the flames of Hell or enjoy the wonders of Heaven?
In many ways, Evangelicals who evangelize children are like door-to-door salesmen selling their customers on the importance of owning their product and the danger of putting off a buying decision to another day. Years ago, I sold Kirby vacuüm cleaners. I would praise the virtues of the grossly overpriced vacuum, trying to get prospective customers to see how much better their lives would be if their households owned a Kirby. If the positive approach failed to work, I’d resort to the methods meant to show them how poorly their current vacuüm was working. I’d even go so far as to use my demo Kirby vacuüm to sweep the prospective customer’s bed, showing them all the dead skin and “mites” the mighty Kirby removed from their bed. The goal was always to get the customer to make an impulsive decision. And this is exactly what happens in many Evangelical churches. Uninformed children are wowed with the wonders of Heaven and threatened with the horrors of sin and Hell. Most children who are exposed to these kinds of sales techniques will “choose” to get saved.
Once children are saved, their parents and churches continue to indoctrinate them in their sect’s particular teachings. Remember, these children do not have the rational capacity to make this choice, nor have they been exposed to alternative religions. Are confirmed, initiated, or saved children really making an informed decision to believe the central tenets of Christianity? Of course not. They lack the requisite intellectual skills necessary to make such a decision. Wouldn’t it be better to expose children to a variety of religions, along with humanism and atheism, and allow them to make a reasoned choice of which to follow when they are old enough to do so?
I have many regrets from my days as an Evangelical pastor, especially how my preaching psychologically harmed people. No amount of saying “I’m sorry” will change the fact that my words harmed children and adults alike. Children, in particular, were emotionally scarred by my sermons on original sin, God’s wrath and judgment, and Hell. You see, church children believed that I loved them, and I only wanted what was best for them. And, from an Evangelical perspective, I did. However, years later, I know that berating children over their “sins” and threatening them with God’s judgment and Hell if they didn’t pray the sinner’s prayer is child abuse. I have had enough conversations with adults who were children in one of the churches I pastored to know that I caused them harm. All I know to do is profusely apologize and use my writing to expose what really goes on within the four walls of Evangelical churches.
Sid, Toy Story
Let me be clear, teaching children they are broken (sinners) and in need of fixing (salvation) lest they are consigned to Sid’s Toy Shop (Hell) is child abuse. There is nothing child-friendly about such preaching and teaching. Why does such abuse continue, you ask? Most church children have parents who were raised in Evangelical churches. They, too, were psychologically abused by pastors, evangelists, Sunday school teachers, and youth leaders. What do we know about abuse? Adults who were abused tend to abuse their children. If parents came of age hearing sermons about original sin, Hell, and salvation through Christ alone, their children experiencing these same things doesn’t seem wrong or abusive. Thus, the abuse cycle continues generation after generation.
A child-friendly faith is one that that doesn’t teach children they are broken; that doesn’t threaten them with God’s judgment; that doesn’t put the fear of God into them by warning them that they will burn in Hell (or be annihilated) if they don’t believe the right things.
While it is naïve to expect Christian parents to keep their children away from their tribe’s religion, society should require them to not unduly indoctrinate their children. That we don’t reflects the fact that we give Christianity a pass on almost everything when it comes to children. We allow Christian parents to pull their children out of public schools so they can be indoctrinated by evangelists, posing as teachers of knowledge, for their particular sect’s beliefs. We also allow Christian parents to homeschool their children. Millions of American children are homeschooled or attend Christian private (and parochial) schools. These children are taught reason-defying myths such as the virgin birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and wine and crackers miraculously turning into Jesus’ blood and flesh once they are prayed over. They are regularly reminded that they are sinful, broken humans in need of forgiveness and salvation, and that Heaven awaits them if they believe, and Hell awaits if they don’t. These types of teachings do incalculable emotional harm to children, often resulting in low self-esteem or psychological problems.
Worse yet, these children are taught lies about the natural world they are very much a part of. Many Evangelical homeschool parents and private schools teach children that the earth is 6,023 years old, evolution is a lie, and the teaching of the Bible accurately reflects the one and only way to understand the world. While parents and teachers will most likely teach their wards science, they often teach a Christianized version that repudiates biological evolution. They also, thanks to a literalistic reading of the Bible, reject most of what cosmology, archaeology, and geology tell us about the age of the earth and the universe. As a result, children who have embraced this kind of indoctrination are crippled intellectually. Ask any secular college or university professor how difficult it is to reason with children who have been indoctrinated with Fundamentalist Christian beliefs. The intransigence of these students is heartbreaking. Stunted intellectually, they often go through life ignoring vast swaths of human knowledge because it does not fit the narrow confines of what they were taught as a child. Of course, this is EXACTLY what Christian churches and their leaders desire: intellectually-neutered people who continue to look to them for answers.
How did the preaching and teaching you heard at church as a child affect you later in life? Did you lack self-esteem? Were you afraid of God? Did your fear going to Hell? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
The junior church leader has gathered all the church’s elementary-age children together so she can share the “truth” with them. “Death is certain, and Jesus is coming soon; it could be today,” she breathlessly says. “We are living in the Last Days, and the Bible says all sorts of bad things will happen before the rapture.” Lowering her voice, giving it that worrying sound, she says, “True Christians, those who have asked Jesus into their hearts, will be persecuted for their faith, and some of them will be killed for believing in Jesus. Would you stand for Jesus? Would you be willing to die for Jesus? After all, he died for you; shouldn’t you be willing to give your life for him?” And then comes the graphic story meant to drive this “truth” home. “Suppose Islamic militants rounded up all the Christians and were shooting them if they refused to renounce Jesus. All you had to do is deny Jesus, and your life would be spared. Would you do it? Or would stand strong, believing that even if the militants killed you, you would go to Heaven, and Jesus would meet you there, saying, ‘well done thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord?'”
The junior church leader then gives an altar call, asking the children to recommit their lives to Jesus, to be ready and willing to die for him, if need be. And much like young Muslims answering their imam’s call for martyrs, bright-eyed, easily impressed Evangelical children profess their love for Jesus and willingness to die for their Lord and Savior.
We watch with horror as Muslim children blow themselves up in the name of Allah or Mohamed. Yet, we give nary a thought to how American Evangelical children are indoctrinated similarly. Why is that? Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches, in particular, are notorious users of fear of God, threats of Hell, and stories about Satanic enemies such as Muslims, atheists, and liberals to “motivate” children to follow Jesus to the death.
Billy Watkins, a Christian and a writer for The Clarion-Ledger had this to say:
I can’t explain why.
Perhaps it doesn’t require an explanation.
But as the calendar quickly moved toward today — Easter Sunday — the more an image flashed in my mind: 20 Egyptian Christians and one other man, forced to their knees on a Mediterranean beach by members of ISIS on Feb. 15 and asked one by one if they believed in Jesus Christ.
Each answered yes, knowing the consequences.
All 21 were beheaded….
…It made me look inside myself, perhaps deeper than I’ve ever looked before.
It made me face the question: If I were in a similar situation, would I have the faith and the courage to look the ISIS cowards in the eye and say, “I believe in Jesus Christ.”
Knowing those would be the last words I ever said. Knowing the torture I was about to experience. Knowing my family and friends would grieve over my death. Knowing this life, which I can only comprehend as a struggling human, would end.
I would like to say yes, I would have the strength.
But do any of us really know until we are put in that situation?
To help me have some comparison for my struggle with this, I reached out to eight friends.
I asked them how they pictured themselves answering that question with a knife to their throats.
Some answered by email, others by Facebook message. Each provided food for thought. And I must commend them for digging deep inside their souls to help provide their answers.
One of the first I received: “This is very hard. I have tears. No, I am crying … I want to scream yes to those butchers. I believe in Jesus Christ!!!! But when I think of never seeing my husband, my family, my grandchildren, my grandchildren to come, I have to pause. More tears … ”
Friend No. 2 wrote, “I believe each Christian would always be ready to say, ‘Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.’ However, after watching two beheadings on YouTube, it gave me pause for thought. How could I possibly endure torture and a painful, slow death for my beliefs? My next thought was, ‘But that’s what Jesus did for me. Would he expect any less of me?’ ”
Friend No. 3: “There is a peace I believe God gives you in that situation. Just as Jesus prayed in the garden, twice, to let this cup pass from his wrath … I might say the same prayer, but in the end I would submit to God’s plan.”
Friend No. 4: “This is, of course, an impossible question to answer. Under the circumstances, I cannot imagine what I would do … it is always easier to sit in your living room and be convinced of your own virtues under the proposed circumstance. I also know I can rationalize decisions and I can waffle between what I want I know to be true … I could see this part of me rationalizing that it’s more important for me to live for any or all of the following …” My friend named his wife, children, extended family and church.
“I have so much to live for that lying to people who want to kill me is easily excused … (But) the scenario you describe is no time for rationalizing. It is a test … I hope I would get it … I want to be counted among those who would forgo this life for the better eternity to come.”
“Last point,” he wrote. “Hearing about the death of these 21 men has mattered to me — and not for the reason the killers wanted. It encourages me to live a life worthy of my calling. They died for Christ. May I at least live for him?”
Friend No. 5 wrote, “In facing a gruesome, wicked, evil death, my faith would still be in God. I hope and trust that such a painful ordeal would be ultimately redeemed and used by God for his purposes. Therefore, such a death is not in vain.”
Friend No. 6 was equally sure of his answer: “Faith is all you have left in that situation. To reject your faith would leave you with nothing — even if you lived. I can say unequivocally I would not reject my belief in Christ. If I did, I would be dead even though I lived. The other thing I know is that I would not die passively. I would fight with all my being. I would not let them dictate the terms of my death.”
Friend No. 7: “When you reach the most terrifyingly vulnerable moment of your life, you’re stripped to nothing but the things no can take away … the core beliefs that have driven every decision you’ve ever made. Ultimately, I would rather die outwardly professing my faith, with my death serving as a testament to those beliefs …
“But then I think of my child, of helping teach him those beliefs … If being a coward and lying to save my life means I’ll have the opportunity to raise a Godly man, so be it … Maybe this isn’t the right answer. But doing the right thing often means forgoing interests of the present so you can protect interests of the future.”
Friend No. 8: “Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote, ‘And how can a man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?’
“This world doesn’t afford many civilians the chance to die well for something that matters … it sounds cavalier, but I would be humbled and honored to be put in a situation where I had to choose between my life and the one thing that means most to me — my faith in Jesus Christ … I have a passion for this world, and ultimately the honestly amazing and blessed life that I’ve been given.
“I believe if he brings us to that place of choice, he gives us the grace to handle it if we remember that he is the ultimate source of everything … it’s not the end, it’s the beginning … let me go how he would take me, and let his will be done.”
This is what I believe: If I were put in that situation, I believe Jesus Christ would bathe me with a peace beyond human comprehension . . .
Those of us who were once Christians have asked the questions that Billy Watkins asks in his article. If it came to it, would we have been willing to die for Christ? Having grown up in a religious culture where persecution was touted as a sure sign of one’s faith, I had moments when I questioned whether I would stand up for Christ no matter what happened.
While Billy Watkins ponders whether he would be willing to lay his neck on the line for Jesus, I want to ponder the notion of a God who asks his followers to die for him. While most of us can readily understand dying for the sake of family or trying to help our fellow man, what are we to make of a religion and a God that put great value on dying for one’s faith? While Christians will likely say that their martyrdom allows them to give a final testimony to God’s love and grace, I do wonder about a God who could save someone from having their head chopped off and does nothing. What would we think of a man who stood by while his wife or children were violently attacked and killed? Dying for one’s family is recognized by all to be a heroic act. But, dying for a religious belief? Wouldn’t it be better to lie and live than to tell the truth and die? Unlike the Muslim, the Christian martyr receives no special reward for dying. Why die when you can live?
From their earliest ages, Evangelical children are taught:
Their present lives are inconsequential and temporary
That preparation for the next life is what matters
That dying for one’s faith is the ultimate reward
That martyrdom guarantees Christians preferential status in Heaven after they die
Many of the January 6, 2021 insurrectionists were Evangelical Christians — men and women who grew up on a steady diet of sermons, lessons, and books about being willing to die for Jesus. Does it come as any surprise that in a moment of insane passion that these same people were willing to die not only for Jesus, but also for the U.S. Constitution and Donald Trump? Those of us who stand outside of the Evangelical bubble shake our heads, forgetting that we ourselves were once indoctrinated with martyrdom teaching. Many of the readers of this blog might think back to their Evangelical days when dying for Jesus was the ultimate honor. What better way to show fealty to Jesus than to lose one’s head for him?
Most Evangelicals take a literalist approach to the book of Revelation. Evangelicals believe that someday soon Jesus will secretly come in the clouds and snatch them off the face of the earth. Once all the True Christians® are gone, God will pour out his wrath on those left behind. Yet, in a show of mercy, God will save a small number of the people who missed the rapture. These new converts will have to prove their faith by having their heads lopped off.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
One need only to read the Left Behind books (apocalyptic porn written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins) or watch the movie series: A Thief in the Night (1972), A Distant Thunder (1978), and Image of the Beast (1983) to see how martyrdom is central to the Evangelical narrative of true faith.
Wikipedia explains the plot of the aforementioned movies this way:
Patty Myers is a young woman who considers herself a Christian because she occasionally reads her Bible and goes to church regularly, where the pastor is really an unbeliever. She refuses to believe the warnings of her friends and family that she will go through the Tribulation if she does not accept Jesus as her savior. One morning, she awakens to find that her husband and millions of others have suddenly disappeared. Gradually, Patty realizes that the Rapture has happened.
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In A Distant Thunder, the story of Patty is told in a flashback, which itself includes flashbacks. It begins with Patty awaiting her execution and, after fellow Christians awaiting execution ask her how she got there, she begins to tell the story and a flashback commences. The flashback begins where the previous film left off, with Patty awakening from her dream to realize that the Rapture has actually occurred. The film ends dramatically with Patty witnessing her friend Wenda being executed and arguing with Wenda’s younger sister Sandy (who, along with Jerry and Diane, urges Patty to take the Mark) who betrayed them—and being prepped for her own execution.
The third film begins with Patty being forced by UNITE soldiers to decide to take the Mark or to be publicly executed by guillotine. The soldiers strap her, speechless and in shock, down to the guillotine, lying face-up. A sudden earthquake and storm appear, and the soldiers and others nearby run for safety, leaving Patty strapped to the guillotine. She cries, “I want the Mark!”, yet no one was nearby to hear her or unstrap her. Alone, she attempts to unstrap herself, but the guillotine blade falls on its own, and Patty dies.
While Evangelicals are certainly more materialistic these days — ready for the rapture, but in no hurry to go — pastors, evangelists, missionaries, Sunday school teachers, and junior church leaders continue to indoctrinate children and adults alike in the Christian death cult. This is why Evangelicalism is not a harmless religion. Its teachings cause real psychological, and at times, physical harm. I started this post with a story gleaned from the many years I spent in the Evangelical church, both as a member and pastor. It is hard, is it not, to not conclude that such indoctrination is child abuse.
What were you taught about being willing to die for Jesus? Please share your stories in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
