No parent would expect his young son or daughter to physically compete with a professional athlete on the athletic field, yet we ask our Christian youth to do exactly that in the intellectual arena. That is, during their formative, immature years we expect them to contend successfully with an antithetical academic and philosophical system manned by college-trained professionals and then to emerge at the end of twelve years with their faith and their beliefs intact.

As early as 1941 Walter Lippman said:

“Day after day young people are subjected to the bombardment of naturalism with all of its animosity to Christianity. In the formative years of their lives, or at least during the period of their education when their ideas are crystallizing, they must listen and absorb these ideas of man, the world and religion. With these facts before them, why do Protestants wonder that Christianity has so little influence over young people!”