Mere Christianity: For Kids

As a Christian parent, the author, D Joseph "Ren" Remington, wanted to teach his seven-year-old daughter about being part of the Christian Family. To that end, he considered the catechisms used by various denominations and found them all lacking for his purpose. They all struck Ren to be a series of stilted questions with answers that a child would never give except for rote memorization which didn't strike him as very "natural". The inadequacy of such catechisms for teaching the Christian Faith to children today is highlighted by some very sobering statistics. One study has shown that 40-50% of children from "good families" and involved in youth groups will drift away from God after they leave high school. Other researchers say as many as 80% of such believers will drift away from God by the age 29. As someone who's actually been tested by the heathen/pagan/atheist masses, Ren believes the larger part of the problem is that the kids today just aren't being prepared to execute St. Peter's exhortation to "be ready with answers for the reason for our hope" (1Pt 3:15). The issue is an unhealthy reliance on assumptions - assumptions that those outside forces won't necessarily share. For instance, how do we know God exists? "Because the Bible tells me so" isn't going to cut it when today's kids run into skeptics that will tear such reasoning to philosophical shreds. So then, Ren took it upon himself to come up with a more structured approach to his daughter's upbringing in the Christian Family. Over the course of three months, he had a series of thirteen 5-10 minute conversations with her about God and Church. Ren used CS Lewis' approach to explaining Christianity because he wants his daughter to have it "written upon her heart" (Heb 10:16) and not just a bunch of regurgitated memory verses. As a result, book is called "Mere Christianity: For Kids" as a nod to C.S. Lewis. It is Ren's fervent hope that all readers, adult and child, learn something here as God desires for everyone to genuinely seek to know him better and his will for us.