Christ Over Culture

For most parents who aren't online in the backwaters of the internet and have seen the oncoming tsunami of wokeism and the various other tentacles of it, this book offers a great overview of the issues along with some helpful talking points of discussing wth your kids of any age. What I think this book does well is start the conversation Christians need to have about having and developing a holistic Christian worldview and using several of these important and currently relevant topics as a gateway to do so. This isn't using the jargon of presuppositionalism and philosophical worldview vocabs I know as a nature of my studies - but all signs point to leading one down the correct path of not just responding to these attacks on God's sovereignty but preparing one's entire family to be ready to give an answer and respond to any competing worldviews that come next. That's where the biggest benefit Crum provides to the Christian reader.

Crum also discusses with welcome frankness the topics of feminism, the rainbow spectrum, transgenderism, and the other avenues of those topics. She does so without being hyper-extreme examples, graphic details, or with pearl-clutching; yet she doesn't mince words with the reality being faced. She balances the need to state the problem and solution within a reasonable scope of a book that will be willingly read by concerned parents looking for advice - so the page count is a benefit here. I would have liked a little more in the way of action points but the ones presented are specific and biblical. Personally, the need to talk about worldview building is a need but that might have added a few more chapters, and is understandable why it didn't happen, so no heavy knock against that. Overall, a good primer for parents wondering what the heck is going on and how to respond. Plus, definitions of words which is always welcomed, and now, you too, can know what a furry is and I'm not the only one who wince at its cringe. Final Grade - B+

I’ve always been the type that accepted God’s teaching with a simple type faith. In other words, it always made sense to me and I didn’t question what God’s word said. In today’s culture, there is a need for more than just that simple faith. There is a need to go deeper to make a stand when the world questions what and why we believe. As my kids are entering teenage years, I’m seeing this need more and more. This book, for me, was a practical and necessary tool to go deeper into a solid biblical view. I appreciated the audio version to listen to as I don’t have the free time to sit and read! The author’s reading was just the right pace and I found encouragement and growth from listening.

As someone who lived the LGB lifestyle for decades, I always felt a deep shame at my core. I grew up as a Methodist, and my parents ensured my sisters and I knew about God and Jesus. We weren’t devout by any measure, but we knew God loved us, and Jesus was His Son. Despite that rather frail foundation, I had serious real-world events that warped and shaped my immature mind to choose another path that “felt” safer.

That still, small voice was constantly tugging at me, but the worldly call to disregard it and party on was immense. I had no intuitive understanding that an internal spiritual battle was being waged for my soul. I even moved to another state far away from my beloved family to give myself a “safe place” to engage in my sin and assuage my iniquity.

It wasn’t until just a few years ago, after decades of emptiness and regrets, that I felt the need to take a hard look at what led me into the LGB lifestyle. The persistent tapping on my heart’s door led me to reconnect with a former work colleague who shared how her life had changed and how she was led into full-time ministry. We talked about God, the Bible, the cultural struggles, and various topics people grappled with. It was during the course of these conversations that I realized I wasn’t walking with God at all! I understood very little about His true character and the kaleidoscope of beauty and peace a personal relationship with Him brought with it. I know now that my reconnection with her was God’s direct divine intervention to get my attention.

I repented and gave my life to Him, and now have a beautiful, loving relationship that smoothed the jagged places, healed the deep bruises, and filled so many holes.

I share some of my backstory to help anyone reading this to understand how much I wish with every fiber of my being that my parents had had this book, Christ over Culture, to give me the knowledge, strength, and courage to say no to the many poor life choices I made as a teenager, a young woman, right into late middle-age.

It was my dance with the devil of the LGB lifestyle that cost me pretty much everything – a husband, children, and a legacy that says I was here – please remember me - as only generations of descendants can do. If only my parents had talked to me using this exceptional book to give me the most powerful tools of knowledge and discernment of what was right from wrong from a sexual identity standpoint - and help me be who I was meant to be from the start, avoiding the barrenness and desolation that living that lifestyle brought for so long.

So, while I have no kids of my own, I see what is happening in the world that is so much more egregious with the internet and social media. The intense and focused attacks by the LGBTQIA+ community poisoning our leaders, educators, the media, and twisting the fundamental understanding of their gender while also confusing their precious, immature minds with the idea that they are not the sex God knit them to be at birth.

The spiritual battle is now a fully-fledged war for the souls of children and this book gives parents the tools mine didn’t have – a serious and immensely effective battle plan to deny what the enemy is so deeply committed to destroying.

Andrea’s book is so beautifully and thoughtfully written and, I believe, anointed. It’s like a comforting voice to concerned and scared parents saying “Let’s do this together. I’ll guide you through the steps to help you give your children a fighting chance and an impenetrable shield against the enemy’s plots to apply to every facet of their lives through God’s grace, protection, and His word.”

It is a chance to give your children what I didn’t have (which may have changed the trajectory of my life).

Don’t even contemplate purchasing this book. You are reading this for a reason.

And one last thing. The former colleague that led me to Christ was Andrea Crum.

This book is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for parents striving to raise their children to love Jesus more than the world. There is a spiritual battle going on for the souls of our children. Parents MUST STOP passively allowing schools and churches to parent their children. Parents must be equipped and take that authority back in their home! This book will help empower parents to raise their children with a Biblical worldview, as it tackles many of the cultural issues we are facing in our world today. Andrea miraculously crafts a book that discusses these heavy topics with the HOPE and JOY that we have in Jesus. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

For those struggling to understand our current society, look no further than Christ over Culture.
Andrea has masterfully collected wisdom to guide parents through the confusing ideas of our culture. She provides useful tips for discussing the prevailing ideologies with kids and encourages the reader to seek Christ first in all things. Each chapter discusses a different ideology and explains why it differs from scripture. The graphics and tables are extremely useful for breaking down the information to make it understandable and memorable. Overall, a must read for any parent.

Easy read -deep truths - that you can actually apply to real conversations- this book is a Cultural translator for Christians to engage with their kids and culture, armed with truth and love using God’s unchanging definitions. I took a semester-long course with the author to learn about worldview, deconstruction and prosperity Gospel etc. It was an amazing course but these topics can be overwhelming and hard to Translate to our children. The Author simplified the deep truths into bite sized pieces so we can share with our kiddos

Do you know how your child would answer the controversial questions in our world today? How many genders are there and so on? Does your child have a biblical foundation that we equip them to articulate a response? If not, as a parent you want to address this. We also need to evaluate if we are putting our children out there to answer the questions we don't want to answer. Are we silent on these issues?

My favorite quote from this book: Silence, in the name of sharing God's love, only leaves people in their brokenness and sin, instead of in the freedom, healing, hope, and joy that comes from a life of following Christ.

I liked some of the topics she covers in regard to where we need to be intentional with our children: discipleship, having a personal relationship with Christ, apologetics, understanding the different worldviews out there, standing firm on a biblical worldview, understanding genders and what the Bible says, being able to identify false doctrine, and raising our kids to stand apart by having a close relationship with Jesus.

I think this is a wonderful books for parents. It explains many of the relevant topics that children are faced with today and gives suggestions on how to biblically equip your child in those areas.

To concerned Christian parents, it is easy to see that the way our culture is going is not in line with, and is actually opposed to, the Word of God. We want to equip our children to stand firmly and boldly on the Truth. But how do we practically do that? As the author states, “we must ground them in biblical truth and also teach them the world’s perspective so they can discern what is from God.”

Presenting the history, implications, and reality of various cultural movements including feminism, critical race theory, LGBTQ+, and others, the author equips us as parents with an understanding of current secular ideologies and their terms so we are prepared to engage our children in conversations about the culture they’re growing up in (not to mention interacting with people steeped in this worldview ourselves). Knowing the terms is key because a lot of the same words are used between the biblical worldview and the postmodern ideologies - including within the progressive “Christian” church - but with an entirely different meaning. Because of details regarding sensitive topics, I recommend this as a book for parents to read through themselves, and then discuss the topics at their discretion with their children. I am grateful to have read this and think it is a very helpful resource for parents.

This book was such a pleasure to read. It wasn’t heavy reading but easy to follow along with. What really stuck out to me was the author's well communicated point of how we as parents, church leaders and leaders within our community need to be up to date on what is going on in our current culture. The importance of knowing for the sake of discipling and raising our children. Too many times we as parents look at what’s going on through the lens of our knowledge and other than telling our children the typical, ‘It’s wrong, it’s sin, it goes against the Word of God.’ We fail to appropriately disciple them on why it is wrong and how we can go about standing firm on God’s Word regardless of what society and culture pushes at our children. She also encourages parents to be up to date with the latest terminology in our culture since our children will hear those terms and not take us seriously if we fail to show that we do care enough about what is going on to understand what is being pushed at our children. Many of the terms used are terms familiar to us but now with different meanings than when we parents were kids.
I really enjoyed reading this book. I think it’s definitely a book any parent of a 10+ year old should read. It challenged me to take a look at how I approach these topics with my children/teen and it challenged me to share from a heart of love.

I really enjoyed the read. I think social justice warrior movements have become such a “normal” part of our society and it is so important to look at how they are impacting our children. She does a wonderful job of connecting in ideas from several different sources which has added to my own personal reading list. The breakdown of the vocabulary used with several current movements is so important and gives several biblical rebuttals to common ways that these movements try to change and warp our children’s way of thinking. The one section I have a hard time with is the dedicated timeline on talk about sex. I believe that is truly for a family to make a prayerful decision about and not a hard set timeline.