Table of Contents
- Can Book Banning Protect Christian Children?
- Who Is Really Discipling Our Children?
- Why Wholesomeness Is Not the Same as Holiness
- Why Book Banning Cannot Replace Discipleship
- How Can Christians Form Wise Readers?
- What the Church Must Do Instead
- Frequently Asked Questions About Book Banning and Discipleship
- For Further Reading
The American Library Association released its 2025 State of America's Libraries Report this month, with the second-highest number of titles challenged (4,235). However, only a small percentage of these challenges came from more traditional sources, such as parents (2.7%) or individual library users (1.4%). The lion’s share (92%) of the challenges came from pressure groups, elected officials, appointed board members, and administrators. The traditional picture of a book challenge involving a concerned parent raising a specific concern about a specific title in a specific library accounts for a vanishingly small share of the current activity. If these numbers represent the early development of a trend, it will become increasingly unclear who exactly is raising concerns and challenges.
One group mentioned in the report is Moms for Liberty. Most parents not involved in the group would likely be hard-pressed to describe what the organization actually believes beyond what the name suggests. The challenges being raised in the name of moms and, by extension, parents, are being shaped by people whose commitments most of us haven’t examined. These groups, whose commitments most of us haven’t examined, represent a relatively small subset of parents overall. So, a group whose website states, “parents have the natural right to direct the upbringing of their children,” is using political pressure to remove books from libraries so that some parents may lose access to them. If successful, Moms for Liberty is effectively taking policy decisions away from parents, so many parents inherit decisions made by groups they don’t know.
That said, someone is always making decisions we are going to end up living with; however, in this case, a group organized to promote liberty and parental autonomy is mobilizing people (many of whom, I assume, are parents) to create pressure rather than allowing individual parents to make choices. For the record, I would prefer that my kids not read some of the books on the list, just like I would prefer they not watch certain movies or television shows, use certain social media apps, or visit certain websites. Political action has its place, but it is supplemental to the harder, more individual work of helping our children recognize God’s reality and the truth, goodness, and beauty that exist within it.
The real issue in the battle over books is not only which titles stay on shelves, but who is forming our children to read, think, and discern well. This article argues that advocacy groups and policy fights cannot replace the deeper work of Christian discipleship, which trains children to recognize truth, goodness, and beauty under the authority of Christ.
Can Book Banning Protect Christian Children?
Book banning may limit access to some content, but by itself it cannot disciple Christian children. The deeper issue is not only exposure to content, but also the interpretive framework children bring to what they read, watch, and encounter. Without Christian formation, removing books may delay discomfort without producing maturity, wisdom, or holiness.
Who Is Really Discipling Our Children?
My daughters attended public schools and, at one point, were asked to interpret a piece of art, but they weren’t given any interpretive framework for how to do so. It’s unlikely that I would have clutched my pearls at any artwork that was sent home. Yes, I realize that some of what passes for art is inappropriate, but to me, the bigger crime was that my daughters were given no guidance on how to evaluate it. I told them they need to think of art as a commentary on truth, goodness, and beauty. It could be affirming, appreciating, critiquing, or challenging accepted views of the good, true, and the beautiful. It turned out to be a wonderful moment for me to reinforce the reality that we don’t define goodness, truth, and beauty; we only recognize them, and often only partially.
Over the years, this sort of situation has been relatively common. An assignment comes home, but teachers haven’t taught the method. Perhaps they have shown a few examples or even encouraged a particular set of values, but the underlying way of thinking through an issue remains unaddressed. If my daughters’ experience wasn’t an anomaly, we need to wrestle with the implications of an educational system that isn’t helping students recognize the claim reality has on us. That problem isn’t simply a matter of promoting “leftist values” but of decoupling education from critical, creative, and contemplative thought. Learning about different subjects is different than learning to analyze and evaluate the world and theories about it. It is different than acknowledging we don’t determine what the world is like and, thus, are subject to reality rather than creators of it.
In part, this is what makes the current debate over book banning something of a red herring. Both those seeking to remove books and those protesting their removal seem to assume that the deepest challenge is content. While we need to be guarded about the content we put in front of our children, their sense of how the world works and the interpretive frameworks they adopt shape how they will respond to it. Will they respond with desire or compassion? Will they see characters as flawed and lost, or as valorized and emulated? These are not primarily content questions. They are discipleship questions because they require one to adjust one’s perspective on the world so that they may truly pray “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).
My concern is not that a group of individuals has come together to challenge a set of books, but that these groups think what they are doing somehow safeguards children from deformative ideologies. At best, it delays their introduction to them. Along the way, it has the potential to give parents the sense that they no longer need to concern themselves with what their kids are reading (if kids still do that). Our kids will be confronted with ideologies we might oppose. While we need to be wise about discerning what is age appropriate, it is not at all clear what pulling certain books off library shelves will actually accomplish in isolation from (1) robust literacy training that helps kids recognize what a given piece of art or literature is saying about truth, goodness, and beauty and (2) deep discipleship that reinforces the notion that our way of reasoning emerges from relationship, specifically our relationship with the Triune God.
Why Wholesomeness Is Not the Same as Holiness
Conservative advocacy groups like Moms for Liberty and liberal ideologies and the groups that advocate for them, like Red, Wine, & Blue, have at least one thing in common: neither has a vested interest in making disciples of Jesus Christ. While we may agree that children of a certain age shouldn’t be exposed to certain types of content, we also need to remember that, as Christians, we cannot settle for wholesomeness; only holiness will do. In part, we can’t settle for wholesomeness because wholesomeness only ever advances a partial understanding of truth, goodness, and beauty.
Consider, for instance, the difference between affirming the whole of the Ten Commandments instead of focusing only on the prohibitions against theft, adultery, murder, and coveting. The first is rooted in an unreserved commitment to the Lord whose claim on us governs all the laws. The second affirms a set of values apart from the One who gives them, and because it does not recognize the claim God has on us, it will bend away from God’s order, no matter how wholesome it appears. This is what makes wholesomeness inadequate. It can advance a partial truth in a form that closes off the whole.
Responding to God from within a situation rather than to the situation as if God were absent or irrelevant means refusing to predetermine what faithfulness will require. It means an openness to actions that cost us our rights. It means critiquing partial notions of the good when they claim to be the whole, and pointing past every incomplete identification of the true, good, and beautiful to the Triune God who is their source. That is what the church is called to do for the world, including those parts of the world with which we share certain values. We serve the Triune God and are charged with making disciples who commit to learning how to live under Christ’s authority. Even if we think they are good things, we aren’t training good citizens, reclaiming parental rights, or preserving some notion of “America” unless such activities emerge from discipleship.
To put it differently, as we learn what it means to give our allegiance to Christ, we may find that such allegiance involves political participation or public advocacy. Living under Christ’s authority, however, also means that we remain willing to set aside such activities to glorify God, build the church, and avoid offending others with anything other than the gospel.
Book banning of the sort practiced by Moms for Liberty and opposed by groups such as Red, Wine, & Blue may well distract us from our core task. The agendas of groups seeking to reshape the United States in one way or another can end up being similar to the situation we see in the book of Judges, where everyone does what is right in their own eyes (Jud 21:25). These groups seek to bend institutions to their will, guiding them toward a desired future of their own choosing.
If, as noted above, we have a responsibility to affirm those who recognize some aspect of the true, good, or beautiful apart from God while, at the same time, pointing to the Triune God who is the source of goodness, truth, and beauty, we also need to be training our children to do the same. Rather than trying to remove certain works of literature, we need to help them read that literature as a comment on God’s reality (whether his ownership of it is recognized or not).
Again, I don’t think I want to expose my five-year-old to Capote’s In Cold Blood, Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, or McCormick’s Sold. I did, however, read Brown’s Red Rising trilogy with my son when he was in Junior High and encouraged my teenage children to read Orwell’s 1984 (a personal favorite) despite Winston’s fantasies and the depiction of torture. These latter books prompted interesting conversations about decision-making, sacrifice, the threat of power, the need for resilience, and even leadership. As we went through the books together, I helped them process what they were reading so they could see the goodness, truth, and beauty being portrayed while also recognizing the distortions produced by stories that do not acknowledge the Triune God.
Why Book Banning Cannot Replace Discipleship
Book-banning won’t make disciples of Jesus Christ, in part because such measure often keeps children from feeling the appropriate discomfort that opens them to transformation. Children need to be inquisitive, reaching for frameworks they don’t already have and seeking wise guides who can help them develop a way of interpreting the world. Removing the discomfort completely or leaving it while removing the guide diminishes opportunities for growth toward maturity. That sort of discomfort is necessary, but the wrong guide can use it to misdirect children toward ignoble aims. Without a dedicated discipler guiding children toward Christ, the discomfort can be used to lead them astray.
A bad spotter in a weight room is not only the absent-minded one who lets the bar settle on the lifter’s chest. It is also the over-eager spotter who grabs the bar at the first sign of struggle and never lets the lifter strain against the weight. The lifter doesn’t get stronger because they never put their muscles to the test. Schools and advocacy groups are like bad spotters. The art assignment my daughters brought home was the first sort of absent-minded spotter who lets the students get crushed under the weight of the bar. By offering no way to interpret the art assigned, they are effectively allowing the weight to sit on their chests. Advocacy groups that mobilize to remove books before children encounter them are like overeager spotters. They pull the bar up before the lifter has had to struggle and call it protection.
None of this denies that limitation has a place. Children are not adults. Age-appropriateness is not a draconian measure. It tracks the reality of how human beings grow. Movie ratings exist for a reason. A Christian parent who declines to put certain material in front of a six-year-old is discipling through parenting, not banning. Some categories of content, pornography being the clearest, ought to be kept away entirely, not because of the age of the viewer but because of what the content is and does.
The point, however, is that ideological capture is not solely a problem in so-called leftist circles. It is a problem on the right as well. Ideologies are systems of thought that claim to be more complete than they actually are. They tend to close off perspectives that contradict their narrative. All books can encourage this sort of premature closure, particularly when there is no guidance on how to read and interpret literature of various sorts.
What we need to recognize is that banning books or renovating the public school system may accomplish something, but it won’t disciple our children. That is the role of the body of Christ. Discipleship offers the possibility of mature relationships that can help raise up a new generation of Christians capable of more than following a list of dos and don’ts or avoiding the taboos so often prevalent in the community of faith. We don’t need Christians who can toe the line set by a congregation or a cultural movement. We need Christians who have reached a mature state that enables them to discern good and evil (Heb 5:14).
How Can Christians Form Wise Readers?
Christians form wise readers by doing more than filtering content. They teach children how to ask what a story says about truth, goodness, beauty, power, sin, and human nature. They stay present in the struggle of interpretation, helping young readers recognize both what is admirable and what is distorted. Mature disciples are not formed by avoidance alone, but by patient guidance, thoughtful conversation, and a growing ability to discern good and evil under Christ’s authority.
What the Church Must Do Instead
The church is the body Christ gave for the purpose of forming saints. Discipleship is its proper work. When we look at our children and ask who is discipling them, the answer ought to be the church because the church is called to make disciples.
If we outsourced that work to advocacy organizations, we would have settled for wholesomeness when only holiness will do. We have handed it to someone else, and the someone else is confirming our children to something other than the image of Christ. The solution is not to ban book banners, but to recognize the task we, as Christians, have been given and prepare ourselves to do it.
When the church outsources its formational work to advocacy organizations, even those whose stated values overlap with its own, it settles for wholesomeness when only holiness will do. Someone else to whom we have handed our children is conforming them to something other than the image of Christ by leveraging the ordinary, political, and PR mechanisms that shape us into political animals rather than disciples. The answer is not to ban the book banners, but to recognize the task we have been given and prepare ourselves to do it, rather than hoping that the advocacy groups that currently align with our values don’t change.
Frequently Asked Questions About Book Banning and Discipleship
- Can book banning disciple children?
No. The draft’s core argument is that banning books may accomplish something politically, but it cannot itself disciple children or produce maturity in Christ. - Is age-appropriateness the same as banning?
No. The article wisely distinguishes between responsible Christian parenting and broad advocacy efforts. Limiting what a young child sees can be an act of discipleship, not censorship. - Why is wholesomeness not enough for Christians?
Because wholesomeness can preserve partial goods without rooting them in God. The article argues that Christians cannot settle for moral tidiness when holiness under Christ’s authority is the real goal. - Who should be discipling our children?
The article’s answer is clear: the church, through the body of Christ, should be forming children into mature disciples who can discern truth, goodness, and beauty.
For Further Reading
- How Can Christians Know if They're Trapped in Culture Wars?
- 5 Ways to Protect Your Kids from Secular Culture
- 4 Ways to Teach Children a Biblical Worldview
- Passing on a Christian Worldview to Kids Includes Immunizing Them from Bad Ideas
- What Is Biblical Discernment and Why Is It Important?
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Josh Applegate
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