“God doesn’t place limits on sex because He wants to downplay the goodness of sex. He places limits on it because sex has meaning, meaning that our culture has lost,” writes Hillary Morgan Ferrer. Hillary is the founder of Mama Bear Apologetics®, a ministry that provides resources to help busy moms equip their children to defend their faith. Hillary, along with Amy Davison, wrote Mama Bear Apologetics® Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand & Live Out God’s Design. Released last month, the book helps parents raise their children to “understand sex and gender through a biblical lens.”

Defending the Faith

Hillary became interested in apologetics at age 12, she told The Stream recently. Her pastor introduced her to the evidence for the resurrection and the reliability of the New Testament. “Basically, I felt like I had to check my brain at the door to walk away from the faith because I couldn’t un-know what I knew.”

In 2019 Hillary wrote her first book, Mama Bear Apologetics®: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies. She wasn’t sure she wanted to write Guide to Sexuality because she was afraid of the topic. However, she soon realized that God wanted her to co-write it. “[I]t became very clear early on that this really was the book that God was wanting us to write. This book really is the epitome of what it feels like for me to conquer fear. And I think the fear that I had surrounding this topic is probably similar to the fear that a lot of parents have — that there’s so many moving parts.” 

An Impossible Task

Moving parts like differing opinions and new definitions. “You’ve got the science, you’ve got the psychology, you’ve got — is it inborn sin? Is it something from sexual trauma?” It felt like an impossible task. As she wrote, she felt her fear slip away. “I think fear can sometimes come when we don’t understand something. And so it’s my goal — I hope this book helps walk other parents through that same fear of not understanding to feeling like, ‘Okay, I really understand what God intended for sex, what He intended for marriage, what He intended for gender. And now I can start teaching … my kids and I’m equipped to know what the world, what the schools are trying to teach them and why those worldviews really are incoherent.”

Almost Never Too Early

Teaching kids about sexuality is almost never too early, especially as more cartoons than ever before are presenting LGBTQ ideas to children as young as pre-K. “The world has no problem trying to show their worldview,” about sexuality. Hillary continued:

What they’re doing is they’re creating categories in kids’ heads of, ‘Here’s a family that looks like your family. Oh, here’s another family that has two dads. Oh, here’s another family that has two moms. Uh, these are all just different kinds of family. And so it’s kind of desensitizing from an early age, to where, if you try to start talking to them about this, when they’re, you know, in middle school or even late elementary school, they’ve already been exposed to all this.

Of course, teaching sexuality at an early age must be age appropriate, but parents should expect to start early, especially if their kids are in public school. “We need to be introducing them to how God designed [sexuality].” 

Guide to Sexuality

Hillary and Amy’s new book reviews how the world sees sexuality and how God created sexuality for the human race. Hillary wants readers to have a clearer picture of how gender, sex, marriage and family are intended to point them to spiritual realities with God. “I would like to combat the idea that we can create meaning, but rather that there is inherent meaning within gender, sex, marriage and family that God created, that we do not have the ability to change. I want them to feel confident in helping their kids understand the entire Christian worldview, not just the ‘thou shalts’ and ‘thou shalt nots.’ And also to feel equipped to talk with their kids when they do encounter the secular worldview in regards to these things.”

“Just really hoping that parents feel empowered and that kids understand the why behind God’s mandates for sex and they will have internal motivation, not just because someone said so.”

Image Bearers of God

Teaching kids about sexuality and the difference between God’s design and the world’s opinion must be done in love. Parents should make it clear that anytime “we encounter a person, a human being, they are created in the image of God,” and should be treated with dignity and respect. Parents must lay that foundation before they begin teaching that God’s design is different from the world’s design for sexuality, because kids want to start comparing. “So, absolutely laying the foundation [for] every person you meet, no matter what — if they’re a criminal, if they’re homeless, if they’re gay, if they’re whatever. They’re a person created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect as an image bearer of God.”

Nancy Flory, Ph.D., is an associate editor at The Stream. You can follow her @NancyFlory3, and follow The Stream @Streamdotorg.