“What our nation needs is a restoration of family and a restoration of [the] church.” Speaker, author and apologist Alex McFarland knows the United States is in the middle of culture wars. That, along with COVID-19, has negatively impacted the future of America — our youth.

“I really think the moral and spiritual drift that our country is in jeopardizes the future of our constitution. And the loss of our constitution would mean the loss of our liberties and freedoms. So, we really are at kind of an impasse, and we are doing our best to help foster a moral and spiritual awakening for the changing of lives and the saving of America.”

The Spiritual Drift and COVID-19

Beyond the spiritual drift, COVID-19 has, in many cases, hurt the youth of this country. “America’s youth are very vulnerable right now. But I actually think that intellectually, our kids are probably at the lowest they’ve ever been now, and I’m not being critical of teens themselves. Teenagers are a product of their environment in these times. I say that many teens are a victim of their environment.”

“The isolation, fear, and anxiety created by the pandemic were taxing on everyone, but especially our youth,” Alex said in a statement. “During some of the most formative years of their lives, they were forced into their homes and onto the internet as schools and activities shut down. When the restrictions lifted, many were then released back into the world without the crucial social experience needed to successfully re-assimilate. They are now floundering in a world that espouses there is no absolute truth. What did we expect?” 

He’s right, according to a recent study at Stanford. Teenagers from 15 to 18 years old have aged an average of three years over their peers from before the pandemic. Their brain structures have even changed. Add to that the indoctrination of students in public school, and teenagers are in a very vulnerable position, mentally and academically. “Rather than learning history and critical thinking skills and logic, many kids today [are] learning wokeness. I mean, they know everything about LGBTQ Trans, but they can’t tell you who wrote the Declaration of Independence. They can’t tell you what the American Revolution was about. … I’m simply saying that our government and public education has done a very poor job of educating and really unleashing the intellectual potential that these kids have.”

A Culture of Chaos

Kids have what Alex calls “arrested development,” after being required to mask up, quarantine at home and be sequestered away from each other. “It’s almost like [they] groomed kids to be nice little obedient, compliant subjects rather than individuals.” He added that “all of this wokeness and no moral boundaries and no absolute truth and everything is fluid. It’s creating a culture of, of chaos. And the pandemic played right into that.”

Viral Truth Campus Clubs

So Alex and his ministry, Alex McFarland Ministries, are stepping in to help, in answer to teenagers’ requests. Alex started Viral Truth Campus Clubs during the pandemic. Not only was this to address kids’ concerns about what they were learning in school, but to talk to kids about Christ and how they can have a relationship with God. Teens want to know how to talk to their friends about atheism or biblical errors or the existence of God. The clubs address God and country.

The clubs focus on four core values and train the teens to “be real, be respectful, be relevant and relational.” Alex tells the teens to remember that “a person to be loved is more important than an argument to be won.” He gives them what he calls the biblical bottom line: “‘Here’s the facts about God. Here’s the facts about our country and let them know that you care about them and you respect them, even if they disagree.’ … And so, what we’re doing [is] we’re training kids to [do] peer-to-peer ministry and the kids love it. I mean, they’re hungry for truth. And from everything we see, they’re just soaking all this up like a sponge.”

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