Hillary Morgan Ferrer > Quotes

“Once language becomes routinely distorted, it becomes increasingly easy to justify and promote evil—while at the same time hiding behind positive words.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“I want my churched-up, prayed-up, pre-school kid to be a skeptic too! Why? Because being a skeptic means that he will question what is presented to him. This is important because I will not always be the one presenting the ideas. A child who understands how to discover truth is primed for a faith that lasts much longer than that of a child who is merely presented with the truth.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“Linguistic theft refers to purposefully hijacking words, changing their definitions, and then using those same words as tools of propaganda.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“I am thankful that my faith does not rely on the shifting sands of my emotions because on some days, my emotions are all over the place.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“Moral relativism is ultimately self-defeating because on one hand, it demands that everybody tolerate each other. On the other hand, it is very intolerant of those who are seen as intolerant.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“snowball. A friend of mine used to tell his kids, “What you tolerate today, you accept tomorrow. What you accept today, you embrace tomorrow.” I would add a third statement to that: “What you embrace today, you promote tomorrow.” We have seen this progression within the realm of sexual ethics, have we not?”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“There is no historical document that can be “proven” in the same way things are proven in physics or chemistry. Why do some people treat the Bible like it’s the one historical document that has to bear this level of “proof”?”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“Enter today’s authenticity, which is actually a Trojan horse for rebellion. This new and more popular definition says, “You are perfect just the way you are” or, “We are all messy. Learn to love your beautiful, messy life!” These are code for “God would rather you be ‘real’ than striving for holiness.” This kind of authenticity says that if something doesn’t come naturally, or doesn’t feel natural, then it is inauthentic and therefore fake. Newsflash: Much of the Christian life is uncomfortable. What if Jesus had said, “You know, I really don’t feel like being crucified today. It doesn’t feel like the right time. I just need to be authentic with you all, and I don’t want to try to be someone I’m not right now, like a Savior. Thanks for understanding.” Thank God Jesus did not do that!”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“immaterial things, by nature, cannot be studied using material methods.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“a mature, informed, discerning worldview does not need to fear the false messages that this world churns out if it has already been trained to identify which aspects to reject.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“Whenever you hear someone talking about intolerance, ask your kids, “Are they asking for people to accept their belief as equally true, or to live with them in peace despite disagreement?”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“Any song, podcast, TED talk, animated series, sermon series, or Christian book (and there are many) that elevates you, your feelings, or even your calling—making you the hero in the story—is an agent of self-helpism.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“scientists who held to a Judeo-Christian worldview expected the world to reflect the characteristics of the unchanging God of Scripture. They expected the world to be rational, orderly, and law-like because God was rational and He “changed not.”8 This conviction allowed modern science to flourish, whereas paganism had stymied it.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“A strawman argument is a type of logical fallacy—it happens when a person presents an oversimplified and distorted version of an idea and then offers a rebuttal to it.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“the Bible is sufficient, meaning that it tells us all we need to know about who God is, who we are, and what we need for the abundant life (as defined by God). Just remember—no matter what you’re reading or listening to—psychology must always bend the knee to theology. Does the teaching you’re listening to line up with who God says He is in the Bible? Or does it belittle Him by taking away from His character or ways? Does the teaching line up with who the Bible says we are? Or does it elevate our callings or gifts higher than the Bible does? Does the teaching call out sin for what it is and include the absolute necessity of repentance? Or does it soften the definition of sin (“mistakes, messiness”) and minimize its effects?”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“Disagreement does not equal hate. Disparities are not always due to injustice. Exclusive beliefs do not equal intolerance. If that were the case, then everyone would qualify as intolerant.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“our little bears will be able to interact with this culture with grace, love, and critical thinking—inhaling the spiritual oxygen and exhaling everything else—in a way that is as natural as breathing.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“we establish trust with people by acknowledging their good intentions. Few people think that they are on the wrong side of history. Everyone sees themselves as crusading for the greater good. We must try to see their idea from their perspective. What are they valuing? What are they trying to accomplish? What is their ultimate goal?”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“We can control what we do, but it is God who creates the growth to change who we are.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“The only time people notice foundations is when there’s something wrong with them. In our culture, we have massive foundational issues, and the ideological cracks can be seen everywhere.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“A Mama Bear apologist answers the person as much as she does the question.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“There is a fundamental difference between teaching our kids to base their spiritual foundation on the experience of Jesus and basing it on Jesus.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“We as Christians are supernaturalists because we don’t believe that nature is all there is. We believe that real things exist outside of nature.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“the only reason we have anything good coming our way is because God is good, not because we are. Be aware when you hear people touting rights. Often, what they call a right is really a gift to which they feel entitled.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“Doctrine doesn’t abuse people; people abuse people.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“If a person is not offering a statement that has a con position, don’t debate that person. Do not give him or her another con position. All that individual will do is keep repeating, “I’m not saying there’s no God. All I’m saying is I lack God belief.” And the Christian keeps giving that person evidences for God ad nauseum.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“Truth is powerful, and the most potent lies are wrapped in partial truths. If a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, then partial truths help the lies go down.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“we can’t fix what is fundamentally broken within ourselves. Only God can do that. As the term self-helpism suggests, self-help is a completely unbiblical take on human brokenness. Its message (boiled way, way down) is that we need search no further than within ourselves to find both the cause and remedies for our brokenness.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies

“1.​Identify the messages that are being presented. They all have one or more. (Except maybe that song about there being millions of peaches… I think those dudes were just high.) 2.​Along with your kids, identify which values the creators are elevating. (Freedom? Autonomy? Sex? Drugs? Pride?) Which values are they demeaning? (Humility? Responsibility? Traditional gender roles?) 3.​Try to piece together the worldview behind the message. What do you think the artist’s definition of good and bad is? What about moral and immoral? What is the good life—the life that reflects success (according to their art or writing)? Is it money? Lots of romantic relationships? Freedom from rules? 4.​If you are watching a movie, identify which characters and qualities are presented in an attractive way. Pay attention to the traits that are exhibited by the villains. The protagonist and antagonist are often archetypes, or representations of ideas.”
― Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies