As a young parent, I’m always on guard against threats from the world—physical dangers, media messages, influences that might bring harm, and so on. Hardly a week goes by that I’m not shocked by our society’s downward spiral. Case in point is last week’s report from the American Medical Association (AMA), which advocates for the “removal of sex as a legal designation on the public portion of the birth certificate.” One of the most revolutionary things we can do today is teach our children—as the New City Catechism states—about the goodness of God’s design in creating us “male and female in his own image, to glorify him.”

But while I’m rightly aware of threats from the outside, I often wonder about the ways in which I unwittingly imbibe cultural assumptions that, in the long run, will subtly erode my faith and undermine my parenting. As Brett McCracken observes in a provocative new article, “5 Foundations That Lead to Compromise on Sexual Ethics,” there are a number of “different, subtle shapes Christianity can take that at first might seem benign—but will later set up a Christian for compromise.” More than just a personal perspective, though, he invites us to consider the church models—consumeristic, pragmatic, political, emotionalistic, or cerebral—that contribute to this spiritual downgrade.

Read Brett’s piece and be freshly challenged to live as a wholehearted disciple of Christ, in a healthy local church.