Why should I care about others?

Untethered “freedom”

Are you more Elsa or Snow White? OK, so Encanto’s Mirabel ripped up the Disney princess script a few years back, and Rachel Zegler took Snow in weird directions this year. But does 1937’s homemaking, animal-whispering porcelain princess resonate, or are you feeling the fierce, sassy and powerful snow queen? Voting Elsa makes sense as she reflects our culture having emerged from it. The focus on the individual is intense, perfectly encapsulated within the kids party sing-along, Let it go:

“No rights, no wrongs, no rules for me – I’m free.”

But free… to be what, exactly? Free to be me. Whatever that means. Maybe Elsa just needed a little “me time”. But that freedom comes at a price.

Left untethered to something bigger, that individualistic view of freedom leads to narcissistic, self-absorbed… and increasingly lonely people. The research findings for Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation are a depressing read.

Jean Twenge, author of Generations, calls it “the dirty little secret of life” where we are bombarded by messages that we need to “know ourselves and love ourselves first, and not to depend on anyone or anything else – but being alone sucks.” Just ask Elsa, stuck in an ice-castle of her own creation, with the only company a demonic snowman called Marshmallow.

We were never designed for that kind of freedom.

Authentic faith

I want to help you find language for conversations with your youth and children to show just how broken and unsatisfactory our individualistic culture is, and give you confidence in the true basis of our value.

Authentic Christian faith increasingly goes against the flow and stands out in our culture. In John’s Gospel, Jesus laid out his central command: “Love each other as I have loved you.” He was consistent in that message. When asked which of the laws given by God to Moses was the greatest, Jesus flipped the script from the dos and don’ts and said, “love God, love others, nothing else matters.”

The good news is you can’t let God down, because you don’t hold him up in the first place

Imagine if people genuinely loved each other as Jesus showed love? A materialistic world view has no real substitute for the source of altruism – the idea of love that goes above and beyond. Love as a verb. Love that is expressed in sacrifice. It’s virtually impossible to argue from an evolutionary perspective. Survival of the fittest has no room for Christian concern for the last, least and lost. But Jesus benchmarked it for us, saying that “Greater love has no one than this: That you lay down your life for your friend.” You can only do that if you can love people more than yourself. And you can only truly love like that if you are secure in who you are. But when security is found in what you do, have done and who you are, it is easy to get trapped in a metaphorical ice castle walled by insecurity, anxiety and loneliness.

Measuring up

Our significance and true freedom is found not in a subjective experience, or the insecurity of money, possessions, or achievements, but in an objective relationship with an eternal Father who loves us as His own. In the 27 books that make up the New Testament, being “born again” is referenced just three times. A more consistent idea is being included in a new family, through adoption. Jesus smashed Jewish expectations when he used the Aramaic word, Abba, when He prayed to God. That was the word Jewish children used for “papa” and Father quickly became the Christian name for God. Many people suffer performance anxiety, crushed by a sense of failure if they don’t live up to expectations. The good news is you can’t let God down, because you don’t hold him up in the first place. If God is alpha and omega, the first and last, and knows everything you will ever do in the future, and still loves you and accepts you today, then you are in a safe place. This is what our culture cannot offer you or your children – the safest and most secure relationship we could ever wish for. Youth and children are fully known and loved for who they are – their intrinsic worth rather than their performance.

Read more:

Why go to church if God is everywhere?

Answering children’s questions: Who made God?

Answering your child’s questions: Why should I say sorry?

The world would have our young people believe that their value is in what they possess, whether beauty, skills, resources or status. And it is so easy to simply affirm that perspective when our stages are filled with people who would satisfy the world’s criteria of appearance, ability and achievements.

Being Christian means throwing out the scales the world uses to measure someone’s value and seeing the intrinsic worth of every human being who has been made in the image of God. “Worth” points us back to the biblical concept of glory, which is the weightiness of all that God is. We all matter to God because we reflect something of His glory and share in his worth-ness. That’s why Jesus said that “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

We matter

I was sat in my first adoption panel, being quizzed on our suitability. The question came up:

“In what way would your faith work against the best interests of the child?”

Me: “I get it. I know why you ask that question. But as a Christian I believe I place a higher value on a child than any other world view because I believe they are created in the image of God.”

That ended any further questions about faith, and we were approved to adopt.

Genuine Christian belief is a safeguard against treating people like they are sub-human. In 2024 a horrific story broke of people smugglers who issued life-jackets stuffed with packaging to people fleeing their home countries, knowing full well that if the vessel capsized the people would drown. Many were child sized.

You don’t need to be a Christian to know that is wrong. But only people who follow Jesus see something of the almighty God imprinted into each person no matter how warped and damaged it might be. This creates space for experiencing true freedom. You are free to know and be known. To love and be loved – for who you are, not what you are, have done or can do.