If anyone had good reason to shuffle past the children — “Sorry, kids, not now” — it was Jesus. No one had higher priorities or a loftier mission. No one’s time was more valuable. Yet no one gave his priorities or his time so patiently to those we might see as distractions. On his way to save the world, our Lord paused and “took [the children] in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them” (Mark 10:16). His life and ministry were full, but not too full for children.

Ever since Eden, God has given children a crucial role in the coming of his kingdom. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring,” God told the serpent (Genesis 3:15). And so, ever since Eden, there has also been a long and desperate war on children.
The biblical story shows us just how ruthless this world’s anti-child forces can become: Pharaoh casting Israel’s sons in the Nile (Exodus 1:22). Demonic “gods” bidding parents to pass their children through fire (Jeremiah 19:4–5). Herod slaughtering Bethlehem’s boys (Matthew 2:16).
Our own society is not above such bloodshed: more than sixty million invisible headstones (from the last fifty years, and still counting) fill America’s fields. Much of the modern West’s aversion to children appears, however, in subtler forms. Today, we are having fewer children than ever, later than ever. We diminish, and sometimes outright despise, stay-at-home motherhood. And too often, we treat children as mere accessories to our individualism: valuable insofar as they buttress our personal identity and further our personal goals — otherwise, inconvenient.
As Christians, we may be tempted to assume that this war on children exists only out there. But even when we turn from the world of secular individualism and carefully consider ourselves — our hearts, our homes, our churches — we may find strange inclinations against children. We may discover that anti-child forces can hide in the most seemingly pro-child places. And we may realize, as Jesus’s disciples once did, that children need a larger place in our lives.
Pro-Child on Paper
As with most Christians today, the disciples of Jesus grew up in a largely pro-child culture. Their views of children may not have been as sentimental as ours sometimes are, but they knew kids played a key role in God’s purposes. They remembered God’s promise to send a serpent-crushing son (Genesis 3:15). They regularly recited the command to teach God’s word “diligently to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:4–9). They cherished God’s faithfulness to a thousand generations (Exodus 34:7).
But then, one day, some actual children approach the disciples. And as Jesus watches how his men respond, he feels an emotion nowhere else attributed to him in the Gospels: indignation.
They were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant. (Mark 10:13–14)
The disciples likely had the best of intentions. To them, these children (or their parents) were acting inappropriately; they were coming at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Not now, children — the Master has business to attend to. They were about to discover, however, that far from distracting the Master from his business, children lay near the heart of the Master’s business.
In the process, they also warn us that claiming a pro-child position does not mean living a pro-child life. You can theoretically value children and practically neglect them. You can say on paper, “Let the children come,” while saying with your posture, “Let the children keep their distance.” You can look with disdain on the anti-child forces in the world and, meanwhile, overlook the precious children in your midst.
We, like the disciples, may hold pro-child positions. Our churches may have pro-child programs. But actually being pro-child requires far more than a position or a program: it requires the very heart and posture of Christ.
Heart of Christ for Children
“Jesus loved children with a grand and profound love,” Herman Bavinck writes (The Christian Family, 43). And do we? Answering that question may require a closer look at our Lord’s response when the little children came to him.
How might we become more like this Man who made his home among the children, this almighty Lord of the little ones? Among the various pro-child postures we see in Mark 10:13–16, consider three.
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Recently, as I was preparing to teach a seminary class, I became interested in researching the history of Christianity in Delhi. However, it shocked me how few resources I could find on this important topic.
As I dove into the few materials available, it surprised me to learn that Delhi’s first known Indian Christian received baptism only in 1852. This is around 1800 years after Christianity first came to India! Not only did the gospel take almost two millennia to reach Delhi, but it also means Christianity has had a short history in our nation’s capital.
The fact that Delhi now has an estimated 6 lakhs of Christians and thousands of churches means that the growth of Christianity in Delhi in the last 170 years has been nothing less than stunning.
Additionally, it surprised me to learn about the incredible life of Ramchandra, Delhi’s first known Indian Christian. He was a famous mathematician and a central figure in the 19th-century movement, the Delhi Renaissance.
Indian Church History Matters
Ramchandra was the de facto leader of the church in Delhi from his baptism in 1852 to his death almost 30 years later. We may justifiably call him the father of Christianity in Delhi. Yet, in my nearly 20 years of ministry here, I had never heard his name!
Learning about Ramchandra’s life has reminded me how much we lose when we neglect the study of history.
Below, I share a brief sketch of Ramchandra’s remarkable life. However, apart from the fascinating details of his story, my larger goal is to interest my fellow Indian believers in studying the history of Christianity in our country.
History provides us with a deeper understanding of where we are today. It gives us a broader perspective on what God has been doing in India and inspiration from those whose shoulders we stand on. We miss out on all these things when we neglect to study those who came before us.
The Early Life of Ramchandra
Ramchandra was born in 1821 into a family of the Kayasth caste. His father served in the government as a tehsildar (revenue collector) in the Delhi district. He was the eldest of six brothers.

Christopher Rufo: America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything (Broadside Books, 2023). In it he has a chapter on DEI and its role in the Cultural Revolution. The chapter’s final paragraphs are just as true of Australia and other Western nations: If critical race theory should succeed as a system of government, it is easy to imagine the future: an omnipotent bureaucracy that manages transfer payments between racial castes, enforces always-shifting speech and behavior codes through bureaucratic rule, and replaces the slogan of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” with the deadening euphemism of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

There is a real cultural revolution underway. The culture wars have been fought for a number of decades now, and they present a very real threat to the West. The fact that I have over 2500 articles on this matter is but one indication that this has been a key battleground between the radical left and those who think Western civilisation is still worth preserving.
As has been explained so often now, the earlier calls for violent political revolution largely fell on deaf ears. The workers of the world did not rise up and revolt as Marx had predicted. So later Marxists determined that internal evolution through the taking over of the institutions would be the way to achieve what external armed revolution could not.
So now we have the whole gamut of critical race theory, wokism, political correctness, intersectionality, tribalism, victim politics and the like being pushed throughout the West. And by targeting all the major institutions of power and influence – the schools, the media, law, politics, and even the churches – it has been largely quite successful.
All this is part of the attempt by the revolutionary left to remake the West in its own image, and to undermine all things they consider to be toxic and counterrevolutionary. Everything must go, but by using internal subversion and upheaval, much of what is being done can be presented in platitudes and euphemisms.
Consider DEI for example. It sounds pretty good, right? Who is not in favour of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion? Of course, it all depends on what is meant by these terms. Kamala and the Dems in America, and Albo and Labor in Australia for example are constantly using these words. But what they mean by them is not what most of us mean.
The examples of DEI are everywhere to be found, sometimes with really quite tragic consequences. One of the most recent and egregious cases in point almost cost Donald Trump his life. The utter bungling and failures of the US Secret Service to protect the former President at his rally in Butler, PA some 12 weeks ago showed the whole world just how dangerous DEI can be.
Sure, it was not the only reason for this colossal fail by those meant to be protecting Trump, but it was a major component nonetheless. Recall what was the main priority of the then head of the SS, Kimberley Cheatle. DEI was a consuming passion of hers, and her stated goal was to have at least 30 per cent of all personnel female.
Now in many areas, it does not matter if 90 per cent of your workers are female, be it flipping burgers or developing software. But when it comes to protecting the leaders of a nation, it is not quotas that we need, but those who are fully qualified. Merit and not mere numbers is what matters. Many women can fit the bill here, but when the quite short female agents could not even properly protect Trump (he is 6’ 3” after all), then DEI should be left out, and those who are qualified should be the primary consideration.
But that is just one example of many. Hiring people simply to fill quotas is a recipe for disaster. I have written on this matter often. In one such piece I quoted a woman – yes, a woman – who put it this way:
Quotas suck. Women will only be equal when there isn’t an artificial incentive for women to be promoted. If management staffing decisions are made with a frame of ‘we don’t have enough women so we should pick a woman’ then how can a woman ever be respected in that position? If quotas exist, how will women ever be considered worthy of their roles, deserving of them and equal to the task, rather than equal to the quota? https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/03/09/women-quotas-and-affirmative-action/
Of course it is not just women we are talking about here, but Blacks and others. The noted Black American economist Thomas Sowell has written numerous works on this. Here is just one quote – from his important book Race and Economics:
“Perhaps the greatest dilemma in attempts to raise ethnic minority income is that those methods which have historically proved successful—self-reliance, work skills, education, business experience—are all slow developing, while those methods which are more direct and immediate—job quotas, charity, subsidies, preferential treatment—tend to undermine self-reliance and pride of achievement in the long run.”
And he of course has more recently written on DEI as well.
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