"A person will worship something, have no doubt about that.... That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming."
Premise (based on 2003 National Study of Youth and Religion )
1) American young people are, theoretically, fine with religious faith but it does not concern them very much and it is not durable enought to survive long after they graduate from high school. American young people are devotees of nonjugemental openness.
2) We're responsible. We struggle mightily when it comes to handing on faith to young people. Young people seem to be the barometers of a larger theological shift that appears to be taking place in the United States. We have recieved from teenagers exactly what we have asked them for: assent, not conviction, compliance , not faith. Young people invest in religion precisely what they think it is worth - and if they think the church is worthy of benign whatever-ism and no more, then the indictment falls not on them, but on us.
3) Shacking up with "the American dream" has eroded our ability to recognize that Jesus' life of self-giving love directly challenges the american gospel of self-fullfillment and self acutalization. Like Esau, American Christians tend to think with our stomachs, devouring whatever smells good.
4) The problem will not be solved by youth ministry or by persuading teenagers to commit more wholeheartedly to lackluster faith. "Isn't being "good enough", good enough?"
5) At issue is our ability and our willingness to remember our identity as the Body of Christ, and to heed Christ's call to love him and love others as his representatives in the world.
6) The faith that most teenagers exhibit is a loveless version that the NSYR calls Christianity's "misbegotten stepcousin" Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. God is more object than subject, an Idea but not acompanion. Perhaps most young peoplepractice Moralistic Therapeutic Deism not because they reject Christianity, but because it is the only Chrsitianity they know. It is a self-emolliating spirituality; its thrust is personal happines and helping people treat each other nicely.
7)Moralistic Therapeutic Deism cannot exist on its own.It requires a host, and American Christianity has proven to be an exceptionally gracious one.
Question: Can we do something about it?
Solution:
1) It is in following Jesus that we learn to love him; it is in participating in the mission of God that God decisively changes us into disciples. Parents are by far the most important predictors of teenagers' religious lives. Consequential faith can not be reduced to the work of cultural tools. The missionary nature of the church rules out Moralistic Therapeutic Deism as a substitute for Chistian Faith.
2) A Pronounced teenage faith has four characteristics i) a creed to believe, ii) a community to belong to iii) a call to live out iv) a hope to hold onto. They are more likely to say that their parents love, accept, understand and closely monitor them. In addition they ae more likely to make healthy lifestyle choices.
3) Teanagers need to know that God is responsive and dependable. a) God wants to save us and b) God can save us. Hand on the story that God loves us too much to lose us.
4) Conversation is the most imortant vehichle we have for maintaining a reality. Wihout reflection, action becomes simply activism. Knowing more is never the point. Knowing God is the point.
Conclusion:
1) It can be done.
2) Religious formation does not happen by accident.
3) the cultural tools associated with consequential faith are availble in every Christian faith community.
4) Consequential faith has risks - however neither rigid nor diffuse religios identities can survive a mission where love is the primary cargo.
5) We are called to participate in the imagination of a sending God. We need to reclaim our call to follow Chist into the world as envoys of God's self-giving love.
6) What Christian adults know that teenagers are still discovering is that every one of them is an amazing child of God. Christ has claimed them and secured the future for them. If we lived alongside ANYBODY as though this were true - that would be more than enough.
