(Re-purposed a bit from a post I sent earlier to an email discussion group from our previous church.)
From an article appearing in the Durham Herald Sun
What do teens think they know about religion?My reply/comment:
Moralistic therapeutic deism.
It's a mouthful, but it's a sociological way to describe how teens observe religion. It's also the subhead on a chapter called "God, Religion, Whatever" in a book about the first wave of research of the National Study of Youth and Religion.
According to the study, the creed of sorts for moralistic therapeutic deism includes a God who wants people to be good and nice, a life with goals of personal happiness, God's involvement if needed to solve a problem, and the belief that good people go to heaven when they die. ...
The study has used 3,000 phone surveys with teens ages 13 to 17, and followed up with one-on-one interviews with 267 of them in 45 states. ...
[The lead author of the study, Christian Smith (who will be speaking at Izzy's old school this Thursday), found] that most of those surveyed are not being taught what they are supposed to believe and the significance of it in their life. That includes those who attend religious services regularly.
"A lot don't really know what they believe and what difference it makes," Smith said. "My sense is that moralistic therapeutic deism represents larger transformations going on in Christian churches. It reflects something bigger that's happening." ...
"The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist, and heaven and hell appear, among most Christian teenagers and the United States at the very least, to be supplanted by the language of happiness, niceness, and an earned heavenly reward," Smith wrote.
I was privileged to worship at [our old church] last Sunday, when [the ministry intern's] sermon on John 6 (feeding of 5000, "testing" of Philip) touched on some similar issues. It's not just teens who want this sort of (small g) god. We want a god who is nice, gives us stuff, solves problems, and has no expectation vis a' vis our behavior, attitudes, etc. [The ministry intern] mentioned in passing that that sort of relationship with God is not loving; it's neglect.Thoughts?
As I drove home Sunday afternoon, a thought (which may be original) occurred to me: We don't want to worship God the Father. We want a one-sided relationship with "God the Uncle."
Stereotypically, uncles give us stuff, take us places, cheer us on at ball games or recitals, teach us cool things that our parents won't, tolerate what our parents won't, and we can placate them with hand-drawn cards or cheap aftershave and they are happy just to have been remembered.
"God the Uncle" is cheap grace. God the Father "demands my soul, my life, my all" (as we sang last Sunday.) No wonder we lean away from Him.
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2 comments:
Brilliant insight. I just don't think it started with this generation.
I seem to remember a time when my own practice was pretty much the same.
I think I had some concept of all those theological concepts (sin, justification), and yet when you come right down to it, I still wanted Uncle God around only when necessary, and otherwise wanted to live my life on my own steam.
I didn't go off and live a life of wanton sexual abandon (maybe I should have, eh?) mostly because I was too scared of the consequences of sin, but I think the general immaturaty of teenage faith might not be that new, or unique.
Perhaps it's growing slowly worse, generation by generation. I can see that we are doing a worse and worse job as decades roll on by, of catechesis/formation.
I worry quite a bit about it with my own kids. How on earth shall I do this immense job of teaching my children the Christian Faith?
Warren
Love your observation on "Moralistic therapeutic deism" and God the Uncle.
Quite profound. I'm may quote you on that one.
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