GroshLink

and grandparents do to prepare our children and grandchildren to be responsible adults and God-fearing men and women? Thank-you for the question June! Here's the beginning of a response, incomplete as it reflects thoughts laregley on the high school to college transition. I have more to say from the perspective of parenting Hayley, Ellen, and Eden, but that will have to wait another day. Feel free to respond/probe further. I would highly value some of your insights on this topic.

Did you see the recent NY Times piece, Evangelicals fear the loss of their teenagers? I believe that many rightly fear the loss of youth. Why do so many go astray when they reach college, b/c they have not come face-to-face w/the God who is -- particularly through the daily life of their community of faith and family as they reproduce the likeness of Christ in our world. Growing up religious, means for most what Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton term moralistic therapeutic deism in Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.

Simply put, moralistic therapeutic deism is . . .

the combination of the Divine Butler and the Cosmic Therapist, a parasitic faith feeding on the doctrines and sensibilities of established religious traditions and expanding by mutating their theological substance to resemble its own distinctive image. Each one of us, but particularly parents and those in positions of teaching authority w/in the Body of Christ, carry responsibility for debunking Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and indwelling, articulating, and teaching the Biblical narrative in our home, community, school, etc.. Such a mission, directed by the Father and fueled by the Word and the Spirit, involves a critique, filtering, and alternative cultural framework to the media driven consumeristic society of our day from cradle to grave.

I'd recommend every member of the church leadership team and youth/undergrad minister prayerfully read, consider, and develop structural adjustments which take into consideration the section on Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (pp.161-72) and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript: Observations and Implications of NSYR (National Study of Youth and Religion) Findings for Religious Communities and Youth Workers. The postscript focuses on addressing teenagers' benign whateverism by working to help make faith a more active and important part of their lives via parental involvement/modeling, religious education (including how to articulate one's faith in our local congregation and beyond), clarity in moral decision making, regular involvement in religious practices, and countercultural decision-making structure (which I would elaborate, must be born out of a worldview based on the Biblical narrative/Kingdom of God). Although I rarely agree w/a book's PR, I believe that this piece gives the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of contemporary American teenagers (and their crash-and-burning faith in college).

PS. George Marsden, in his spring visit to 'da Burgh highlighted Soul Searching as a must read. Here's a link for those who'd like to read notes from his presentation on The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship . . . a topic related to the one under consideration as it is in our vocation (what I might term the divine call of our daily walk with, in, by, through Christ to redeem the Creation and all who dwell within) where the outrageous idea of following Christ plays out in a most stunning manner.