Hi Everyone,
Speaking of Thinking. I thought this might be good for us to read, to see
one of the results of not thinking about what you believe and why.
Vinny
>
> BREAKPOINT with Charles Colson
> ------------------------------
>
> Our Teenagers, Ourselves
> Soul Searching
>
> October 13, 2005
>
> First, the good news: American teenagers are more religious than many
> adults
> seem to think.
>
> And now the bad news: American teenagers are less religious than many
> adults
> seem to think.
>
> Are you confused? Well, it's not quite as confusing as it sounds, that is,
> if
> you read the book SOUL SEARCHING: THE RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL LIVES OF
> AMERICAN
> TEENAGERS by sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton.
> The
> authors did an impressive amount of research, surveying and interviewing
> teenagers and their parents across the country. And they do a remarkable
> job of
> clearing up adult misconceptions about teenage spirituality.
>
> For instance, adults tend to think of teenagers as rebellious. As a matter
> of
> fact, according to Smith and Denton, "about three in four religious teens
> in the
> United States consider their own religious beliefs somewhat or very
> similar to
> their parents'. . . . U.S. teens lean strongly toward similarity with
> their
> parents in religious belief." A large majority of teens consider religion
> very
> important to them and believe that religion is a positive influence in the
> world.
>
> Well, those are encouraging findings, but the worrisome part comes when
> the
> researchers start examining specific details of teens' religious beliefs.
> They
> talked to Christian kids who attend church every week but can't explain
> who
> Jesus is. Take Heather, whose mother teaches religious doctrine at their
> Catholic church. The fifteen-year-old told an interviewer: "I don't really
> get
> the whole thing about how, well, with the Catholics, how God is Jesus and
> Jesus
> is God, I don't understand that." And Heather's not the exception to the
> rule.
>
> In fact, the survey results show that many religious teens just don't get
> the
> point of religion. They unknowingly subscribe to a philosophy that Smith
> and
> Denton call "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." Instead of learning the basic
> tenets
> of their religion, teens are simply absorbing a belief that if you try to
> be
> good all the time, you'll be happy -- and being happy is what life's all
> about.
> This philosophy, the authors suggest, "is colonizing many historical
> religious
> traditions and . . . converting believers in the old faiths to its
> alternative
> religious vision of divinely underwritten personal happiness and
> interpersonal
> niceness."
>
> But before we start pointing fingers at teens, Smith and Denton tell us,
> we need
> to take a long, hard look at ourselves. Teenagers aren't getting this
> vague,
> consumer-based version of religion out of nowhere. The authors remind us
> that
> adults preach at teenagers about defying authority, spending too much
> money,
> watching too much TV, being sexually irresponsible, and more -- and yet
> adults
> engage in these practices to a far greater extent than teens do. "We often
> say
> one thing but do something else," Smith and Denton remind us -- and that
> includes the religious among us. Teens who compartmentalize their faith,
> or just
> don't take time to understand it, are a natural result of adults who do
> the same
> things.
>
> SOUL SEARCHING is an invaluable book for understanding the religious lives
> of
> teenagers, and learning about how we can reach out to them. But even more
> important, it's a much-needed reminder that the kids we're so concerned
> about
> are in many ways simply reflections of us.
>
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