A new book about youth ministry and the church is getting a lot of attention these days. It’s by Kendra Creasy Dean, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and a leading expert on youth ministry, and the book is entitled Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. (See additional links at the end of the post.)
The book is a summary of Dean’s research on the faith lives of teenagers, based on interviews with over 3,000 youth about their views on religion, faith, and God.
She found that, overwhelmingly, teenagers today practice what she calls a “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Dean explains that the teenagers she interviewed feel that “religion helps you [to] feel good and do good, but God pretty much stays out of the way. …you can call on God if you need God to solve a problem, but God’s track record on solving problems is pretty bad.” She says the primary images of God for these teens are as “cosmic therapist” that helps you feel good about yourself, and “divine butler”, someone who comes when called upon but otherwise stays away. She boils his belief system down into these five things:
- God exists, God created and watches over the world
- God wants us to be good, nice and fair to each other
- The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself
- God is not involved except when I need God to solve a problem
- Good people go to heaven when they die
Moralistic (do good) therapeutic (feel good) deism (a weak, distant, generalized idea of god).
However, Dean says that before we bemoan or somehow scapegoat our youth, we must first take a hard look at ourselves, because this is the faith that our youth are seeing and hearing from us – from churches and the adults in their lives. She writes, “If this is the God they’re seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust. Churches don’t give them enough to be passionate about.” “If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation.” Ouch.
This probably comes, in part, from our (sometimes desperate) attempt to keep teenagers (and adults) in church. We try to make faith nice and easy, we set the bar low, but youth actually want more. They want a more radical faith, something they can be passionate about, that will challenge them, something that they can grab hold of, something that will grab hold of them…something that could actually, profoundly, change their lives. They are longing for a faith worth living and dying for.
I think we adults want the same thing, don’t we? And yet, and, if we our honest, I think Dean is right, that most of us easily veer into this “moralistic therapeutic diesm,” this “gospel of niceness.” We want a God that makes us feel better, feel safe. And yes, our God does do this and it is a good thing…but not the only thing.
It is “almost Christian,” perhaps “partially Christian.” It is part of the picture, but not the whole thing, and not by far. Continue reading
