at http://www.goodwillhinton.com/good_will_hinton_weekly_podcast_gab e_lyons

by Carlos on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 01:17:17 PM EST

It should come as no surprise that some Christian youth will in fact, turn away from their churches.  Far too many offer little in the way of spirituality, and are far more concentrated on negative reinforcers than positive ones.  

What many people see as hypocrisy may in fact be conflict.  People raised within a church or denomination often struggle with those "sins" that are entirely normal or human.  What they often cannot do is let their family down by not attending church, so live double lives.

It is far more difficult to leave a church than one might suspect, one can only hope that todays youth will help reshape Christianity in the future.  

What I find interesting is the potential for backlash.

by lilorphant on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 08:29:01 AM EST

In the early 60's Evangelicalism was the alternative to the tail end of fundamentalist battles against modernist religion. Denominational distinctions were real, and walls were high between many groups, Charismatics were a brand new term, still carrying the negative feel of pentacostal and outsider. Young people divided perhaps somewhat equally in conservative churches, between those who left the church to escape the confines of their faith, those who left the church to join a "Jesus people" non-churched faith group to reform their faith, those who stayed within their churches to reform them, and finally those who passionately held to the party line. Some of these latere ones became the political force behind the moral majority, while the other three groups were often gradually reunited with some form of the faith they worked so hard to change. Today the young people do not find it so easy to make choices. There are no clear cut distinctions between demoninations, or taboos against moving from one to another. Personality cults accross and within faith traditions provide both hero's and villians, and local congregations often do little more than reflect the mega-trends in national religious mood swings. Dropping out to create another movement is not attractive, but for many the mystery of a return to Ancient faith traditions is attractive. Orthodoxy, and a highly structured Catholic - monastic devotion and worship seems attractive. Perhaps in overextending their reach, the Christian right will be the motivation for a return to a more orthodox and catholic faith. A faith which is less nationalistic, less personality cult based, more rooted in ancient tradition, parish, and structured biblical readings and interpertations.

by chaplain on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 10:26:20 AM EST

And fundamentalism/Biblical literalism is the culprit, along with the churches and teachers who have mislead and lied to the kids.

Many of the students I help to teach in an exit course (university level) have indicated that about all they've ever heard about evolution is that it was part of an "atheist plot to destroy America" or some such nonsense.  Only a few knew anything at all about the subject.  They also have been taught other really crazy things like the US was founded as a Christian Nation (and these kids are coming out of the public schools!)  This last  week, a startling number of the students related that they had never been taught anything about Native Americans on this continent, except for the "First Thanksgiving"- and when I related that the First Thanksgiving was most likely a Native American ceremony (probably Green Corn), they expressed shock.  A few expressed amazement at learning that American Indians have been here for thousands of years!  

I know in my case- in the schools I attended years ago, we were left with the distinct impression that Native Americans were almost non-existent (except for when they attacked settlers) and I can clearly remember being taught as a kid that the Pilgrims invited the "Indians" to the first Thanksgiving.

When young people learn that they've been lied to for most of their lives (also true for me!), they generally turn against the liars- in this case the churches.

I've also been personally thanked many times by students when I say that you can be Christian and also accept evolution as fact.  Many of these students have also been indoctrinated in the idea that evolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive, and they express a sense of freedom in the idea that the two are not at all exclusive.

As long as we have fools teaching lies to the youth and deliberately trying to manipulate them, they are going to tend to reject the church.   And as I can relate- it is really devastating to learn that you've been mislead about basic facts for most of your life!!!

No wonder so many students turn their backs on the churches- and who could blame them???

by ArchaeoBob on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 04:26:05 PM EST

...of one time I was invited to take part in a Bible study.  I don't self-identify as a christian, and I think the invite was supposed to be an overture to get me converted.

Anyway, the Bible study was a sort of straightjacketed affair.  The study was designed to study selected bits of the Bible, in a sequence that tried to tease out the stock "story of salvation", linking the Old and New Testaments.

The problem was that whenever "the moral" of a passage was set forth, any effort by a participant (like, oh say, me) to stop and reflect on whether in fact the conclusions drawn had any real connection to the text was quashed, under the pretext that "we're on a schedule, and we have to move on."

Well, this was OK (sort of) with me.  I was pretty easy-going, and I could contemplate these things on my own time if I thought the investment was warranted.

The problem was that a bunch of young people had started attending, and some of them were undergoing palpable crises of faith; they wanted answers, and--passion of youth--wanted them now.  The "time to move on" mantra only compounded their frustration.  Even now I marvel at how mindlessly dismissive the leader of the study was of the young people's heartfelt need to make sense of the senselessness that they'd had dumped on them.

I did my level best to ameliorate things.  Actually, not being invested in the church gave me an edge.  I told one guy that he needed to stop, relax, take a deep breath; then, I said it was important that he not give up expecting truth and honesty, within himself, and from others; especially those purporting to be his spiritual "betters."  He was pretty strung out, so I again emphasized that he needed to relax and love himself.

I think this is a pretty succinct illustration of one aspect of the crisis of modern fundie christianity wrt the young folks.


by razajac on Sun Oct 07, 2007 at 09:29:20 PM EST