I was raised in a conservative home, worshiped in a conservative youth ministry at church, and attended a conservative seminary. I’m thankful for my conservative roots. They are part of what shapes me.
Interestingly, I’ve discovered that those conservative roots did not claim to be the sole possessors of truth.
Beliefs and how they played out in life were discussed, modeled, and passed down to me as a child. We talked regularly about what it meant to be a follower of Christ and to live this out daily. As a result of that, I find a disconnect between what I hear from some of today’s Christian thinkers and my own experience.
There’s a lot of buzz around Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton’s book, Soul Searching. And rightly so, because it’s the result of the largest study of American young people and their religious beliefs and practices. In particular, I’ve heard a lot of buzz around the notion that adolescents from many traditions are unable to articulate what they believe.
Whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, adolescents report believing in God — but with a faith that’s more a backdrop to life than an active part of it. Indeed discussions of Heaven are taking place, but with the understanding that as long as you are good, you are set. God’s role in daily life is seen primarily as comforter — certainly not as guide, teacher, nor disciplinarian.
Part of the Problem
A few years ago I said I was a part of — and had been a perpetuator of — a biblically illiterate and theologically void generation. The response was that I was too negative, that teenagers were much more articulate and certain of their beliefs than I recognized or acknowledged. In fact, a few of my peers were offended.
What I did not say well back then was that I didn’t make that statement because of a lack of confidence in adolescents. On the contrary, I said it because of a conviction that teenagers are capable of so much more than we realize.
Now, though the National Study of Youth and Religion (the basis of Soul Searching), there’s empirical research to back up what many of us have feared. (By no means should you read this as me patting myself on the back for being right — in fact, I had hoped I was wrong.)
So now, in this seemingly dark place, how do we respond and not despair?
Beyond the Sinner’s Prayer
I’ve always taken comfort in Ruth Bell Graham. While reading her story, I was struck by the fact she doesn’t know a specific time, a clear moment that she can point to and say, “Here’s my dividing line between knowing and not knowing Jesus.” She, of all people, has the credibility to say you can legitimately be a Christian without stating the date and time it happened.
It was years before I learned the “sinner’s prayer” was not actually in the Bible.
Indeed, I can tell the time I decided to follow Jesus; where I was, what I said, and how it happened. Trapped in the mess hall at camp up on the Mogollon Rim, we were taught that when the monsoon comes, you hold still. They last only 15 to 30 minutes, and I was supposed to be flat on my bunk back in the cabin. Instead I ran down to grab my jacket and then couldn’t leave. God and I had time together. All alone, in His presence, what my Sunday school teachers and camp counselors had been saying all those years finally made sense. I was 9 years old.
At least it made sense in my 9-year-old way of understanding things. I could articulate the formula. I knew I was to be baptized next, but I didn’t know why. It took me another four years before I followed through on this public expression of faith. Even then I could repeat, “Buried in the likeness of Christ’s death, raised in the likeness of His resurrection.”
But what did this mean? Along came training in high school to share my faith with others. We were taught the question, “If you were to die tonight, why should God let you into heaven?” or some variation of the same. I knew my answer: “Because I had accepted Jesus in the mess hall in Northern Arizona.” I also believed everyone else was to do the same. My problem was I could not have told you why. This was true not just for baptism but for a whole host of actions. My life wasn’t any easier or harder as a Christian. Truth be told, apart from a checklist of behavioral dos and don’ts, my life really wasn’t any different.
I spent the rest of high school and college memorizing the formulas for what I believed. My fear is that for too many of our students, the same becomes true of their faith. Truth was presented to me, but it was never really learned — it was a formula memorized with little to no understanding of anything deeper.
Fortunately my faith took a different form. Others modeled for me what it was to follow Christ. We changed our language from “getting saved” to “following God, as most clearly manifested in Jesus, revealed in Scripture, and experienced through the power of the Holy Spirit.” I was blessed. God was much more than a formula or checklist for the orthodox litmus test.
Seminary further opened up theological categories, not as dogmatic absolutes but as dynamic, life-giving connections. By no means is faith a free-for-all; it does not assume each person gets to decide truth for herself in a vacuum. I learned the truth of God, not in universal formulas but in the particularity of my life, family, community, and church. I learned to sit in mystery with my faith, seeking understanding. I no longer blindly accepted teachings nor did I demand a system that worked for all, for all times. I learned God is more accessible when we stop assuming in our naïve arrogance that we can understand Him fully.
Wrestling with the Questions
Where is God in my family? My parents are divorcing, and I didn’t do anything — so why does my whole world have to change?
Why won’t she just be friends with me? I’ve prayed for help, and God won’t listen.
My Christian friends at school think they’re better than everybody else. My non-Christian friends actually listen and care about me instead of judging me. So tell me again why following Jesus is the right way?
I’ve never been able to find where the Bible says you absolutely can never drink, but that’s what my youth leaders say. If they lied about this, how do I know they aren’t lying about other things?
I know there is a heaven because God wants us to feel good and be happy. Isn’t that what being a Christian is about?
These, and other questions and statements like these, are common in youth ministry. Teenagers aren’t stupid. They think and reason and wrestle with tough questions and situations far beyond what many of us realize. In fact, they have many of the same questions we do: “Where is God in suffering? How are we supposed to follow Jesus knowing we are not perfect? How could a loving God allow anyone to go to hell? Why does it seem like the most hurtful people we encounter in life are other Christians?”
With all of these questions, it seems most answers revolve around another formula for understanding God — for reasoning that God indeed is in control, and as we grow and mature, we’ll be able to figure this out. We’ll be able to think our way toward knowing God.
I’ve never had more frustrated (and even angry) college students than those who learn God is not quite as black and white as they were taught. They’re shocked to hear the Bible only talks about being born again once but refers to the poor and oppressed hundreds of times. They feel betrayed to learn there are two creation stories in Genesis. They are frustrated to have memorized the Lord’s Prayer only to find it in Scripture not once, but twice — and neither time does it end with “forever and ever, amen.”
I now have the weekly blessing of experiencing students from middle school through college. I’m a volunteer youth pastor and a college professor. I think about my junior high and high school students often in relation to my college students. I wrestle with what it means to have a developmentally appropriate youth group while being cognizant that I don’t want to create yet another future frustration.
Dangers of Overreaction
I am thankful for the wake up call the National Study of Youth and Religion provides as reported in Soul Searching. A few critics of the study are concerned students may have responded with what they thought adults wanted to hear; others are nervous about the data being skewed simply because of the type of teenagers who would be willing to spend that much time on the phone for a survey or in person for an interview. Even with these limitations, though, this information is important, so we must listen. Today’s kids, by and large, have faith — but that faith lies impotent in its lack of articulation and effect on young people’s lives.
My fear is our response to this will be newly packaged versions of formulas that will lead to a dogmatic stranglehold particular to each tradition as we raise a new generation to even more firmly declare they are right and all others are wrong. For those not in denominational settings, I frequently hear they were raised in Bible-believing and Bible-teaching churches, as if all others weren’t. They are certain their beliefs are right and “those” denominations bring only divisiveness, as if claiming they are the sole users of the Bible is not divisive. Interestingly, most are not able to articulate what they believe, but they sure do believe they are right!
What will happen as the next generation becomes the penance for our shortcomings? As this next generation becomes our experiment in reclaiming a living faith, in orthodoxy and orthopraxy? As we try to teach, to understand, to think our way to better articulate faith?
Descartes began it all with his dictum, “I think, therefore I am.” Thus, began the era of thinking. Thinking we could know God. Thinking we could understand God. Thinking we could comprehend the Creator and Master of the universe. Thinking may be the very thing that has driven us the farthest from God in recent history. Is it possible that all of those formulas, all of that memorizing, actually fall apart in the absence of a holistic relationship with God?
There is talk of a refocus on Jesus. While I celebrate and love this, it is incomplete. Often the only focus becomes a first-time profession of faith. To focus only on God the Father as Creator leads to seeing creation as good and neglects the reality of sin. To focus only on God the Holy Spirit makes Christianity sound like a very undisciplined faith that’s only about experience. To focus only on Scripture means bibliolatry is just around the corner.
Most of us have erred not in ignoring the trinity or God’s revelation, but in teaching our students in an imbalanced way.
The key is to honestly, openly grapple with truth. “Truth is not found by reading the ‘right’ book, curriculum, or having the ‘right’ teacher. Truth is found in community understanding that we may all be looking at the exact same thing from slightly different perspectives. It takes seriously the concepts of culture and community. If we all see it from different perspectives, it will take those perspectives in dialogue to correct for one another.” 1
From my conservative roots, I long for students to be in passionate relationships with Jesus and follow Him with their lives, even if they disagree with me along the way. This is not a conservative or liberal issue. Neither is it about ignoring our traditions. It takes the hard work of walking with students in faith, discipling, and encouraging students to ask questions rather than requiring them to memorize formulas and regurgitate what we told them. It demands that we dismiss generically human, universal experiences and actually listen to our students to hear their particularities.
AMY JACOBER is a youth ministry veteran with a background in social work and theology. She’s currently a volunteer youth worker, author, speaker, and youth ministry professor.
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1 Stanley Grenz and John Franke, Beyond Foundationalsim: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), p. 235.
