In today's NY Times, Laurie Goodstein reports that evangelicals worry their teens are abandoning their faith. Gee, there's a shock. Think about it:
• We tell our kids about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, but eventually we confess that we were "fibbing" to them. So they're really likely to believe us when we tell them about God — not.
• As the kids get older, we try to teach them to be critical thinkers. When they approach traditional Christian doctrines with that mindset, they see potential problems. They also see the church trying to sweep those problems under the rug, for fear of offending implacably-certain and always-vocal
traditionalists, instead of forthrightly reexamining dubious doctrines
such as those of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds; Biblical inerrancy;
Christian exclusivity; and so forth.
• Now stir in the secular culture's disregard and even mockery of religion.
• And let's not forget the natural rebelliousness of adolescents.
It should be no surprise that many teens shy away from the religious belief systems of their parents. Unfortunately, the church offers putatively-Christian teens little or nothing by way of a positive, intellectually-credible alternative to fill the resulting vacuum. The
surprising thing is that more of them aren't abandoning their faith.
Here's an excerpt from Goodstein's Times piece:
Despite their packed megachurches, their political clout and their increasing visibility on the national stage, evangelical Christian leaders are warning one another that their teenagers are abandoning the faith in droves.
At an unusual series of leadership meetings in 44 cities this fall, more than 6,000 pastors are hearing dire forecasts from some of the biggest names in the conservative evangelical movement.
[...T]here is widespread consensus among evangelical leaders that they risk losing their teenagers. [...]
“A lot of my friends are self-proclaimed agnostics or atheists,” said Ms. Dunford, who wears a bracelet with a heart-shaped charm engraved with “tlw,” for “true love waits,” to remind herself of her pledge not to have premarital sex.
[Laurie Goodstein, Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers, NY Times, Fri. Oct. 6, 2006; emphasis added]