Crisis in Young Christian Faith

CNN features a story about Kenda Creasy Dean, a Princeton Theological Seminary professor who recently conducted the “National Study of Youth and Religion.”  In the study, Dean interviewed over 3000 teens.  Her primary conclusions were pretty straightforward (read the whole article here):

Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Translation: It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.

…..

She says this “imposter” faith is one reason teenagers abandon churches.

“If this is the God they’re seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust,” Dean says. “Churches don’t give them enough to be passionate about.”

While it’s common practice to blame parents for all of the faults seen in their children, in this particular case I think the parents really are the ones to blame.  By putting a watery faith lacking conviction and depth on display in front of their children for years, they make their perspective on faith perfectly clear.  How can you blame young people for not taking their faith all that seriously when their parents have never taught them otherwise?

But parents aren’t the only ones to blame:

Churches, not just parents, share some of the blame for teens’ religious apathy as well, says Corrie, the Emory professor.

She says pastors often preach a safe message that can bring in the largest number of congregants. The result: more people and yawning in the pews.

“If your church can’t survive without a certain number of members pledging, you might not want to preach a message that might make people mad,” Corrie says. “We can all agree that we should all be good and that God rewards those who are nice.”

Most American churches have been preaching a spoiled, self-help gospel for years, and this is the natural result of that kind of preaching.  When your parents and your pastor only look to their faith in order to feel better about themselves, you’re not likely to take it very seriously.  Moreover, the second your supposed faith lets you down, you have perfect grounds for abandoning it.  After all, if it didn’t help you, what good is it?

Churches and parents need to regain awareness of their own sin and their need for God.  This will produce true humility and a recognition of the importance of faith.  Our prosperity in the U.S. makes this sobering realization more difficult, but it is a necessary step if the younger generation is ever to take faith seriously.