Playing Marco Polo in the Shallow End

A recent article in Christianity Today called "The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church" by Drew Dyck stirred up some reflection on the state of American teenagers and another group called "emerging adults." Dyck cited the work of Christian Smith who wrote Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Smith documents the shallowness of the Christianity we have passed on to teens.

He characterizes the worldview of American teens as "Moralistic, therapeutic, Deism." Most teens believe that the purpose of life is to be "nice." Nice people go to heaven and "not nice" people don't. So it's moral. God created us, but he doesn't get in the way. He's there if you need him, like a therapist. Other than that, he doesn't interfere. So it's deistic.

Smith found that even kids from conservative Bible-believing churches were practically deists. I would add that if we don't show our kids the difference between Christianity and other worldviews, and why it matters, we leave them in the shallows. When deep problems begin to sink their faith, it's no wonder that they climb into someone else's boat. Dyck's article cites statistics that this is happening right now in an unprecedented way.

Smith's other work Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults documents a prolonged adolescence, where young people continue to experiment morally and vocationally into their late twenties.  God may be there at the end of life, but if not, at least one has made a lot of money and been successful.

For most emerging adults, life is about having a good time and settling down "someday" with a beautiful spouse, having a couple of kids, and parties surrounded by lots of toys and friends. There's anxiety about navigating all the transitions and not messing up the future. They don't put down roots in traditional communities because they are constantly adjusting to changes.

Smith's research found that most emerging adults who attend church have no idea what their church teaches or that there's supposed to be some sort of commitment to Christ. Many go to mega-churches where nobody knows them. According to this group, dubbed "selective adherents" by Smith, church is a good thing to do on a Sunday morning as long as you don't have other plans.

Smith shows that emerging adults have little conviction about anything, even politics, because they confess to being trapped in their own subjectivity. Post modernism has made them aware that the outside world is socially constructed by the individual in his own time and place. People believe what they believe because that is how they were raised. Belief makes it true for the person, and there is no objective, shared reality to test truth claims. Live and let live for pleasure.

As a church, we've got to be more deliberate about worldview teaching and living. Christian redemption of the individual and the world for God's glory is the driving force of the Bible and redemptive history. We can know this because God has revealed it objectively and created us to know it subjectively. Our senses and our souls can reliably know the world because God made them for that purpose. Either we get into that epistemological stream or we're still playing "Marco Polo" in the shallow end.

Dyck appears to be critical of "seeker sensitive" services and "low commitment Bible Studies," of evangelical mega-churches. But in the end he says that there's nothing wrong with them as long as we also teach the faithful with more depth. I would suggest that Dyck has fallen prey to the post modern here, because everything he cited in his article militates against the low commitment approach with non-believers. This doesn't seem to jive with Jesus, who made his listeners count the cost up front. David Wells has pointed out, "What you win them with is what you win them to."

Now enter "When Scripture Becomes An A-La-Carte Menu" by James Tonkowich in By Faith. Tonkowich summarizes Smith's six categories of emerging adults:

1. Committed Traditionalists represent approximately 15 percent of emerging adults. They “embrace a strong religious faith, whose beliefs they can reasonably well articulate and which they actively practice.”
2. Selective Adherents (30%) believe and perform certain aspects of their religious tradition, but neglect or ignore others.” The attitude of so-called “cafeteria Catholics” is now widespread across evangelical and Reformed churches.
3. The Spiritually Open (15%) while not committed to any specific religious faith “are nevertheless receptive to or at least mildly interested in some spiritual or religious matters.”
4. The Religiously Indifferent (25%) don’t oppose religion, but don’t have any interest either.
5. The Religiously Disconnected (5%) admitted to no opinions about religion because they know nothing about, and are not connected in any way, with religious bodies or friends.
6. The Irreligious (10%) are openly hostile to all religion.

Tonkowich proceeds to a discussion of how to reach "emerging adults" who have been catechized by the culture into moral relativism. The moral relativism can be seen in the following examples cited by Tonkowich:

A man who attends a mega-church with his live-in fiancé explained to Smith why he felt comfortable ignoring his church’s teaching about pre-marital sex: “I think in my head it’s all personal opinion, whether you’re going to believe it or choose to like it and listen to it.”

“There is [a] self indulgent attitude,” ... “that says, ‘My life is difficult. I have lots of brokenness. I know it’s not right, but … .’”

Ruling Elder Bob Baldwin at GraceDC commented that when it comes to biblical sexuality, “If the rules don’t fit their cultural expectations, they mentally find a way around them, ignoring what they know to be true scripturally. What surprises me most is how carefully they have thought through their work-arounds.”

Smith documents the same pattern with the story of a young woman he interviewed: “In the middle of explaining that for religious reasons she does not believe in cohabitation before marriage, a young evangelical woman, who is devoted to gospel missionary work overseas, interrupted herself with this observation, ‘I don’t know. I think everyone is different so I don’t think [cohabitation before marriage] would work for me, but it could work for someone else.’”

Tonkowich's argues that we must reach emerging adults, especially those afflicted with moral relativism, through relationships. Tonkowich writes:

One pastor has noticed, “There are feelings of guilt, insecurity, and shame—especially shame. The problem for them is that they don’t know why these feelings exist.” In fact, these feelings hint at an authority beyond the self.

Romans 1:18-32 teaches that there are truths about life and God that we cannot not know (to use author J. Budziszewski’s phrase). We may pretend we don’t know them. We may suppress them. We may bury them under layers of carefully constructed philosophical skepticism, but all to no avail. From time to time these truths bubble uncomfortably to the surface.

Ministry to emerging adults should create opportunities founded on strong, honest relationships to explore the truths that will not be ignored, truths that explain the guilt and shame that will not go away. Apologetics begins not with correcting bad thinking, but with listening and helping to dig up the uncomfortable facts of life that, by the grace of God, will not go away.

Tonkowich collects much anecdotal evidence that opening up about struggles invites people to share honestly. Emerging adults have been programmed to "never let them see you sweat" and always exude competence. But when they see us modeling repentance then perhaps the deep end won't seem so scary.

I would add that when it comes to raising and educating children and young adults it begins with  correcting sinful ways and thinking with Bible, Bible, Bible, coupled with love deeds and modeling repentance. Constant excursions to the deep end with plenty of swimming, diving, splash fights, dunking, and laughter will build a strong Christian culture in the home that will serve them well into the future. As one pastor has noted, they will be able to "do more harm to the world than the world will be able to do to them."