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Evangelicals Losing Teenage Memberships


Quaker Way

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Bawer, in Stealing Jesus, talks about teen evangelicals as being more socially liberal than their parents. In one anecdote (admittedly quite anecdote driven), he asks some kids why they can accept their gay ca

gay classmate so easily while their parents would have such difficulty. The say "MTV".

They don't see as a big deal like their parents.

 

Funny thing, I don't see this as any failure on their part, although in some cases they have

isolated these kids to an extreme extent. Back in the sixties there were kids reared as

extreme hippies with names like Sunflower and so forth, and the kids were totally average.

 

How many of us went the way of our parents?

 

Our church even jests about this. Send your kids to Sunday School so they have something

to rebel against later. It isn't in official church literature of course. But it is pretty close to reality I think.

 

Train up a child in the way he/she should go and he/she will probably go elsewhere.

 

 

--des

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Good Morning, Des...

 

Conservative Christians have always seemed to have a propensity for developing an attitude of separation from others. Years ago there was a trend where 'born-againers' would steer their business toward other known born-again enterprises. I suspect the same is behind much of the home schooling that goes on as well. This attempt to isolate the attitudes, awarenesses, values, interests, etc. of youngsters while those same youngsters interact with peers on a daily basis is doomed to fail. When a high school student spends a day in school, some time hanging out with friends, and then goes home to parents who regard television as being a tool of Satan, what's going to happen? You're right...the kids are going to regard their parents as being, well, an embarrassment. Spirituality is a map and compass that we use to navigate through our everyday lives, regardless of what surrounds us. Religious dogma that requires insulation from society has no such inner pointer because it builds no inner life. It simply relies on intimidation and manipulation in order to survive. There's a little more to a Spiritual Path and transformation than simply rejecting contemporary society because it is 'bad'. Hopefully, the children of such people will not reject Faith and Spirituality, but will discover a personal path to God that will truly be their own.

 

Russ

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