|
|
 |
|||||
|
|
MC Square | Search | |
||
|
|||||
|
August 2006 Parents Progress Archives Planning to Visit?
|
|
Parents' faith shapes spiritual lives of their teens Every generation of American teenagers, it seems, has somewhat confounded the adults who seek to parent, teach, and lead them. Bookstore shelves display titles about “surviving the teenage years,” articles attempt to decipher teen lingo, and companies spend millions to understand and capitalize on teens’ spending habits. But are teenagers so desperately different from adults that such schemes are truly necessary? Sociologist Christian Smith contends that the majority of American teenagers are not radical, even in their beliefs about religion and spirituality. Rather, Smith suggests, most teenagers tend to model the examples of faith demonstrated by their parents and other adults that they trust and respect. Recently, Smith, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and director of the National Study of Youth and Religion, initiated and conducted a comprehensive survey of American teenagers and their religious and spiritual lives. He elaborates on his findings in the book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, which he co-authored with Melinda Lundquist Denton. Smith recently expounded on the survey for a standing-room-only crowd at Messiah College in March as a part of the Central Pennsylvania Forum for Religion and Science lecture series. Smith’s conclusion that the faith life of most teenagers is modeled closely after the faith life of their parents and other trusted adults should both terrify and empower adults, he says. With this information, some parents breathe a sigh of relief, while others nervously examine their own lifestyles, and still others willingly accept the challenge to lead clearly by example.
Smith’s survey also shows that teens generally view religion positively, although it operates primarily as “furniture” in the background of their lives, existing for use as they deem necessary without impacting their daily existence. Teens often view religion as something good to have—a helpful instrument for getting what they want and for being considered a good person, but not as a serious factor in decision-making, conversing with friends, or spending free time. In other words, for many teens, religion is one of many cultural messages vying for their attention, but it’s not the loudest. Considering Mueller’s soup analogy, religion might be an ingredient in the soup, but it’s not the broth. Challenging teens to balance the quest for independence with good decision-making and other life skills, according to Smith, is the bizarre holding pattern that society places them in. “The cultural message to youth,” Smith writes in Soul Searching, “is that they are not mature or prepared enough to enter the adult world and so must continue for years to wait, even as other powerful, contradictory messages implore them to act fully responsibly, be self-directed, and make very good choices as independent decision makers.”* Such contradictory messages are further exacerbated by the 21 hours of television the average teenager watches each week, which means 360,000 television advertisements bombard them by the time they graduate from high school. Clearly, this type of mass media exposure can dwarf religious influences in many teens’ lives and explains why teens know more about celebrities than Jesus or Moses. Yet Mueller assures parents, “Even though it may seem like all those other influences may drown you out, you still play the most significant role of anyone in their young lives.” Smith also finds that even teenagers who identify themselves as being devoted Christians struggle to articulate the principles of their faith, core concepts like righteousness, grace, and repentance. Messiah College Pastor Eldon Fry agrees, adding that a number of students enter college with strong opinions, but little knowledge and experience to defend them. Thus, similar to their secular counterparts, their Christian self-identity may be based primarily on feeling and emotion. As a Christian institution of higher education, Messiah College excels at offering rigorous academics in a setting where students can explore and grow in their faith. Using a three-pronged approach to spiritual formation— knowing, doing, and being—Messiah seeks to intellectually ground students in their faith (“knowing”), which, at times, can prove to be uncomfortable and challenging for students, especially when, for many, their beliefs may have previously been chiefly emotion-based. In addition, the College strives to provide numerous service opportunities for students to give feet to their faith (“doing”). As a result, most students graduate with increased knowledge and a variety of volunteer and mission experiences, but the “being” aspect of spiritual formation, which requires making Christianity the foundation of self-identity, can often take longer. Such individual growth rooted in Biblical principles is a process, which, according to Fry, can take years beyond the college experience to fully mature.“Messiah values the faith journey of students,” he says. “The experience may not be comfortable or easy, but parents can rest assured that a number of individuals are willing to walk alongside students during their faith journey.” The phrase “surviving the teenage years” is a misnomer. Representing a critical period of transition, the teenage years provide fertile ground for parents and other adults to speak truth into teens’ lives.“The best thing adults can do for teenagers is to get their own acts together and be intentional about [their] relationship [with their children],” Smith asserts. The process probably won’t be easy; such intentional self-examination and relationship-building places demands on finite resources—the time and energy of parents, congregations, and colleges. But such efforts promise great rewards. After all, a young generation of articulate Christians positively affected by relationship-oriented, adult believers is likely to model such behavior to future generations. And the reward for that is eternal. *Smith, Christian, and Melinda Lundquist Denton. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. New York: Oxford Press, 2005, page 184. For updates on Christian Smith’s ongoing research of teens and their spirituality, visit the National Study of Youth and Religion at www.youthandreligion.org. For helpful resources about parenting teenagers and understanding popular culture, visit the Center for Parent/ Youth Understanding at www.cpyu.org. |
|
|
