I've been meaning to post something on this story for quite awhile. A few years ago Christian Smith, a researcher from the National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found some disturbing trends among youth and their views of God.
It seems that their religion can be summed up with the words, "Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism." That is, there is a God who created the world and watches over it kind of (Deism); He wants us to be nice and fair and "good." (Moralistic) However, the only time that God seems to matter is when you're going through hard times (Therapeutic).
Of the three thousand teens interviewed in this study, most of them had no idea what the basic beliefs of their faith were. They seemed to talk about God as being good to talk to, but not as a Deity, as a Friend. Unfortunately, many of those questioned were Christian kids who had grown up in Church.
What should the Church do in order to counteract this thinking?
3 comments:
Whoa . . . whoa . . . whoa. This doesn't look like the Pontoppidan version. What are you trying to pull? In all seriousness, do you use this catechism at VCC?
I think it is imperative to teach our children sound doctrine and to educate them as to who God truly is and what He says about their lives. I've gone to the "feel good" churches where everyone "feels" God's presence during worship and that's the focus and then they sit and listen to a message that tries to marry the Godly and the secular to make it more "relevant." I came back to Lutheran church because I wanted to hear God's Word. I wanted to know what God wanted for my life. I want my daughter to go through Catechism and be brought up to KNOW what it is the Bible says and not get some watered down version of the truth.
The blase' attitude of today's youth BREAKS my heart. With other religions evangelizing for their faith, it's really critical that Christians are well grounded in the Truth.
Resource:
Book of Concord...
http://bookofconcord.org/
(All online and easy to navigate, including the small and large catechism among the other writings in this collection)
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