TruthBook Religious News Blog

Mail Foreign Service
22nd June 2009

Nearly two-thirds of teenagers don't believe in God and think that reality television is far more important than religion, new research has revealed.

The survey showed that 66 per cent of teens do not believe a deity exists while 50 per cent have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church.

Teenagers rated family, friends, money, music and even reality TV shows above faith.
Children from a London school take part in a service at Westminster Abbey: The numbers of teenagers who believe in God has dwindled

Children from a London school take part in a service at Westminster Abbey: The numbers of teenagers who believe in God has dwindled

Other statistics which emerged from the report included:

* 59 per cent of children believed religion has had a negative influence on the world
* 60 per cent only go to church for a wedding or christening
* Only 30 per cent of teenagers think there is an afterlife...
* ... while 10 per cent believe in reincarnation
* 47 per cent said organised religion had no place in the world
* 60 per cent don't believe Religious Studies should be compulsory in schools
* However, 91 per cent agreed they should treat others the way they wished to be treated themselves

Please click on "external source" for the complete article...the one bright spot - the overwhelming percentage of these teens do believe in some form of the "Golden Rule..."

Labels: church, God, prayer, Reality TV, religion, teenagers

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Friday, May 08, 2009

Young Americans Losing Their Religion

New Research Finds Number Who Claim No Church Has Risen Sharply
By DAN HARRIS
May 6, 2009

New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church -- or to participate in any form of organized religion -- than their parents and grandparents.

"It's a huge change," says Harvard University professor Robert Putnam, who conducted the research.

Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the "nones") has been very small -- hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However, Putnam says the percentage of "nones" has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans.

Putnam calls this a "stunning development." He gave reporters a first glimpse of his data Tuesday at a conference on religion organized by the Pew Forum on Faith in Public Life.

The research will be included in a forthcoming book, called "American Grace."

This trend started in the 1990s and continues through today. It includes people in both Generation X and Y.

While these young "nones" may not belong to a church, they are not necessarily atheists.

"Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church," Putnam said. "They have the same attitidues and values as people who are in church, but they grew up in a period in which being religious meant being politically conservative, especially on social issues."

Putnam says that in the past two decades, many young people began to view organized religion as a source of "intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views," and therefore stopped going to church.

This movement away from organized religion, says Putnam, may have enormous consequences for American culture and politics for years to come.

"That is the future of America," he says. "Their views and their habits religiously are going to persist and have a huge effect on the future."

This data is likely to reinvigorate an already heated debate about whether America is, or will continue to be, a "Christian nation." A recent Newsweek cover article, entitled "The End of Christian America" provoked responses from religious thinkers all over the spectrum.

This is the first of a two-page article. Click "external source" for complete article

Labels: Christianity, Dan Harris, religion, teenagers

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Review: Teenagers more moral, less religious, says new survey

By Jim Coggins

This is the first of a two-page article. Please click on "external source" for complete article.

TEENAGERS are becoming more moral but less religious, according to a new study released by one of Canada's most respected sociologists.

The Emerging Millennials: How Canada's Newest Generation is Responding to Change & Choice is the title of the latest book by Reginald Bibby, a sociologist with the University of Lethbridge. It is based on a survey of 4,746 high school students aged 15 - 19 that he conducted in 2008.

Friendship and freedom

Asked what they found "very important," the Millennials -- as teenagers in this age bracket are called -- responded emphatically: friendship (86 percent) and freedom (85 percent). These values rated higher than a comfortable life (75 percent), a good education (73 percent), success (73 percent), family life (67 percent), money (44 percent), looks (40 percent) and popularity (16 percent). They also ranked much higher than did spirituality (27 percent) and involvement in a religious group (13 percent).

Along with these values, Millennials also demonstrated that they hold a number of "traditional" moral values. Eighty-four percent said trust is "very important," and 81 percent said honesty is. Millennials also value humour (75 percent), concern for others (65 percent), politeness (64 percent), forgiveness (60 percent) and working hard (55 percent).

Relativism rules

Nonetheless, almost two-thirds of Millennials said that "what's right or wrong is a matter of personal opinion." When asked what they based their own moral values on, 43 percent said "how I feel at the time," and seven percent said "a personal decision." Sixteen percent cited their parents' views, three percent said their friends, and only 10 percent based their moral decisions on "religion" -- slightly below the 12 percent who said their moral views were based on "nothing."

This, however, does not mean Millennials are not acting morally. From 2000 to 2008, the percentage of teens who drink alcohol declined from 78 percent to 71 percent, the percentage who smoke dropped from 37 percent to 22 percent, the percentage who use marijuana or hashish dropped from 37 percent to 31 percent, and the percentage who never have sex rose from 51 percent to 56 percent. In fact, the study claims, teens are having sex less frequently than seniors. The April 13 issue of Maclean's magazine responded to Bibby's findings by dubbing Millennials the "tame" generation.

Teens have not, however, fully embraced traditional values. Seventy-two percent of Millennials said they approved of sex before marriage "when people love each other"; but that is down from 82 percent in 2000 and 87 percent in 1992. Similarly, 44 percent approve of homosexual relations and accept them, and another 28 percent disapprove but accept them; however, that level is lower than the approval rate among Baby Boomers (people who were born between 1946 and 1965).

Who needs organized religion?

Millennials have inherited trends established by their grandparents and their parents -- particularly a trend away from organized religion.

In the 1950s, more than 60 percent of Canadians attended a Christian church weekly. In the 21st century, less than 30 percent do. Conservative Protestants (evangelicals, Baptists, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Christian Reformed, etc.) have held steady at about eight percent of the population; but there have been very significant declines among mainline Protestants (United, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans), and among Roman Catholics.

Labels: Canada, Jim Coggins, millennials, organized religion, Reginald Bibby, religion, teenagers

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Youth Survey: Teens lose faith in droves

Youth Survey: Teens lose faith in droves

Islam and atheism are on the rise while Christianity fades

Teens lose faith in drovesEvery day, Mohamed Hadi wakes up before sunrise for morning prayer. The 19-year-old then boards a bus for the 90-minute ride from his home in Richmond, B.C., to the campus of Simon Fraser University, where he’s studying to become a physiotherapist. He’s involved in the Muslim Students’ Association, and with Rich in Faith, a Muslim youth group he founded that offers tutoring and mentoring services. Hadi’s a busy guy, yet he always finds time for his religion, including prayer five times a day. “It helps me stay composed,” he says, “and to maintain balance in my life.”

Such devotion is rare among teens these days—or at least, among those from Protestant and Catholic households. Just as the younger generation is abandoning the Christian faith, though, non-Western religions, such as Islam and Buddhism, are growing in Canada at a surprising speed. According to new data from Project Teen Canada, more teens now identify as Muslim than Anglican, United Church of Canada and Baptist combined. As a group, the percentage who adhere to so-called “other faiths”—including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism—has grown fivefold since Project Teen began its surveys in 1984, while the percentage of teens who identify as Roman Catholic has declined by one third, and the percentage who identify as Protestant is down by almost two-thirds.

A side effect of this trend is a hollowing-out of the religious middle ground in Canada. Reginald Bibby, the University of Lethbridge sociologist who heads up Project Teen, says the grey zone of those who believe in God, but don’t regularly practise an established religion, is rapidly emptying out, leaving behind two distinct camps: teens who are very religious and actively practise their religion, and those who don’t believe in God at all. “For years I have been saying that, for all the problems of organized religion in Canada, God has continued to do well in the polls,” Bibby writes in The Emerging Millennials, a new book based on Project Teen’s latest findings. “That’s no longer the case.”

The growth in popularity of faiths such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism can largely be attributed to immigration, Bibby says. Indeed, there are more new Canadians than ever—immigrants made up 20 per cent of the population in 2006, according to Statistics Canada, up from 16 per cent in 1981. And the majority of new Canadians now hail from the Middle East and Asia, whereas most came from Europe a decade before.

Foreign-born teens are more likely to be religious when they arrive, but whether that faith will persist over the coming generations remains to be seen. “Because these faith groups are so small, they often can’t hang on to their kids,” Bibby explains. “They have this maddening tendency to socialize with Protestant, Catholic, and ‘no religion’ friends, and marry out of their parents’ groups.” But immigration will continue to supply fresh believers, so it’s likely that their community support will grow too. That’s been Hadi’s experience. Amongst his friends, many of whom are Muslim, “we all know when it’s time to pray. If we forget, we’ll remind each other,” he says. “Community is an integral part of the equation.”

For Canada’s Christian teens, meanwhile, the community is shrinking like never before. Since 1984, the percentage of teens who call themselves Christian has almost been cut in half while the number who call themselves atheist has grown to 16 per cent, up from just six per cent in the mid-1980s. Just as the boomers shifted toward agnosticism, teens are now going a step further and rejecting religion entirely. “Belief is learned, pretty much like the multiplication table,” Bibby writes. “So is non-belief.”

Labels: belief, Buddhism, Canada, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Project Teen, religion, teenagers

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Friday, March 06, 2009

Recent poll finds most teens think lying, cheating can be ethical

A new survey finds that 80 percent of American teenagers believe they are "ethically prepared" for life in the real world but 40 percent believe they have to "break the rules" to succeed.

The poll of 750 teens conducted by Junior Achievement and Deloitte doesn't bode well for religious leaders. It shows that only 3 percent of teens see members of the clergy (pastor, priest, rabbi or imam) as "role models."

In contrast, most teens (54 percent) see their parents as role models, followed by friends (13 percent), teachers or coaches (6 percent) and brother or sister (5 percent). About one in 10 teens (11 percent) say they have no role models.

Key findings of the survey:

•80 percent of teens either somewhat or strongly agree that they are prepared to make ethical business decisions when they join the workforce, yet more than a third (38 percent) think that they have to break the rules at school to succeed.

•More than one in four teens (27 percent) think behaving violently is sometimes, often or always acceptable. Twenty percent of respondents said they had personally behaved violently toward another person in the past year, and 41 percent reported a friend had done so.

•Nearly half (49 percent) of those who say they are ethically prepared believe that lying to parents and guardians is acceptable, and 61 percent have done so in the past year.

•Teens feel more accountable to themselves (86 percent) than they do to their parents or guardians (52 percent), their friends (41 percent) or society (33 percent).

•Only about half (54 percent) cite their parents as role models. Most of those who don't cite their parents as role models are turning to their friends or said they didn't have a role model.

•Only 25 percent said they would be "very likely" to reveal knowledge of unethical behavior in the workplace.

"If teens lack accountability to others," Grocholski said, "the data suggests that their choices may be driven purely by selfinterest and not by interest in the greater good. . . . Teens seem to be experiencing a sense of ethical confusion and relativism, an endemic ethical attitude of 'the ends justify the means.'"

That attitude is compounded by the absence of adult role models, "which can leave a vacuum of ethical guidance as young people enter adulthood," Grocholski said. "With a significant number of teens reporting they don't have an adult role model for ethical behavior, the data raises even more questions about why adults are not viewed as role models and what can be done to fill the gap."

This story is written by Jerry L. Van Marter

Labels: ethics, Jerry L. Van Marter, Junior Achievement, success, teenagers

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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Poll: Only 3 Percent of Teens See Clergy as Role Models

By Michelle A. Vu
Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Feb. 18 2009

Out of 100 American teens, only three are likely to say they see members of the clergy as role models, according to a survey on teens and ethical decision making.

Scarcely any teens (those under age 18) view their pastors, priests, rabbis or imams as role models. Instead, many reported seeing their parents as role models (54 percent), the survey conducted by Junior Achievement and Deloitte showed.

Friends (13 percent), teachers or coaches (6 percent), and siblings (5 percent) also beat out clergies as role model figures.

Just slightly more than one in ten (11 percent) say they don’t have any role models.

But the poll’s major finding is that although the overwhelming majority of teens (80 percent) believe they are ethically prepared to make moral business decisions, nearly 40 percent believe they need to “break the rules” in order to succeed.

More than one in four teenagers (27 percent) think behaving violently is sometimes, often or always acceptable, according to the poll. One in five teens (20 percent) reported to have personally behaved violently toward another person in the past year.

Furthermore, among those who say they are ethically prepared for business, nearly half (49 percent) say lying to parents and guardians is acceptable. More than three out of five teens (61 percent) say they have lied to their parents or guardian this past year.

As part of the solution to the problem, Junior Achievement and Deloitte developed “JA Business Ethics,” which provides hands-on classroom activities and real-life applications to foster ethical decision making before students enter the workforce. The students compare how their beliefs measure up to major ethics theories and learn the benefits of having a code of ethics.

The youth-oriented organization commented that the results also raise the question of why adults are not viewed as role models by more American teens and what can be done to change this.

Junior Achievement, the world’s largest organization working to prepare youths to succeed in the global market, conducted the survey on 750 teens across the United States on Oct. 9-12, 2008, with the help of Deloitte, an international network of consulting firm

Labels: business, clergy, Deloitte, Junior Achievement, role models, teenagers, violence

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Monday, February 09, 2009

Study: Decline in Adolescent Religious Beliefs & Practices Over Time

Thursday, February 05, 2009

You can download the study by clicking on "external source, and go to the bottom of the article.

The National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) recently announced the release of a new report on adolescents in the United States based on the second wave of NSYR survey data.

In "Religion and Spirituality on the Path Through Adolescence," the authors examined religious and spiritual changes in the lives of adolescents in the United States across a three-year span. The comparison of NSYR survey responses from the same adolescents in 2002 and 2005 reveals relatively small but consistent decreases in conventional religious beliefs and practices. Although the majority of adolescents in this study remained stable in their religious beliefs, practices, and spirituality, a significant minority did experience slight shifts away from standard religious beliefs and decreases in religious practice. Overall, the dynamics in religiosity and spirituality among this nationally representative sample of adolescents reflect subtle changes--rather than large or dramatic shifts.

The report, is authored by Melinda Lundquist Denton, Co-Investigator with the NSYR and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Clemson University, Lisa Pearce, Co-Principle Investigator of the second wave of the NSYR and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Christian Smith, Principal Investigator of the NSYR and Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame.

Labels: Jim Liebelt, religion, Religion and Spirituality on the Path Through Adolescence, teenagers

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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Teens have 'feel-good' type of faith

By Carrie A. Moore
Deseret News
Saturday, Oct. 04, 2008

The majority of American teens have embraced an informal, "feel good" view of God and religion that not only emphasizes personal happiness as the central goal of life but has become something of a new religion in and of itself.

That is according to researchers examining teens over an 11-year time span as part of the National Study of Youth and Religion. In explaining the study's findings on Friday, Holli M.H. Eaton of Azusa Pacific University told members of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists that the "feel good" view of faith has five identifiable characteristics and has been dubbed "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism."

Its "tenets" are as follows:

* There is a God who created human life and watches over human beings.

* God wants people to be kind, caring and good.

* The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about one's self.

* God doesn't need to be involved in one's life except when needed to solve a problem -- "kind of a heavenly butler."

* Good people go to heaven when they die.

Beyond these generalizations, teens in general "can't verbalize the basics of their faith," Eaton said, noting there are exceptions but that the majority are unable to do so.

"When you ask about grace, they automatically think you're talking about 'Will and Grace,"' a TV sitcom that is popular with teens and young adults. "When you talk about honor (in religious terms), they think of honors classes at school."

When hundreds of teens were interviewed at length about the principles of their faith, none mentioned self-discipline, "but feeling happy was mentioned more than 2,000 times," Eaton said.

"Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a new religion in researchers' view. It's taking over in kids' lives."

The study, conducted by sociologist Christian Smith, began in 2000 based out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smith addressed students and faculty at Brigham Young University earlier this year to share his findings, which also include data showing that LDS teens are the most highly religious by denomination of all the groups in the study, with 71 percent saying they attend a religious service at least once a week.

While Latter-day Saint teens see their faith as central to their lives, the majority of American teens see it as highly dispensable, Eaton said. "It's the first thing many teens are willing to let go when there are competing demands in their lives," she said. "Nearly all American youth are profoundly individualistic, and they think that 'what I think is right is right for everybody."'

She said most share the view that "it's okay to be somewhat religious, but it's important not to be too religious. They don't want to talk about specific beliefs. That's too religious," she said.

"Most teens say they pray, but it's usually when they want something. Very few read the Bible and even fewer engage in other religious practices."

Marilyn S. Wright, a psychologist at Pepperdine University, said the vast majority of teens are "incredibly inarticulate" about their own faith, even as they mature into young adults. The initial survey of more than 3,300 teens in 2000 has been followed by subsequent phases of questioning for 10 percent of those studied, and age doesn't change the ability to express their feelings about faith, she said.

Yet teens whose parents put religion at the center of their lives differ from the overall survey group in significant ways, mirroring the religious attitudes and practices of their parents, she said -- something that is encouraging to parents who often believe peer influence is more powerful.

She said LDS teens are "more involved in youth groups for more years and are more likely to claim to be youth leaders in their groups" than other teens. The survey also showed LDS teens are "the most Bible-believing and the least likely to believe in the occult."

Labels: Carrie A. Moore, God, happiness, Holli M.H. Eaton, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, National Study of Youth and Religion, religion, teenagers

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Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Evolution, God, and Neanderthals in Teen Fiction

“I believe in God -- nothing will ever change that. You can hook me up to a torture machine and I’ll still say I believe. I’d die if I didn’t have God. But I also believe in science. Does that make me a bad Christian? Why do I have to ignore facts just to prove my faith is strong?”

These words, the unmistakably dramatic words of a teenage girl, belong to Mena Reece, the central character in Robin Brande’s YA novel Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature. Mena’s story twists the coming-of-age high-school novel toward the American culture wars, and reading it, we learn something about the state of religion-science writing these days.

Everyone knows the deal by now: the sizeable percentage of Americans who call themselves creationists and pledge fidelity to the “fact” of a 6000-year-old Earth; the fancied-up, pseudo-science ID (intelligent design) cadre that acknowledges an ancient Earth but reifies the “irreducibly complex” structures and processes that, they insist, could not have evolved and could only have been created; the scientists who lament both of these views, acknowledging creationism and ID as our country’s twin pillars of scientific illiteracy; and the subset of those scientists who, bloated with certainty of their own one real truth, condescend to people of any faith and link all religiosity with rampant stupidity.

Behind each of these caricatures are living people -- we’ve all met them. But the four categories above omit so many people, people who leave room inside for a new rock-your-world idea to be digested, or even just nibbled and then spit out. These churchgoers and scientists, and churchgoing scientists, pair up science texts with sacred texts and read both with a critical eye.

Like real people in this latter group, Mena Reece can think for herself. This annoys her strait-laced, ultra-religious parents. The novel begins as Mena tries to cope with her new status as pariah both at home and at New Advantage High School. Swept up in the tide of peer pressure, she recently joined a nasty and (for much of the book) mysterious campaign against a fellow student, orchestrated by her supposedly Christian peers. I won’t reveal the nature of these doings; it’s enough to know that Mena came down with a severe case of guilt as a result. (Guilt! Staple emotion of any bathed-in-religion novel worth its salt). Mena seeks redemption by performing a counter-act, one that sets these same Christians, and her own parents, soundly against her. Now, she’s alone….

Until she observes, one day in biology class, the Mena-shunners’ protest: “Ms. Shepherd had barely gotten the word ‘evolution’ out of her mouth when suddenly there was this dramatic scraping of chairs. Next thing I knew, almost half of the room -- fourteen people, to be exact -- stood up, flipped their chairs around, and plopped into their seats with their backs to Ms. Shepherd. God help us. Because this was it, the Big Stand, the ‘taking it to the front lines’ Pastor Wells had bragged about.”

Ms. Shepherd cites separation of church and state, and pushes on. True to her name, she also herds Mena towards Casey, a compatible boy-soul. Together with his spirited sister Kayla and Ms. Shepherd herself, Casey works magic on Mena. She mutates into increasingly rebellious science-blogger Bible Grrrl, breaks from the sheep-pack of peers, and decides her God can make room for Darwin.

Sprinkled through the text are welcome references to the big stars and bit players of human prehistory, ranging from gorillas to Homo floresiensis, the unexpectedly tiny (and recent) Hobbit hominid. I was disappointed to see, though, that our closest primate relatives, living or extinct, become in Brande’s hands only metaphors for mean or dumb characters. Early on, “Adam turned his apelike face toward Casey… The stupid gorilla decided to ram his shoulder into Casey and bounce him off the wall, too.” Later, Kayla calls anti-evolution picketers “Neanderthals.” For my money, gorillas are, and Neanderthals were, group-living, complex-communicating smart primates, and I’m proud to have them in the family.

Brande is at her best when she lets us peek inside Mena’s mind, at its genuine confusion: “So what does [all this] mean for Genesis? Evolution says we’re all descended from a common ancestor, too, but it doesn’t exactly sound like Adam and Eve. So when did they come along? Were there already apes and other creatures, and then God picked us out to make us special? Or were we always planned from the beginning, human souls waiting until the time was right to be in human bodies that walked upright and used tools and could appreciate the Garden of Eden?”

This novel couldn’t be more hot-topic. This year, U.S. presidential candidates will play the faithier than thou game, and may face outing if they endorse evolution. In 2009, the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s The Origin of Species will force natural selection and ape-like ancestors into everyone’s face. In the shorter term, we can hope for a Texas-sized miracle. Recently, the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research gained state approval for an online Master’s program in science education. Yes, for science education! Check out this bulleted point from the Institute’s website: “The harmful consequences of evolutionary thinking on families and society (abortion, promiscuity, drug abuse, homosexuality, and many others) are evident all around us even infiltrating our churches and seminaries.” Isn’t it just swell when being gay gets lumped with drug abuse? When evolutionary thinking is made into evil? Stay tuned: the final vote from the state of Texas on ICR’s Master’s program is slated for later this month.

Kids, like adults, need to understand what’s behind issues like these -- almost as much as they need to learn the bedrock principles and facts of evolution. A countryful of courage, that’s what we need, on behalf of the kids. Courage to continue to insist that teachers teach science in science class, and religion in religion class. Courage to write an array of books, fiction and otherwise, that look at God and evolution. Sure, let’s explore what it means for teens to bridge science and religion. But since when have YA readers been fragile? Not everyone has to pray their way through the issues; an atheist heroine or two (non-sneering variety), anyone?

-- Barbara J. King awaits a spring semester at William & Mary filled with science, and 37 students in two primatology classes.

Labels: Barbara J. King, evolution, fiction, God, religion, science, teenagers

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Thursday, November 22, 2007

Survey: Many Christian Parents Choose to Satisfy Children Over God

By Nathan Black
Christian Post Reporter
Nov. 20 2007

Despite concern over the negative influence of media on young people, Christian parents are likely to spend more than $1 billion on media products this Christmas season, a new survey showed.

Seventy-eight percent of Christian parents had purchased DVDs of movies and TV programs in the past year for their teenagers and 87 percent had purchased DVDs for their children under 13, the latest Barna Group study found. Yet 26 percent of them did not feel comfortable with the DVD products they purchased.

About six out of 10 parents bought music CDs for their teen children but one out of every three of them had concerns about the content. Also, slightly more than half of all Christian parents had purchased video games for their children yet nearly half (46 percent) of parents of teens admitted to concerns about the content of those games.

Christian parents who were generally the least comfortable with the content of the media products purchased were non-whites and parents involved in a house church, according to the survey, which was released Monday. Those most comfortable were single parents, mothers and parents least active in practicing their faith. Moreover, the study found that the more media consumed by the parent, the more comfortable they were with all forms of media they bought for their children.

The Parents Television Council (PTC), a non-profit organization that focuses on family-friendly television programming, reported earlier this year that television violence has increased 75 percent since 1998 and that the increase may pose a threat to children who may mimic what they see.

Among other media purchases that Christian parents had purchased for their children were magazines (51 percent), with 31 percent saying they were not very comfortable with the content. Thirty-nine percent bought their teens computer software although 24 percent were not comfortable with the software.

Researcher Barna noted that selecting appropriate Christmas gifts is "a microcosm of the spiritual tension millions of Christian adults wrestle with."

The Barna report is based on a nationwide survey on 601 Christian adults who were the parents of children between the ages of 2 and 18.

Labels: Barna Group, Christian, Christmas, Media, Nathan Black, parents, Parents Television Council, teenagers

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

What Teenagers Look for in a Church

Teens' Spiritual Expectations

by Barna Group

(Ventura, CA) – Teenagers are some of the most religiously active Americans. What does their spiritual experience look like, and what do teens look for in a church? What do they learn in church settings? A new study from The Barna Group explores the spiritual lives and expectations of today’s teenagers.

The most common teen spiritual activity – like that of adults – is prayer. Overall, three-quarters of teenagers (72%) say they pray in a typical week. The next most common activity is attending a worship service at a church – a form of engagement embraced by half (48%) of today’s teenagers. Roughly one-third of teenagers said they attend Sunday school (35%), attend youth group (33%), participate in a small group (32%), and read the Bible (31%).

Compared to American adults, teenagers are more likely to report engagement in corporate forms of worship and spiritual expression – such as attending church, as well as participating in small groups, youth groups, and Sunday school. However, young people are less likely than their parents to pray (72% of teens, 83% of adults) or read the Bible in a typical week (31% of teens, 41% of adults).

However, the research raises caution that teenagers’ prodigious appetites for spiritual activity may be waning. Since a decade ago, teenagers are less likely to pray (down from 81% in the mid-nineties), to attend worship services (down from 53%), and to read from the Bible on their own time (down from 37%).

As some of the nation’s first digital pilgrims, the research shows that one out of every four teenagers (26%) had learned something about their faith or spirituality online in the last six months. This was true of two-fifths of born again Christian teenagers (39%). Furthermore, one-sixth of teenagers (16%) and one-quarter of born again teens (25%) said they had “a spiritual experience” online where they worshipped or connected with God.

Spiritual Expectations

The study also explored teenagers’ expectations related to church. The most common elements sought by young people were “to worship or make a connection with God” (45% described this as very important) and “to better understand what I believe” (42%). About one-third of teens said they wanted “to spend time with close friends” (34%), “to get encouraged or inspired” (34%), or “to volunteer to help others” (30%).

Other expectations of teenagers were less important, including learning about prayer (26%), listening to religious teaching (26%), participating in discussions regarding religion and faith (23%), being mentored or coached in spiritual development (21%), discovering the traditions of their faith (20%), participating in a study class about faith (19%), or studying the Bible (18%).

When asked to choose between a church that teaches the traditions and background of their faith or a church that teaches how their faith should influence everyday decisions and lifestyle, most teenagers preferred the latter (39% versus 16%). However, underscoring the fact that spirituality is only skin-deep for many teens, a plurality of teenagers (45%) admitted they would not care for either type of church.

Spiritual Learning

What do teenagers learn from their experiences in church? The churchgoing teenagers in the sample were asked to identify the teaching or information they received from their church in the last 12 months that had shaped their views. The most common areas of content recalled by teens revolved around moral and ethical standards (65%) and relationships (62%), followed by faith traditions (55%) and personal evangelism (50%).

Just one-third or fewer churched teenagers said they remember any helpful content related to the following topics: media, movies and television (35%); money and finances (30%); the supernatural world (28%); leisure activities (27%); government and law (26%); art and music (22%); health issues (21%); and technology (9%).

Research Details

This report is based upon nationwide telephone and online surveys conducted by The Barna Group with random samples of teenagers, ages 13 to 18. The most recent surveys were conducted in April 2005 and July 2006. The 2005 study involved interviews with 2,409 teenagers (±2.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level); the 2006 survey included 617 teens (±4.1 percentage points). Statistical weighting was used to calibrate the sample to known population percentages in relation to demographic variables.

“Born again Christians” are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as “born again.”

The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) conducts primary research, produces media resources pertaining to spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website (www.barna.org).

Labels: Barna Group, church, prayer, spirituality, survey, teenagers, worship

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Thursday, September 06, 2007

Is West Seattle’s Skate Church an Open-Minded Extension of Religion’s Embrace of Secular Culture?

Or a classic bait and switch?
By Maggie Mertens

The sun is hanging low over the water at Alki Beach, casting streaks of pink and gray that sparkle off the waves as they crash into the sand. Guitar chords float over the crowd of teenagers who have gathered here on a Wednesday evening in late summer. The area around them is littered with guitar cases and skateboards, as a 17-year-old named Jono stands and speaks over the quiet guitar riff.

"I don't know where you are in your walk with God right now, but if you have any doubts, just look at that," he says, turning and pointing at the now-glowing horizon. "Looking at that, there is no way there could be no God; there is no way scientists or whoever could be right about us being created from some blast in space. That should be all the proof you need."

Jono is a member of Skate Church, a West Seattle congregation that hosts youth-focused events ranging from skateboarding to rock concerts to paintball excursions. "We believe having fun is not a sin," says 20-year-old Pastor Brennan Pebbles, when asked what makes Skate Church different from most youth groups today.

Pebbles can be found most days at TORN, an Alaska Junction skate shop that doubles as Skate Church's sanctuary. The rectangular store has couches instead of pews, energy drinks and candy instead of coffee and doughnuts, and a drum set and several amps in its worship center. Pebbles wanted to create a place where teens would choose to come and hang out, and not just once a week. He believes "just coming together on Sundays is not church, because church should be something that is happening all the time." To keep the congregation coming back the rest of the week, the store also contains a PlayStation video game console, skating footage projected on a huge hanging screen, and skateboard decks and related paraphernalia for everyone to drool over and consider purchasing.

After bouncing from space to space for about five years in search of a place that would play host to their youthful vision, Skate Church's founding pastor, Serena Wastman (a parent of one of the youth congregants), hooked up with the open-minded Foursquare denomination, which agreed to help the congregation find a permanent home. Foursquare, which was founded by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1923, has a fairly tolerant faith doctrine, and church planting and missionary work are among its foremost goals.

On June 22, TORN opened its doors on California Avenue, selling skateboarding products at discount prices, thanks in no small part to the church's nonprofit status and all-volunteer staff. Here, name-brand skate decks go for up to $20 less than at the store's secular counterparts, and flyers advertise TORN as the best place for candy and energy drinks because the shop is "cheaper than 7-11...closer than Safeway."

Like the handful of churches that are experiencing youthful population growth right now, Skate Church is giving teens what they want: life answers, an accepting peer group, and plenty of energy drinks to boot. Says 16-year-old member Chris Redman, "When we started thinking about starting a church, skating was just starting to blow up, and we thought...kids will just, like, flock to us."

If this sounds like a church only a teenager could dream of, that's because it is. But while their alternative looks may suggest the sort of open-minded beliefs usually associated with the skating scene, chip away to Skate Church's conservative ideological core, and the whole pierced-eyebrow facade begins to look a lot like a classic bait and switch.

Among the photos that plaster the walls of TORN, one stands out. It shows a picture of a boy dressed like Marilyn Manson: the long hair, the piercings, the makeup, the black leather. The words next to this portrait read: "What is wrong with this picture?" Underneath that: "Absolutely nothing."

Youth pastor Pebbles goes on to explain Skate Church's cultural tolerance thusly: "Jesus says you should be in the world, but not of the world. We should be hanging out with the druggies on the street, but not like them. And sure, I love all the crazy music out there.If you start doing what the music says, though, that's another story."

In the words of Katie Corcoran, a Ph.D. student who teaches sociology of religion at the University of Washington, Skate Church "can give [young people] the best of both worlds: a strong religious identity, but also allow them to be a part of that secular world that is so important to youth of today."

While Jono hopes people will become more tolerant of the clothes his congregation dons and encourages people to "look on the inside," this mind-set apparently only holds for certain societal deviants. These Christian teens may be clamoring to escape what they deem "conservative" churches, but don't think that means the religious right is going to topple any time soon—it's just getting a face-lift.

One Sunday evening at a Skate Church service, Wastman, the senior pastor, encourages the young evangelists not to "believe for one minute what I have to say, or what any televangelist has to say. You go home and you look it up." Wastman then holds up her Bible, emphasizing her belief that open-mindedness ends somewhere between the books of Genesis and Revelation.

A well-respected granddad to the Seattle skating scene, Inner Space Indoor Skatepark owner Mike Martinez has watched Christian groups embrace skateboarding for the last decade to varying degrees. And while he feels some of these organizations are mostly harmless, he adds, "Skateboarding is a cool thing because it's artistic and kind of free. To use it as a tool to get people into religion, I don't really support that."

On the other hand, one of Martinez's best friends, Scott Yamamura, is a skater for West Coast Christian skating group Boarders for Christ. Martinez even hosts BFC events at his park, explaining that the group doesn't use skating as an evangelical tool. "When they throw a contest, it's just a regular contest," he says. "It's not really preaching; they are just supporting skateboarding."

Recently, though, Martinez attended a skating event in Redmond that he knew was being put on by a Christian skating group. He assumed it to be like the BFC events: mostly skating, not so much praying. Martinez says he was more than appalled by what he found when he got there.

"It felt like it was a cult," Martinez says, sounding genuinely disturbed as he describes the fenced-off, deserted area surrounding the event, the booths of preachers and groups of kids praying and preaching, and the skating gear being sold that was designed to look just like popular skating brands—but actually contained Christian messages. His language grows colorful as he remembers the image that greeted him when he first walked in: "Big huge posters of aborted fetuses, not just one, but five in a row.[They're] the first thing you see, and I'm thinking, 'Holy shit! What the hell is going on?'"

But for the most part, skaters aren't fazed anymore by the Christian involvement in their sport. Martinez, who witnesses the skating demographic daily at his park, agrees. "There is definitely a section of skateboarding that is Christian, but it's not as dominant as [Christians] would want it to be. Most kids are just like, 'Fuck that shit. Whatever.' A lot of kids laugh at that stuff."

Chris Redman is playing with his skateboard under his feet at the front desk of TORN. Redman came to Christianity without any prior religious experience; in fact, he came because he was falling in with a bad crowd. A few years ago, he was spending his time hanging out with a group of skaters who were into vandalism, drugs, and drinking, and after getting arrested a couple of times himself for vandalism, Redman followed a friend to Skate Church.

"When I was, like, 13, I had to look up what being baptized was. I wasn't exposed to anything until I started going to youth group," he says. Today, Redman takes that experience of knowing what troubled teens are looking for to the streets, and to skateboard parks. "We don't try to slam kids with a whole bunch of church stuff. We just hang out, maybe skate, and become friends [with them]; then we'll do what we do...[and] that gives them a choice whether they want to follow us and follow God, or just watch."

Reaching out to the younger generation is a goal many churches have found themselves struggling with of late. The "old people in pews" stereotype that Roberts refers to at more traditional churches may become a reality as the young-adult age group dwindles.

Pastor Don Horrell at Haller Lake Baptist Church in North Seattle describes his congregation as "the mostly 55 and better crowd." Haller Lake holds two services on Sundays, the people sit in pews, and congregants are promised "a welcome smile and a warm handshake," as well as "traditional coffee time" after services.

Facing the problem of disappearing youth, Horrell has begun to blend the traditional hymns sung at Sunday service with a few contemporary Christian songs, but without much benefit. When it comes to secularism, though, Horrell draws the line deep, without even considering touting music that isn't found in the "Christian music" section as acceptable. "Rock music can be Christian music; we can certainly use Christian rock music," he says. "There is nothing inherently right or wrong about that."

While churches like Haller Lake struggle to reach out to the youth generation without giving up their traditional theologies, churches like Mars Hill in Ballard (with a satellite congregation in West Seattle), which employs elements of popular culture in its sermons and puts on edgy Christian music concerts, and South Seattle's Christian Faith Center, which podcasts youth sermons on its Web site and has youth services that look more like rock concerts, have two of the largest youth congregations in the Seattle area.

According to UW's Corcoran, churches that embrace secular culture are becoming increasingly popular as a way to reach out to youth. "In the past, groups have had very conservative theologies that haven't really ever attracted youth, specifically if it says you can't listen to rock music," she says. "Now they are keeping their theologies the same but are changing the packaging and saying that [youth] can still listen to rock music or skateboard, but can do so in a way that's still religious."

Skate Church's teaching pastor, 16-year-old Jackson Neumiller, experienced this antipathy for the traditional Christian setting at a young age. She often tells people, "I did grow up going to church, but I didn't like it. I was the kind of kid who skipped Sunday school.I never came to Christ when I was younger because I couldn't relate to a 59-year-old man in a robe."

Neumiller wasn't the only one contemplating religious rebellion at age 10. Her good friend Natalie Wastman and a group of skating seventh-graders all felt as if they were a burden to the rest of the church they were attending at the time. Their old church may not have realized the role secularism played in their unhappiness, but Serena Wastman, Natalie's mother and current senior pastor of Skate Church, sure did.

Wastman, a retired Microsoft employee, fits right in with the young congregation. A woman of small stature with a youthful, pretty face, she walks around the TORN store barefoot. Folding her legs under her on the couch next to Natalie and her friends, she joins in on jokes about explosives on the Fourth of July and discusses horror movies.

"This is completely run by the kids," she insists, before pausing for a moment and smiling at the group around her. "But, you know, we have to have adults around, just to make sure nothing insane happens."

Jono rings up a boy for a snack-size bag of Cheetos and a Dr Pepper at the TORN cash register during West Seattle Summerfest. Around TORN, Jono is a leader: He knows the products they sell, organizes people at events, and wants to go to school to become a youth pastor and a cop. His jovial personality and sweet demeanor peg him immediately as the lovable, high-school class-clown type. He was a skater when the group was just beginning, but later shattered his ankle, an injury from which he is still recovering.

While having to quit skating didn't keep Jono from his Skate Church friends, it had other impacts on his social life. "I used to have a whole bunch of friends [who were skaters but not Christian]," he says. "[But] over the years, I lost connection with them. Those friends did a whole bunch of stuff I just wasn't into."

Having to make social sacrifices is one thing, but when it comes to religion, many kids face resistance at home as well. "My parents say they're Christian, but you know, they don't go to church or anything," says Jono. "My dad thought I was being brainwashed or something."

For teens who see other kids getting themselves in trouble every day, the ability to choose Jesus over drugs is a lot easier when you have a group of friends who will support your decision. Shiloh Mulkin, 17, goes to Chief Sealth, a school he describes as "very nonreligious." But even when he is laughed at or turned down when he invites people at school to Skate Church events, he still stands strong in his desire to change the skater image for the benefit of his, as well as future, generations. "A lot of the skating scene that I've witnessed is drugs and stuff, and we're just trying to give kids a different alternative," he says. "We don't want people to see just smoking and doing drugs and skating, and see them as all together."

Different churches are treating secular influences with varying degrees of acceptance. "It is probably healthier to find out where it is that God is moving and get in on that, rather than saying, 'This is where the culture is at, let me get in on that,' and bring God there," says Seattle First Covenant Church's pastor, Mark Nilson.

Serena Wastman and her Skate Church charges, however, know exactly where the culture is moving and aren't afraid to incorporate it into their religion. Pebbles remembers thinking when they first had their vision of a youth church that catered specifically to skaters, "We could reach out to the more lost or harder to reach—skaters, alcoholics, those type of people who love music—[then] develop a way to draw them in by [using] events, demos, and heavy-metal music."

Pebbles himself was a skater when the church started, and like many of the other founding members, he had a desire to become the shepherd for their "more lost" skater friends. Catering to this crowd, however, means the leaders of Skate Church don't expect perfection. One afternoon, a group of teens are gathered at TORN, and a boy playing PlayStation screams, "Oh man! What the hell was that!?" as his character dies on-screen.

Natalie Wastman, Neumiller, and Roberts don't even flinch at this outburst. Natalie explains that at Skate Church, things like swearing are accepted—even encouraged, if that's how you would normally act. "We always say who you are away from church is who you should be at church, too," she says. "So if you swear outside of church, then you should feel comfortable to swear here. Then we work on our problems together, here, as a group.

These youth might tell you it is God's choice as to what words come out of their mouths, but regardless of what they say, naturally these lessons of faith will be a lot more credible to other teens when they hear them from people their own age.

The elder Wastman welcomes everyone to service, while behind her the worship team begins to play music, and she opens in enthusiastic prayer. "We pray that thy kingdom come, here on earth as it is in heaven," she says. "We lift up Jesus as a banner; Lord God be glorified in every way. We lift you up, we give all glory and honor to you, Lord Jesus; we lift you up. In Jesus' name, Amen." She then cues the worship team: "Let's rock! Amen."

Chris Redman pounds the drum set in front of him, closing his eyes at times while his lips move to the lyrics of the Christian song. The pounding syncopation and piercing electric guitar inspire a moshlike atmosphere in the front two rows. Pebbles encourages the congregation to "lose it for God," saying God won't answer them unless they clap and raise their hands energetically.

Serena Wastman joins the crowd, barefoot and full of energy, jumping up and down and throwing her hands in the air. Whooping along to the music, she runs circles around the rest of the congregation, which claps and sings, rocking out for Jesus.

Labels: God, Jesus, Maggie Mertens, religion, Seattle, Serena Wastman, Skate Church, teenagers

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Sunday, August 26, 2007

Kids today ... find a new way to shock adults

Could it be that the kids get it and the adults don't?

A long, long time ago, in a decade known as the "'60s," many young people who were not in college ROTC or the Young Republicans club had a visceral distrust of anyone over, oh, say ... 30.

These were ... are, the baby boomers, perhaps the most self-indulgent generation in the long, often futile, history of humankind [I yam what I yam. ...]

The boomers have been followed by generations mostly known by chromosomal letters: "X" and "Y"

Anyway, since the boomers had a visceral distrust of the generations that went before them and thought they had invented the world and thus deserved to dominate it ...

And since succeeding generations have had to find their own difficult niches outside the distortions of the Me Generation ...

You would think ...

That kids today ... kids today ... would be rebelling against an adult world that can produce a lot of wealth but can come up pretty short on things that really count.

Then again, you might have missed a recent news story about an MTV/Associated Press study of young people between the ages of 13-24 and what makes them happy.

And the reason you might have missed it? Well, look no further than yet another news story about yet another survey — on the reading habits of Americans ... which found one in four adults read no books at all during the past year.

Of course, if you're reading this you probably are not one of those folks for whom the act of picking up a book and getting lost, lost, lost in it is a lost, lost, lost art.

"Religious" works and popular fiction were the most popular choices according to the poll, with the Bible, the Good Book itself, the most widely read book.

I'll admit to checking out the Bible now and then, and I do read a lot, which led me to the questions asked by MTV on what, if anything, makes kids today happy.

The shocking, shocking answer to what made the most young people happy is ... spending time with their families.

Don't know for sure about generations X, Y, Z, but where I come from — when Visigoths walked the earth — happiness was getting as far away from my family as possible.

By age 13, I was firmly convinced my parents were not only uncool, but hopelessly lacking in any skills that I as an all-knowing teen might find useful or necessary.

Yeah, there was a rather significant level of what we today call "dysfunction" in my "family of origin" [another psycho-babble term popularized in the 'aughts], but still ...

Anyway, this AP/MTV survey also showed that white kids call themselves happier than blacks and Latinos; that many, especially females, feel themselves just totally and irrevocably stressed out — and, get this, that money is not something that makes them happy.

Maybe this is because of the mind-boggling prosperity that has inflicted this country over the past couple of decades, so kids just take it for granted.

Sex? Kids 13-17 showed a lot of wisdom in saying that being sexually active at that age leads to diminished happiness; while the 18-24s were cautious. Yes, sex can lead to momentary happiness, they said, but hardly provides much of a foundation for anything lasting.

Drugs and alcohol — more unhappy than happy.

School makes many respondents in the poll happy, and they also said they believe in the institution of marriage and want to have kids of their own. Significantly more kids from families whose parents have remained married reported waking up happy, compared to kids from divorced families.

Nearly half named their parents as their heroes and three-quarters said their relationship with their parents is what makes them happy.

Family, friends and God, that's who they want to be with.

Nearly half said religion and spirituality are important to them and more than half said they believe God influences what makes them happy. Being part of a religious group also was seen as happiness-inducing.

Of active believers in God, 80 percent said they are happy, compared to 60 percent of the young people who said faith is not important to them.

Perhaps the young people surveyed by MTV already have already learned the spirituality of happiness.

Maybe some have already learned where true joy resides.

This brought to mind a passage written some 1,950 years ago, by Paul of Tarsus, who perhaps was addressing a group of young people in the ancient Greek city of Phillipi.

Paul wrote:

"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength"

Want to comment on this column or other topics? Check out Don Miller's blog at http://www.santacruzlive.com/blogs/donmiller. Contact Don Miller at dmiller@santacruzsentinel.com.

Talkin' 'bout your g-g-g-generations:

Back in the day, Gen X-ers were known as '20-Somethings,' 'slackers' and 'Baby Busters' and turned away from anything smacking of Baby Boom self-indulgence or narcissism.

Of course, Gen X-ers are now parents and have their own disaffected youths to worry about ...

Generation Y.

'Why, why, why' they might cry, are we going to have to foot the bill for boomers when they start tapping Social Security? Y-ers, also known as 'millennials,' have birthdates between 1984-1993. Naturally, the kids born after 1993 are now being called Gen Z.

The people who mark such things say hallmarks of Y are apathy, childhood obesity, a predilection for pharmaceuticals and, oh yeah, an intimate, sometimes consuming, relationship with all things digital.

Or so they say.

Labels: Associated Press, Baby Boomers, Don Miller, family, Gen X, Gen Y, God, happiness, MTV, teenagers

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Kids Happy To Hang With Families: Survey Finds Teens’ Heroes Are Often Mom And Dad

Wednesday, August 22, 2007 — Time: 8:18:23 AM EST
By Erin E. O’Neill

When it comes to their children, many adults probably think being able to drive the family car, hang out with friends at the mall and play the latest video games are the keys to happiness.

Little do they know that a large percentage of today’s youth would much rather spend time with mom and dad than listen to music, watch TV or, yes, even hang out with friends.

Kyle Newhart, 13, of Marietta thinks quality time with his family is very important but his dad, Rod, is pleasantly surprised by the results of a recent Associated Press/MTV survey that puts spending time with family at the top of the heap of things that make young folks happy.

Kyle Newhart does count video games among his favorite pastimes but he also enjoys playing board games with his dad and mom, Anita. Dinner together, reading and road trips are also important to their family dynamic, according to Anita Newhart.

The survey of 1,280 young people, ages 13 to 24, included an extensive list of questions ranging from “What one thing in life makes you most happy?” to “Who would you say are your heroes?”

The top answer when young people were asked what makes them happy was their families. When asked to name their heroes, Spider-Man, Oprah Winfrey and Tiger Woods couldn’t compete with mom, who squeaked by dad by a mere 8 percent. Together, parents fared better than anyone else, including Martin Luther King Jr. and George Bush, as influences on their kids’ lives.

The nationwide survey was conducted online from a random sampling of households with landline telephone numbers, both listed and unlisted, according to The Associated Press. Web access was provided to those who needed it by the company Knowledge Networks, which conducted the survey.

The results of the survey aren’t as surprising to some people, however.

Cathy Harper, coordinator for The Right Path, works with many area youth and says the survey shows what she knew all along.

“Family time is very important,” Harper said. “Kids really do want parents and adults involved in their lives.

“Everybody needs to feel supported, even as we get older,” she said.

Overall, the survey is positive. However, a little more disheartening are results showing white youth to be happier than blacks and Hispanics and that overall stress levels are up compared to a similar study conducted in 1996.

What stresses kids out? For 18 to 24-year-olds, the major stressor is finances. For teens, it’s school that is the greatest concern.

The Newharts made the decision to take their son out of school in the fourth grade and homeschool him to the end of the year. Beginning in the fifth grade, Kyle was enrolled in online classes, which he continues. They said school stress was a major factor in their decision and now he is much less stressed over school work.

When it comes to family finances, Rod Newhart believes full disclosure is the only way to let kids know what is going on.

“Kids are a lot smarter and more aware,” he said. “Not talking about (finances) is a detriment.”

Harper agrees.

“Kids worry about finances because they hear their parents talking about it,” she said. “Parents need to talk to their kids to make them feel less stressed.”

And while money doesn’t rank among the things that make kids happiest, it does play a major role when it comes to funding education and recreation.

“Money can’t provide happiness,” said Harper, “but it does provide opportunities.”

A lot of activities are available for area youth, regardless of their financial abilities, due in part to programs through The Right Path, Ely Chapman Education Foundation and the Marietta Family YMCA. Harper does caution against spreading yourself too thin.

“Don’t be in 500 things,” she said. “One or two activities is fine. Have good family time. Even if you have dinner at 9 o’clock at night, do it together.”

Spiritual fulfillment also seems to play a big role in determining happiness, with 62 percent of those polled saying they believe that a higher power has influence over the things that make them happy.

These figures are encouraging to Roger Rush, minister of the Church of Christ at Sixth and Washington streets in Marietta.

“The survey is right on. Kids will be happiest when we give ourselves. Time with family coupled with religion helps to keep families together,” he said. “We try to focus on that.”

Rush has seen many of his young parishioners grow into successful adults in his 22 years with the church and he attributes that to a strong family unit.

“Kids that come from families who spend time together, worship together — those kids are thriving,” he said.

Labels: Erin E. O’Neill, family, happiness, money, spirituality, teenagers

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AP Poll: God Vital to Young Amercians

Friday August 24, 2007 5:16 AM
By ERIC GORSKI and TREVOR TOMPSON

Associated Press Writers

Among America's young people, godliness contributes to happiness.

An extensive survey by The Associated Press and MTV found that people aged 13 to 24 who describe themselves as very spiritual or religious tend to be happier than those who don't.

When it comes to spirituality, American young people also are remarkably tolerant - nearly 7 in 10 say that while they follow their own religious or spiritual beliefs, others might be true as well.

On the whole, the poll found religion is a vital part of the lives of many American young people, although with significant pockets that attach little or no importance to faith.

Forty-four percent say religion and spirituality is at least very important to them, 21 percent responded it is somewhat important, 20 percent say it plays a small part in their lives and 14 percent say it doesn't play any role.

Among races, African-Americans are most likely to describe religion as being the single most important thing in their lives. Females are slightly more religious than males, and the South is the most religious region, the survey said.

Eighty percent of those who call religion or spirituality the most important thing in their lives say they're happy, while 60 percent of those who say faith isn't important to them consider themselves happy.

Sociologists have long drawn a connection between happiness and the sense of community inherent to most religious practice. Lisa Pearce, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, said religion can indeed contribute to happiness, but she cautioned that the converse also can hold true.

``It's easier for kids who are happy and have things going well in their life to find the time and energy to participate in religion,'' said Pearce, co-principal investigator for the National Study of Youth and Religion. ``It could be kids who have bad experiences in church end up leaving and being unhappy with religion.''

The poll also asked young people to choose between two statements about their views of other faiths.

Sixty-eight percent agree with the statement, ``I follow my own religious and spiritual beliefs, but I think that other religious beliefs could be true as well.'' Thirty-one percent choose, ``I strongly believe that my religious beliefs are true and universal, and that other religious beliefs are not right.''

The latter statement is more likely to be the position of young teens - 13 to 17 - and those who attend religious services weekly.

However, tolerance is the rule overall. That doesn't surprise the Rev. Paul Raushenbush, associate dean for religious life at Princeton University and author of ``Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths.''

Young people eat lunch and play soccer with peers from other belief backgrounds, while adults tend to self-segregate with others of like mind, he said. Sweeping immigration reform in 1965 transformed America into the world's most religiously diverse nation, and young people grew up with the second generation of the immigrant wave, he noted.

``This shows that it doesn't require a lack of conviction in your own faith tradition to think someone else might have a similar type of conviction in their own,'' Raushenbush said. ``There is no sense of, 'This diminishes my faith.'''

About 75 percent of those surveyed say God or a higher power has some impact on their happiness. At the same time, 90 percent believe happiness is at least partly under their own control.

``I think you do have control over how you are going to feel on a particular day,'' said David Mueller of Lockport, N.Y., a 20-year-old college student who attends an evangelical Christian megachurch called The Chapel.

``When it comes to events in your whole life, it's already somewhat laid out for you,'' he said. ``You can stray off to another path. But where God wants you to go, you are going to get there.''

---

The AP-MTV poll was conducted by Knowledge Networks Inc. from April 16 to 23, and involved online interviews with 1,280 people aged 13 to 24. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Labels: Americans, Associated Press, Eric Gorski, God, MTV, religion, spirituality, teenagers, Trevor Tompson

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Friday, August 17, 2007

Three surveys & some good news

The “whoosh” you hear is another crop of young adults leaving church. Many of them won’t be back.

Their departure has been documented by a disturbing—but not surprising—national survey. The LifeWay Research study revealed:

• More than two-thirds of young adults stop attending U.S. Protestant churches for at least a year from age 18 to 22.

• Seventy percent of 23- to 30-year-olds drop out of church.

• Eighty percent of the dropouts didn’t plan to quit attending; they just quit.

• Of the dropouts, only about 35 percent return and attend church regularly, defined as at least twice a month.

The departed blamed their absence on several reasons: 26 percent cited hypocrisy or judgmentalism in the church, 25 percent quit when they moved to college, 22 percent moved “too far away” from their home church and didn’t find one closer and 20 percent said they no longer feel “connected” to their church.

Meanwhile, another national poll helps explain why children who grow up in Christian homes reach adulthood without a sustaining faith foundation. The Barna Group surveyed Christian parents of children between the ages of 3 and 18. What those parents said is both disturbing and surprising.

When asked to list their “spiritual challenges”—the tasks they see as sacred duties—only one out of every seven Christian parents (14 percent) mentioned raising moral children with a strong faith. If guiding their children to faith in Christ and building a strong moral foundation is not Christian parents’ No. 1 task, what is?

About twice as many parents could pick that duty out of a lineup, but that’s small comfort. When given a list of six parental duties, 30 percent of Christian parents said helping their children “become more spiritual” was a major task. Researcher George Barna said the gap between the two items is significant. A gap occurs when people are not conscious of such parental challenges and consequently are not seriously engaged in addressing them.

So, only one in seven American Christian parents regularly considers spiritual formation of children a parent’s job. Worse, even when prompted, fewer than one in three of those parents owns up to the task. Small wonder the kids skip out of church as soon as they get the chance. If they never see that a relationship with Christ is important to Mom and Dad—except, possibly, as a cosmic Genie when things go wrong—why should faith abide and sustain them?

Fortunately, a third study reveals a postive way forward. The Baylor University School of Social Work conducted a nationwide survey of U.S. teenagers from various Protestant denominations. The results are both logical and encouraging.

The Baylor research shows teenagers who express their faith through ministry in their communities are significantly more mature in their faith and more involved in daily faith practices than their uninvolved counterparts. The teens who showed the most mature and vibrant faith regularly participated directly in ministry that meets human needs, received opportunities to reflect upon their faith in the context of serving others, and worked alongside adults who explain their ministry involvement as an expression of their faith.

An obvious corollary to the study speaks to the two dispiriting surveys: Meaningful hands-on ministry to human need translates into strong faith, which in turn will strengthen and sustain teenagers when they become young adults.

And this life-transforming opportunity is available to every church. Notes Diana Garland, dean of the Baylor School of Social Work: “The opportunities to help our youth grow in their faith literally are as close as the neighborhoods outside the church’s door.”

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard.

Labels: Barna Group, Baylor University School of Social Work, Christian, church, LifeWay Research, Marv Knox, parents, spirituality, teenagers

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

COURTNEY E. MARTIN: For girls who hate their bodies - a spiritual crisis

The Christian Science Monitor
Brooklyn, N.Y. --

Worried talk about the next generation of high-achieving, health-neglecting "perfect girls" is everywhere.

Girls Inc. just published the results of its depressing, nationwide survey called "The Supergirl Dilemma," which reveals that girls' obsession with thinness has gotten significantly worse in the past six years. Despite the efforts of the Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty - well-intentioned, though undeniably market-driven - and Love Your Body Day events sweeping every school from San Francisco to Syracuse, 90 percent of teenage girls think they are overweight today, compared with 24 percent in 1995, according to a recent ELLEgirl survey.

So what gives? Is it our celebrity-obsessed, extreme makeover culture? Is it the newest version of the age-old story of dysfunctional family relationships? Is it peer pressure - mean girls critiquing one another's every lunchtime indiscretion? Is it the $30 billion a year diet industry?
It is, in truth, all of the above. But there is also another profoundly important - yet little noticed - dynamic at work in the anxious, achievement-oriented lives of America's perfect girls: They have a sometimes deadly, often destructive, lack of faith.

So many perfect girls were raised entirely without organized religion, and the majority of the rest of us - I reluctantly admit to my own membership in the perfect girl club - experienced "spirituality" only in the form of mandatory holiday services with a big-haired grandmother or unconscionably elaborate and expensive bat mitvah parties, where everything but the Torah is emphasized.

Overlay our dearth of spiritual exploration with our excess of training in ambition - never mind SAT prep courses; today, even community service is linked to college application brownie points - and you have a generation of godless girls. We were raised largely without a fundamental sense of divinity. In fact, our worth in the world has always been tied to our looks, grades, and gifts - not the amazing miracle of mere existence.

In this climate, we feel perpetually called to perfect our own "body projects" - the term used by historian Joan Jacob Brumberg. Thinness and achievement stand in for the qualities of kindness and humility. We think that our perfect bodies - not God's grace or good works - will get us into heaven. We have no deeply held sense of our own divinity, so we chase after some unattainable ideal. Perfect girls, as a result, feel they are never enough. Never disciplined enough. Never accomplished enough. Never thin enough.

The worst of this can be seen in the frightening Web sites that purport to be support groups for girls with anorexia and bulimia. Such sites claim that these two disorders are a religion, not a disease, and pray to false gods named after them: Ana and Mia. Though highly deluded and dangerously ill, girls who frequent these sites have taken the black hole at their centers and filled it with an obsessive faith in the power and purity of thinness. In essence, they are crying out to our godless culture, showing us just how damaged a child can be who is thrown to the wolves of advertising and amoral media without any spiritual armor.

I'm not calling for a return to conservative religion or restricting dogma. I'm envisioning an inspired movement toward community where girls are nourished with dinner-table conversations about the values of kindness and charity; where girls undergoing puberty are encouraged to embrace the miraculous, complex, and perfectly imperfect bodies they possess; and where girls can find inspiration - not condemnation - in religious texts.

For starters, the Bible has something to teach the perfect girl who calculates beauty in terms of pounds and dress sizes: "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight" (I Peter 3:3,4). (New International Version)

And Buddha, the man often portrayed as blissful with his belly, has a paradigm-shifting message for the average American woman accustomed to self-hate: "You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."

A supermom of an elite college hopeful told New York Times reporter Sara Rimer, "You just hope your child doesn't have anorexia of the soul." While she is spot on in her fears, she seems woefully shortsighted about her responsibilities. It is we, all of us, who have the power to resurrect a society that values spirit above skinniness. We have to start doing it - one prayer, one family hike, one heart-to-heart discussion about what really matters - at a time.

Courtney E. Martin is the author of "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body."

Labels: anorexia, Bible, body image, Buddha, bulimia, Courtney E. Martin, girls, Joan Jacob Brumberg, teenagers

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Saturday, April 14, 2007

Frank Talk About Sex . . . And Faith

Austin author's surprising findings in teen survey

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, April 14, 2007

Warning: This column might make you blush.

I know it's going to make me a little squeamish. And I think that's part of the point. Religion and sex, to adapt a phrase, make uneasy bedfellows.

But they intersect regularly in the lives of American teenagers. And Mark D. Regnerus, assistant sociology professor at the University of Texas, has found some surprising accounts of how faith influences the sexual decisions of teens.

In his new book, "Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers," Regnerus debunks some myths about trends in teen sexuality, explores the effectiveness of abstinence-only education and hears from those who pledge virginity until marriage or try to determine their "emotional readiness" for sex.

Regnerus used survey data and in-person interviews with more than 250 teens across the country to find out how beliefs and participation in faith communities shape their actions.

The key is being plugged into a religious community, Regnerus says. Participation, rather than denomination, is the factor that makes a difference.

Let me give you a little background here about Regnerus. He's 36 and grew up in Michigan, the son of a minister in the Reformed Church in America, a small denomination founded in the colonial period by Dutch settlers. He now attends Covenant Presbyterian Church in North Austin with his wife and two children.

As a person of faith, he appreciates the influence of religion on teenagers. As a dad, he's well aware of the challenges he'll face when his own kids reach their raging hormones phase.

He understands that it's not easy to talk about sex. And in the age of easy access to Internet pornography, religious and nonreligious parents alike fret about the images and messages that could confront their children.

"It's a strange new world," Regnerus said, adding that porn is "radically shaping how adolescent boys and (young) men think about sex, think about women."

With those images so prevalent, how should churches treat sex? Is it a sacred act? A profane one? Is it both?

These are good questions, but Regnerus says religious communities aren't raising them. Most teens would be hard-pressed to articulate their denomination's teachings on sex, other than "it's best to wait for marriage."

I asked him what approach best serves teens.

"The emotionally healthiest thing to do is wait," Regnerus said. "That seems pretty clear for the evidence."

But he immediately anticipated the next question: Wait for what? Marriage? A monogamous adult relationship? How do parents and religious institutions prepare young people?

In his "unscientific postscript," Regnerus stresses that his book aims to show "what is, not what ought to be." But he's not afraid to share his opposition to abstinence-only education, and he stresses that kids do want to hear about sex from their parents.

"The idea of 'the talk' has to go away," he said. "It must be an ongoing dialogue."
And another thing troubled him: the gender double standard.

"We wink at (boys) and we tell girls to wait," he said.

Yet another complicated issue. It is different for girls. Regnerus found that teen girls struggled more with the guilt and emotional pain associated with sex.

He writes in his postscript, ". . . if congregations intend to be faithful to their own teachings about the body and sexuality, they should stop winking at this double standard, acknowledge it, and start having more frank conversations about the real sexual issues that real people face."

Provided they can stop blushing long enough.

Labels: community, faith, Mark Regnerus, pornography, religion, sex, teenagers

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Monday, March 12, 2007

Religion's Generation Gap Growing

March 2- Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll used to be the Big Three of rebellion. Some families are adding religion to that list.

An increasing number of teens and young adults who were raised in nonreligious or nominally religious families are getting swept up in religious fervor. This is creating a complicated and sometimes painful family dynamic.

The parents of 16-year-old Kevin Ellstrand are self-described secular humanists who shun organized religion. Two years ago, Kevin says, he "started following Christ with all my heart." He has taken a missionary trip to Mexico and participates in a weekly Bible study group.

In a time when many teens are having sex and taking drugs, his parents mostly consider his piety a blessing. They get upset, however, when Kevin explains that he doesn't believe in evolution. "To me, this is appalling," says his mother, Karen Byers, who has a doctorate in strategic management and was raised a Methodist. "We get into arguments, and voices get a little louder than they should."

While parents of newly devout offspring often consider religion a benign if not positive influence, some say they are disappointed that their children have chosen a lifestyle so different from their own. Some of these teens and young adults are forgoing secular careers in favor of the ministry, moving away from home to religious enclaves, skipping family celebrations and changing their given names.

Clergy are in the difficult position of trying to guide young people toward devoutness without dishonoring their families. The reluctance of parents to accept their children's choices can be a source of frustration for some youths and their pastors. "My joke is, they liked them better when they were on drugs," says Pastor Peter La Joy, who directs the student ministry at Calvary Chapel in Tucson, Ariz.

While statistics on the number of devout young people are hard to come by, some groups that minister to the young report big gains. Young Life, an evangelical Christian ministry that focuses on children "disinterested" in religion, says more than 106,000 teens attended its programs on a weekly basis during the 2005-2006 school year, up from 66,362 12 years ago. "Mecca and Main Street," a new book by Geneive Abdo, a senior analyst at the Gallup Organization's Center for Muslim Studies, argues that a significant number of young U.S. Muslims are becoming substantially more devoted to Islam than their parents.

In the Jewish community, a growing number of formerly secular young people are embracing an Orthodox lifestyle.

Families in which the children are more religious than the parents aren't the norm. In "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers," University of Notre Dame professor Christian Smith reports that a child's religious beliefs generally will closely reflect his parents'. And not all religious fervor among the children of secular families has a solely spiritual basis. At times, "it's a part of teenage rebellion," says Azeem Khan, the former national coordinator of Young Muslims, a group that runs summer camps and other youth-oriented religious programs.

Overall, American's religious devotion seems to have remained fairly constant over the past 10 years. In a 2006 Gallup poll, 63 percent of respondents said they were members of a church or synagogue, down slightly from 65 percent in 1996. When asked how important they considered religion in their own lives, 57 percent said it was very important, the same as in 1996.

The embrace of Islam by young people can be confounding to secular Muslim-Americans who immigrated to the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. "Our parents were more culturally Muslim than religious," says Farhan Latif, the former president of the Muslim Students Association at the University of Michigan's Dearborn campus and the alumni adviser to the chapter. But in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks - and the racial profiling of Muslims that ensued - some young people have gravitated toward their religion as a show of ancestral pride and an act of defiance against a society they see as discriminatory. Young Muslims, for example, says it has seen participation double since 2000 to more than 1,000 people.

Young people gravitating toward orthodoxy is also an emergent issue in the Orthodox Jewish community. There is even a minilexicon of terms to characterize the movement. Baal Teshuva (Hebrew for "master of return") is the name Orthodox Jews give to secular Jews who are changing their lives to live like and among the frum - a Yiddish word describing observant Jews. Strict Orthodox Jews tend to live in close-knit communities, dress in a conservative fashion and strive to observe all of the Torah's 613 laws. There's even an Orthodox shorthand that includes terms like "BT" (Baal Teshuva) "FFB" (frum from birth).

Few issues create more tension for families comprised of people with different religious commitments than religious holidays and family celebrations. Last year, Philip Ackerman of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and his wife wanted to take their three children and all of their grandchildren on a cruise to celebrate his 70th birthday. Among Mr. Ackerman's children is Azriela Jaffe, who is a BT and the author of a book about how newly observant Jews can get along with their less-observant relatives, "What Do You Mean, You Can't Eat in My Home?" Because the cruise ship didn't offer kosher food, and the itinerary would require travel on the Jewish Sabbath, Mrs. Jaffe and her family declined the invitation.

In some instances, of course, a child's embrace of religion can create stronger family bonds. When Ian Matyjewicz and his twin brother became observant Jews, their mother (a secular Jew) and father (a lapsed Catholic) felt some anxieties. In some ways, Phyllis Matyjewicz says, she and her husband, George, felt like their boys were "going into another world" and wondered if each of her sons would remain "the same person." They decided to investigate the lifestyle their sons were embracing - and then decided to join in. Phyllis had to adjust to the strict rules of Orthodoxy. For George, it was a more complex proposition: He had to go through a lengthy conversion process.

For Giti Egan, her 15-year-old daughter's decision to become an Orthodox Jew brought up a range of emotions. Ms. Egan, a 36-year-old mother of three, was raised Orthodox - and left the religion after deciding that she simply didn't believe the stories in the Torah. Now her eldest child, Kara Lieberman, is embracing that world.

At Kara's request, her parents send her to an Orthodox girls school. She keeps kosher within her mom's and stepfather's non-kosher kitchen. (They bought her separate plates, silverware, pots and pans - and have turned over for her exclusive use a refrigerator, dishwasher and oven.) Kara spends nearly every weekend away from home because she finds it easier to maintain the rules of the Sabbath by staying with observant relatives. "That," says her mother, "is a bummer."

But whenever Ms. Egan gets annoyed by the recordings of rabbis' lectures blaring from Kara's room or disappointed by the lack of weekend time together, she considers the benefits of her daughter's religious devotion. "She's a much happier kid now," she says.

Labels: Gallup Poll, holidays, orthodoxy, religion, teenagers