Panic in the Pulpit

Evangelical Christians are alarmed that teenagers are abandoning their faith. In recent leadership meetings in 44 cities, 6,000+ pastors were given ominous forecasts based in part on a claim that trends indicate only 4% of teens will be “Bible-believing Christians” as adults, a precipitous drop from prior generations. A poll by an evangelical pollster found that only 5% of teens are Bible-believing Christians.

While some church leaders think these stats are exaggerated, the National Association of Evangelicals, representing 60 denominations, declared the problem to be an “epidemic”. One national youth leader said, “We’ve become a post-Christian America ... everyone in youth ministry is working hard, but we’re losing.”

Why? Evangelicals point to just about everything possible outside the church. They blame: casual sex; MTV and risqué videos; teenage Web sites; hip-hop, rap and rock music; divorced parents and dysfunctional families; Internet porn; and alcohol and drugs. Some or all of those things may be contributing to the “epidemic”, but there are other things pushing kids out the church doors.

At a recent youth rally, called “Acquire the Fire”, teens were asked to write down the “cultural garbage” that they plan to toss from their lives. They filled trash cans with pieces of paper on which they wrote things like Ryan Seacrest; Louis Vuitton; the “Gilmore Girls;” “Days of Our Lives;” Iron Maiden; Harry Potter; the “need for a boyfriend;” and “my perfect teeth obsession.” Others threw away lighters, brand-name sweatshirts, Mardi Gras beads and CDs. The kids were told to “strip off the identity of the world and clothe yourself with Christ, with his lifestyle.” Asking teens to abandon essentially all modern cultural influences and to simultaneously adopt the 30 A.D. lifestyle of none other than the Savior of Mankind is also contributing to the teenager exodus.

By the way, just exactly what is the lifestyle of Christ? Jesus was an itinerant prophet who withdrew to the wilderness alone for an extended period; challenged the prevailing religious authority while still rendering unto Caesar that which was his; performed miracles including healings, walking on water and raising people from the dead; spoke to thousands at a time; confronted people who made money from religious services and rituals; willingly submitted to painful humiliation; and then allowed himself to be crucified even though he could have prevented it. Is that what the teens of today are supposed to do?

Of course not, evangelical leaders would say. What the teens should do is follow the moral and ethical lifestyle of Jesus. Okay. That would be the lifestyle that emanated from Jesus being the sinless Son of God who was in constant and perfect communication with his Father at all times. That would also be a lifestyle that included never marrying or having children. “Be ye therefore perfect,” kids. Is that what the teens of today are supposed to do when “clothed with Christ?” Gee, why would they want to walk away from that mildly challenging opportunity?

Evangelicals get closer to the root of the problem when they cite another cause – “a pervasive culture of cynicism about religion”, a culture that “trivializes religion and normalizes secularism.” This culture, they conclude, leaves their teens feeling “alone in their struggle to live by ‘Biblical values’”, like “a tiny, beleaguered minority.” Indeed, they are; and there’s not a lot of appeal to being a beleaguered teenager.

Why would anyone be cynical about religion; why would anyone trivialize it? Read the newspaper. Almost every day brings another account that could make Mother Teresa cynical. The latest stone-tablet proclamation from Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson or the Family Research Council will drive the merely skeptical into the comforting arms of cynicism, because if they weren’t allowed to be cynical their heads would explode. Then add a dose of the special weirdness that emanates from tent men like Benny Hinn, with their traveling Pentecostal circus that “slays people in the spirit” and the cynical will quickly morph into people who trivialize and marginalize this can of nuts.

Take, for example, the infamous Westboro Baptist flock in Topeka, Kansas. These are the people who protest at funerals for servicemen and women killed in Iraq because they believe that God is killing our troops because the country they serve is supporting the gay agenda. They scream “God hates fags” into bullhorns while families try to bury their sons and daughters in peace. This pack of fanatics intended to demonstrate for the same purpose at the funerals for the five Amish schoolgirls killed in Pennsylvania, which defies even their twisted logic, but they were bought off by an intervening talk show host who offered 55 minutes of on-the-air infamy if they would not show up at the Amish funerals. Thank God, literally, the wackos accepted the offer.

How is a teenager supposed to react to something like that? Most of them will get as far away from it as they possibly can. Most Christian and non-Christian adults are well aware that any small cult like the Westboro clan doesn’t represent the rest of Christianity. Teens, however, may not be that discriminating, and even if they are they don’t want to be associated with anything that even bears the same name – uber-conservative, Bible-thumping, hellfire-spewing zealots.

Why would anyone regard a secular orientation as normal? Because it is normal! The world is, and always has been, secular at its foundation. The secular foundation is where we find our commonality, where we relate to one another, where we work and where we play. Sectarian orientation is an add-on, and an often slap-dash one at that. Sectarianism is the realm of personal belief. The fact that people who share a certain belief get together and institutionalize their beliefs in the form of religion, with its variegated denominations and dogmas doesn’t make the sectarian world normal. In fact, the harder the sectarian world tries to separate itself from the secular world around it, the more abnormal it becomes. Kids see that and they don’t like feeling abnormal.

Even though teens can be terribly harsh on one another they’re generally more tolerant and forgiving in nature than adults. Most of them haven’t figured out where they stand on a highly controversial issue like abortion, and most of them are baffled or amused by all the conservative Christian rancor about the nefarious “gay agenda”. The more their adult leaders insist on conformance to hyperbolic church dogma on social or moral issues of this nature, the more the teens are likely to be put off and walk off.

While many Christian teens probably do want to avoid the traps of casual sex and drug use, and may not be inclined to party as hard as other kids, they aren’t interested in shunning all the cultural influences around them. They don’t smell the same “garbage” that their church leaders smell. On the whole, they’re simply not willing to regard the Gilmore Girls and Harry Potter, much less their brand-name sweatshirt, as a threat to their spiritual well being. They can recognize nonsense when they see it.

The evangelical church needs to look at itself if it wants to understand why its teens are leaving in droves. There’s a very good chance that those kids are trying to get away from something inside the church as much as they’re being drawn to something outside the church.