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Fickle Teens Dump Evangelical Lifestyle
What has this world come to?s
By Jeff Koopersmith
Dec. 2, 2006 -- Geneva (apj.us) -- I had to laugh out loud after reading about a podcast to which a colleague tipped me off.
The podcast, titled "The Kindlings Muse: Why teens are leaving the church and why they are right to do so", cut right to the heart of why teens are not interested in Christianity, especially the heavily-hyped evangelical flavor: they can't relate to it, and they find it hypocritical.
Well, what a surprise. Or not.
This was the fifth or sixth substantial item that's either been sent to me or that I've run across on the Web in the last few months explaining or decrying the loss of teenage Bible beaters in so-called evangelical Christian churches -- you know the ones: where snake-oil salesmen use real snakes, talk in "tongues," "cure" AIDS with one plop on the forehead, and rake in tons of cash with no income tax liability.
All of these articles -- most notably a highly-discussed piece by Laurie Goodstein that ran two months ago in the New York Times -- depict this "loss" as a serious problem for the conservative Christian movement, and every one of them cites evangelical Christian leaders freaking out, wailing anf gnashing their teeth -- alone and among themselves -- as teenagers dump the faith and the lifestyle in droves.
Gee, what a surprise!
I would have thought that teens would be flocking to churches that tell them they can't kiss until they're married, can't drink beer, can't date until they're 35 -- and all because Jesus said so! (...which, of course, he didn't.)
Can you imagine the teens that aren't running from these freaks? I suppose they are sucking up Kool-Aid and popcorn at each other's houses -- under adult supervision, naturally -- watching re-runs of Jim Jones's greatest homilies.
I am so tired of politically correct journalists -- but in the case of Laurie Goodstein, I suspect she had no choice. If she is correct when she asserts that 35% of Americans identify themselves as "Bible-believing Christians" (which I doubt), then the New York Times cannot afford to anger them. Of course, the truth is that most people who are Christian and afraid to answer a pollster with this: "Well I am a Christian - but I don't believe in one damn thing the Bible says!" And they never, ever read the New York Times. To them, it's a work of Satan.
So let's assume this result in skewed -- by about 25%. That leaves 10% of America ready to whip out our Bibles for the answer to global warming. And don't tell me it's the Devil.
This "fright" over losing teens sounds like something cooked up by the ultra-right Christian fundamentalists to set the stage for November elections - elections they are TRULY afraid of inasmuch as they will lose their stranglehold on the House and the Senate if things go as expected.
So, what do they do? Cry out that our children are running toward Hades in droves! Talk about an obtuse way to inject phony "family values" into the discourse.
Again, as I have for twenty years, I ask: "Whose family values?"
That aside, the New York Times spent more than a few column inches examining this "tragedy" while I celebrated that it might be true and that teens today, like always, think for themselves, reject their impeded parents' philosophies and go it on their own -- making mistakes and not, yet learning from both.
At any rate, the born-agains just held a gaggle of "leadership meetings" -- where the main topic is usually how to connive the IRS. Yet this leadership meeting, attended by 6,000 pastors. Great googly-moogly -- six thousand of these guys and gals?
The super-frauds in this arena -- for example, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson -- are throwing around figures that "prove" only 4% of teens will grow up to be Bible-thumping adults! I say, "Terrific!" That means that there will be 16% more homosexuals in that same group so they will be able to beat the crap out of the Jesus freaks, and perhaps stop them from running to the Middle East and Africa trading food to those who agree to swear allegiance to Jesus.
Now, there is nothing wrong with Jesus, Christians, or the Pope. The most giving people on earth contribute to Catholic Charities. This however does not identify the general cobra charmers that populate "revival tents" that now look more like Madison Square Garden or the Vatican than your mom and dad's ol' time religion.
Here's a great quote from some jerk called Ron Luce, who thought up these meetings ad founded "Teen Mania" a 20-year-old youth ministry: "... We've become post-Christian America, like post-Christian Europe. We've been working as hard as we know how to work -- everyone in youth ministry is working hard -- but we're losing."
Gee, Ron, perhaps you had better rethink the title of your organization -- Teen "Mania." Princeton University among others defines mania as "an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action- a mood disorder; an affective disorder in which the victim tends to respond excessively and sometimes violently."
This seems to describe -- exactly -- what I've witnessed in evangelical churches: an irrational woman, lying on the floor of the church, responding by screaming at the devil while holding a few rattlesnakes, and talking in a language that no one understands.
Now that's Christian Mania!
Maybe that's what our young people are rebelling against -- that and the fantasy stories you tell them are the God's honest truth from your Bible. But that's only my opinion, Ron, and I think you are allowed yours as well. Just don't expect anyone with an IQ over 45 to believe that the Bible is literally the word of God, especially the New Testament.
The Bible, Ron, is I suspect the word of man -- wise men, I am sure -- but not straight from the horse's mouth. I have that on good authority -- for example,every 5th Grade graduate, including the Catholic ones.
Now we are also introduced to the "Board of the National Association of Evangelicals" -- a lobby that might stun even Jack Abramoff. They passed a "resolution" in 2006 deploring "the epidemic of young people leaving the Evangelical church."
Wow. Tough stuff! Did they ever think about the minute possibility that they, on this Board, are the cause?
The list of "leaders" speaking at these recklessly set up meetings to lure back the intelligent kids and make them once again naive is like a who's who of the Christian (with a small c) occult starring none other than the Rev. Jerry Falwell; and whopper-wise preachers like Jack Hayford and Tommy Barnett.
Seems that Ms. Goodstein or her aides also must have interviewed some "very disturbed" Christian teens, as she writes, "Genuine alarm can be heard from Christian teenagers and youth pastors, who say they cannot compete against a pervasive culture of cynicism about religion, and the casual 'hooking up' approach to sex so pervasive on MTV, on Web sites for teenagers and in hip-hop, rap and rock music."
Okay. First -- how do we know that this alarm is "genuine" or simply the knee-jerk reaction or trained reaction of a few teenagers who are simply out of their minds?
Goodstein says it herself: "very disturbed Christian teens."
The problem with these teens she seems to sum up is that the preachers are confusing cynicism with skepticism. For them and in today's world if you are not a skeptic, you're a moron.
These parable peddlers also seem to pretend there is no written history either. Since when is a teenage couple having sexual relations something unusual -- or, for that matter, simply "hooking up?" They get these poor young kids to echo their right-of-Hitler GOP parents and grandparents by spinning in the tried and untrue iconic negatives -- MTV, RAP, Hip-Hop (in private, one suspects these "good Christian" folk might be cursing under their breath and then uttering the "N" word), and that old standby, rock and roll.
Our kids are really not that dumb.
These nuts are also digging up another rube-cube: divorce and "dysfunctional" families -- although no one has ever defined a well-designed one.
Goodstein writes, almost incredibly, "Over and over in interviews, evangelical teenagers said they felt like a tiny, beleaguered minority in their schools and neighborhoods. They said they often felt alone in their struggles to live by their 'Biblical values' by avoiding casual sex, risqué music and videos, Internet pornography, alcohol and drugs."
I assume that "over and over" means she interviewed two evangelical teenagers -- at least.
Heavens!
What can we do to save them?
As I recall it was these same kids, or kids like them, who torture others that they perceive as misfits into Columbine shooters -- sick and tired of mister and miss goody-two-shoes mocking them because they march to a different drummer.
And, of course, Goodstein introduces the "anecdote" digging up one Eric Soto -- an 18 year old kid who left a charter school (code, here, for religious nut academy, most likely) and he was simply stricken to find that only 12 people attended his Bible study. Actually she first said five to eight students, but when Eric brought food -- he got 12.
This makes my point. When these same idiots bring food to Darfur or some godforsaken place in who knows where, they get more comers as well. This is one of the strongest objections Islamics have to American missionaries present in their countries. Like it or not, missionary zeal has killed a lot of important people throughout history -- including many of the missionaries!
Anecdotally, Chelsea Dunford told the New York Times, "At school I don't have a lot of friends who are Christians."
And?
Dunford, who was in Amherst for a Christian rock concert called "Acquire the Fire" (which sounds more like a Satanic ritual), spoke to her church youth group before joining the "fire" with nearly 3500 other teen nuns.
"A lot of my friends are self-proclaimed agnostics or atheists," [claimed] Ms. Dunford, who wears a bracelet with a heart-shaped charm engraved with "TLW," for "true love waits," to remind herself of her pledge not to have premarital sex writes Goodstein.
Oh. My. God!
JEFF KOOPERSMITH is a political consultant, opinion research authority, policy analyst, and self-described "renegade lobbyist."
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