Young People Don’t Need Supernatural Props

[Dardedar]

Christians Shocked to Find Young People Don’t Need Supernatural Props

COLUMN By Terry Sanderson
From NSS Newsline
May 17, 2006

A new report published this week by the Church of England indicates that contrary to its own propaganda, young people are not "on a spiritual journey," nor do they have a "God-shaped hole" that they are longing to fill. Indeed, the report shows that, generally, young people are perfectly happy without God in their lives and prefer a range of other activities to fill their Sundays (and the rest of their lives).

Their image of church, if asked to describe it, is of cardigans, sandals and sex abuse. Other words they use to describe religion are "corrupt," "stagnant" and "traditionalist." The report, Making Sense of Generation Y, is based on interviews with 120 young non-churchgoers between 15-25.

As usual with these reports, the Church has issued yet another "urgent wake up call." The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, writes of a large "mismatch" between the Church and the views of those aged 15 to 25. He says: "The research suggests young people are happy with life as it is, that they have felt no need for a transcendent something else and regard the Church as boring and irrelevant."

The number of young people attending church has halved since 1979, and now fewer than 7 percent of those aged 15 to 19 and 5 percent of those aged 20 to 29 attend church. The number of children in Sunday school is less than a tenth of what it was in 1930.

The authors began their work believing that young people with no connection with Christianity would be yearning for some kind of spiritual "fulfillment." The truth was they aren’t, and nor are they disenchanted or "lost in a meaningless world." Instead the young people found the world meaningful as it was they didn’t need the supernatural props.

"The data indicated that they found meaning and significance in the reality of everyday life, which the popular arts helped them to understand and imbibe," the book says. The researchers established that young people found happiness primarily through the family. They had little sense of sin or fear of death, but they were afraid of growing old.

The mission adviser for youth and emerging Church at the Church Mission Society, Jonny Baker, said: "This book is astonishing. Putting it bluntly, it suggests that many of our assumptions about young people, their world view and the quest for spirituality are wrong. This has implications for the future of mission, youth ministry and the Church."

But the authors of the report are not giving up. They still believe they can infect these young people with their own superstitious approach to life, if they try hard enough. One of the authors of the book, Bob Mayo, said: "The people we talked to were happy with life, they were enjoying themselves but were doing this with an almost complete ignorance of Christianity a total lack of a working knowledge. That is the alarming thing for the Church. The positive thing is that they are not opposed to what the Church is saying, it is just that they have not been exposed to it. In many cases they seem interested but no one has ever talked to them about it before." This, then, explains the CofE’s enthusiasm for church schools.

In the pilot interviews they included a picture of Salvador Dalí’s Christ of St John of the Cross but had to drop it from the main interviews because it only produced one response: "Oh, my grandmother has that picture." Discussions about Buffy the Vampire Slayer failed to open out into talk about "alternative spiritual realities." Clubbing, rather than being a way of "transcending oneself and touching a deeper reality," was simply a good night out. Even discussions about the September 11 attacks failed to elicit any mention of religion.

Their creed could be defined as: "This world, and all life in it, is meaningful as it is," translated as: "There is no need to posit ultimate significance elsewhere beyond the immediate experience of everyday life." The goal in life of young people was happiness achieved primarily through the family.

The authors conclude: "We live in an instant culture, which cannot be reached by instant missionary tactics." And the desire for happiness is valid and should not be criticized by clergy. "It can only be outclassed by a Christ-like way of life, for in him alone is true happiness to be found."

Terry Sanderson is the vice president of the National Secular Society (U.K.). He is also the editor of the weekly NSS Newsline, in which this article first appeared on Apr. 28, 2006. This article is republished by permission of the NSS.
***

http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=242&article=3
.
.

[ChristianLoeschel]

And the desire for happiness is valid and should not be criticized by clergy. "It can only be outclassed by a Christ-like way of life, for in him alone is true happiness to be found."

All i can say is...

LOL

Christian

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Try to get the church to define "Christ-like way of life" if you like pretzel statements! Since biblically, that way of life is very "eastern mystic" - he owned nothing, walked around the countryside preaching and praying, put up (given room and board) for a few days at a time by folks who were impressed by his preaching - and was very outspoken against the established clergy of his time.

The only problem - not that I know how to solve it - I can see is that "fear of growing old", which can lead to all kinds of unhealthy (expensive and sometimes anti-social) behaviors, up to and including suicide (not that I haven't considered suicide myself on more than one occasion), since the last is the only sure cure for aging.