"Think Different - Accept Uncertainty" Part V: The Traditional Religious Definition of Human Life

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 1 March 2012 7 Comments
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Question

I am a great fan of yours, having discovered your books about 14 years ago.  I believe I have read all of your books (I have your latest on my Kindle ready to go) and I very much look forward to your weekly column.

I currently belong to a welcoming congregation in Washington, DC, and I wanted to ask what you would advise those of us who want Christianity to move forward to do in the way of guidance, materials and messages for teenagers.  You recently gave your approval to a Sunday school curriculum, but I believe that is for younger children.

Based on my personal experience and observations, it is the teenage years where children, who have been brought up in a traditional or even moderately liberal “mainstream” church, drop out of organized religion and likely never return, becoming Christians in exile if even that.  At the teenage years, if not before, young people often doubt the creeds and tenets they may have found interesting and comforting in their childhood, but which no longer speak to them as they mature.  Also the Christian liturgies, while compelling in their own way, are quite formal and can be off-putting to young people.

We currently have a young woman priest, Cara Spaccarelli, who has brought new life to our parish and who is doing wonders to bring in families with young children (she has a four-year-old and a two-year-old herself and so can really relate to these families), but my concern is what may happen to all of these beautiful, loving children as they grow older in regard to their attachment to that church.  I am also interested in seeing my parish move toward a new Christianity along the lines that you outline in your books and for that to happen, it is critical that young people stay, remain engaged and move the parish forward.  Anything you can suggest about keeping teenagers active and engaged in a Christianity that can carry forward through their adult years would be very welcome.

Answer

Dear Connie,

I do not know of any effective church school material for teenagers that has been produced by any denomination on a state, diocesan, synodical or national level.  I think these are hard materials to find because they are hard materials to write.  Styles, tastes and habits change so rapidly in that age group that very little permanent material stays relevant for very long. I do know of individual congregations that have developed outstanding teen-age programs.  They are almost always the product of a single individual gifted person and are not generally capable of being replicated without that person being part of the process, which is, of course, impossible. In the church that my wife and I attend when we are at home, we recently had our teenagers, with the active participation of many adults, study then build and dramatize the experience of runaway slaves with the “Underground Railroad.” Black members of our congregation took the roles of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, while white members acted out the roles of plantation owners and slaveholders. The young people were deeply involved and they were able to see the evils of slavery in very existential ways since they were transported in that world.  They also saw and experienced the negative role that the Christian Church played in the establishment and in the perpetuation of both slavery and segregation.  Remember it was the “Bible Belt” of the South that practiced slavery and resisted desegregation as if those were Christian virtues.

It is my conviction that adult leaders who take time to know the teenage members of the congregation are better teachers out of their experience than any printed material that is available.  Committed adults are able to be honest with teenagers and to listen to them.

You talk about church liturgies being off-putting for teenagers.  Why don’t you do a series of classes on those liturgies and ask the teenagers to tell you why they “bore”, “irritate” or seem irrelevant to them and their friends.  If they tell you, then the next question you have to ask is: “Is your church willing to change if they discover why their liturgy is “off-putting to its teenage members?”  If not, why would the teenagers bother to tell you what is not meaningful in their lives?  The same goes for the Bible.  Why not have someone who is qualified teach a class for them on the Bible and go deeply and thoroughly through the Bible with them.  The question again would be: "Are church leaders willing to be honest with teenagers once they can locate the problem?”  Church leaders are notoriously dishonest in adult education programs when it comes to sharing critical biblical scholarship even with the adult members of the congregation. They seem to be too afraid that the combination of honesty and up-to-date scholarship will be too upsetting to the Sunday school image of the God that most adult church members still worship.

There are plenty of books to guide a teacher dealing with teenagers.  Teenagers have lots of questions, but they don’t tend to be about the Bible.  What they know about the Bible is generally wrong, but based on what they think they know they do not appear to be interested in knowing more.  Perhaps your church will become one that is willing to run these risks, but it will take both a conscious will and a significant commitment.

In my reading audience there may be people who have had effective church experiences with teenagers.  If so, I hope you will share your wisdom with Connie at ccitro@nas.edu.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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