I don’t either, at the moment. Hard data has been hard to come by, so to speak. I have to finish my current project before I fully dive into this one, but so far I have found very little research into the types of questions that I am asking.[quote=“Eddie, post:67, topic:5550”]
The emphasis in such activities is not on culture-war topics, but on memorizing as much of the Bible as possible.
[/quote]
Yes, memorization is of dubious value. It has its place, but it’s a bit like memorizing the multiplication tables in relation to algebra.
Bam! Exactly right, and you vaulted over my head on your way there!
Perhaps this is the group most affected by the position that “if you reject a literal reading of Genesis as we interpret it, then you reject the whole gospel”. I tend to get tunnel vision and focus on kids in the church who fall away due to that view, but those who are out of church will never consider Christ when the gospel is presented that way.
Thank you all for the good discussion. Carry on.
At the risk of “jumping in late to a mature conversation,” what I see in scripture, especially in Paul’s writings, is stronger emphases on holiness and unity than an “uncompromising search for correctness in doctrine.” Certainly he says that it is holiness and unity that characterize the true Christian, rather than doctrinal correctness. Sure, he stresses the importance of doctrinal correctness, but it’s a pretty minimal set of doctrinal assertions he makes. He does not stress doctrinal statements about creation, or predestination, or homoousion, or initial evidence of tongues, etc.
So, while in contrast to you, I do hear conversations about doctrinal issues like predestination, the nature of those conversations has changed from agonistic to exploratory. From my perspective, that is far more in line with what we see in the New Testament.
I agree with you…but again, I’m dealing fairly regularly with young adults that are thinking deeply. Thinking deeply is important for those that can and those that can should be challenged to do so. When it comes to extremes, though, experience of Jesus trumps thought.
I was a teacher for 15 years and raised two of my own. Where do you find those deep-thinking kids? Haha
I agree. Putting these two strands together, consider the attitudes of Paul and Jesus toward the “politics” of Judea and Rome in their preaching of the kingdom of God.
While some liberal commentators want to recast the “historical Jesus” as a social reformer, we do not find him anywhere calling for changes in Roman law or seeking earthly power. As Ben Witherington noted in his excellent book, The Jesus Quest: “Where is the evidence of Jesus confronting village officials, patrons, landlords, or owners of tenant farms and arguing for a new vision of society?” In fact, Jesus rejects earthly power, reflecting his Father’s attitude that all nations “are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.” As Christ told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
Likewise, Paul doesn’t seek earthly power or influence; he doesn’t advocate changes in Roman law to reflect God’s law; he doesn’t organize protests against the sale of meat offered to idols. No, his attitude was expressed in 1 Cor. 9:19-23: “19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”
Despite the examples of Jesus and Paul, evangelical leaders in the U.S. seem more focused on gaining earthly, political power to change the laws of this nation than they are on seeking and saving the lost. Where is the willingness to become all things to all people, as per Paul?
In my church. Maybe partly because I am engaging them on a deeper intellectual level in conversation, pushing them to think more deeply. But don’t get from what I said that every young adult is thinking deeply. There are some.
[quote=“Jay313, post:66, topic:5550”]
My thesis is not that Republican politics has produced a loss of faith in the young. My thesis is that too many evangelical churches similarly “took their eye off the ball,” in regard to teaching our youth. Rather than giving young people a solid foundation in Christ, many of our youth leaders focused on pounding the “right” answers on controversial issues into our children’s heads. Lots of kids heard lots of teaching on sexual purity, abortion, evolution, gay rights, secular humanism, etc., because this is where the “culture wars” were being fought. Not only do these kids fail to receive a proper grounding in the faith, they are left with the impression that if they disagree with the politics attached to these issues, they are not truly Christian. [/quote]
Yep. I could show you a lot of “Christian worldview” homeschool curricula that do exactly that. It only works if you can keep people isolated in a sub-cultural echo chamber. Plus it presents everything as a binary us vs the “world,” and sets kids up for a false choice. Either they accept everything, or they are out. There is no “join a less politically conservative denomination” option presented.
Mucho gracias! Stole this quote from the first link: “Think of it as the ‘how to recognize the enemy’ end of worldview education.”
That type of thinking is rampant, and I think it kills any hope of evangelism of the lost. Anyone not within the fold is thought of and treated as an enemy.
A more “mainstream” example of the same is Albert Mohler’s website. He is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, possibly the largest seminary in the world, and virtually everything he does is dedicated to the marriage of conservative politics and “Christian values.” For example, here is the first paragraph of the first article on his page (as of today, 9/6/16):
“Christians in America now face a moment of judgment at the hands of a secular culture that grows more intensely adversarial with each passing day. Churches, institutions, and individuals committed to the Christian church’s historic sexual ethic, held consistently over two millennia, now find themselves faced with a stark choice — join the sexual revolution or face the consequences.”
America is a “secular culture”? How is that, when 70% of Americans self-identify as Christian? If he thinks that this society is adversarial, what about Christians in truly secular cultures, such as Japan or China?
Honestly, his type of rhetoric pushes people away with both hands, which makes absolutely no sense to me, especially coming from a Southern Baptist, with their vocal commitment to evangelism.
I’ll push back a bit on this, Jay, not because I am sympathetic with Mohler’s political inclinations. I don’t imagine I would be just based on my brief perusal here.
But my [speculative] disagreement with him would not be over the allegation that America is becoming secularized; but instead I disagree with the implied conviction that there ever was a ‘non-secular’ (much less “Christian”) America. Yes, I know, there was much God-language (of a general theistic sort) in early America --and still is today. But I don’t for a moment confuse that with any kind of robust theism and certainly not Christian theism!
So when folks like Mohler worry about the secular age, I don’t dismiss that concern. I just see it as the logical fruit that grows out of what this nation (and every nation) has always been. So it goes without saying that I won’t see “solutions” in the same sorts of things that political conservatives yearn for … “if only we could get prayer back in schools like it was back in the good old days…” then we could return to some imagined glory days of the past. I don’t find much support for those kinds of views in history or in Scriptures. But there is plenty of support for the call that we should grieve for and better yet, repent of, the state that we are in.
Have you ever looked at Wayne Grudem’s book on politics? (His Systematic Theology text is a standard at conservative Evangelical seminaries.) You’d get the impression Jesus would be a card carrying NRA member if he lived today.
It seems that we have a problem defining what is Christian.
A loud mouthed business man is supported to a large extent by the leaders of the popular Christian culture, even though he demonstrates none of the “fruit of the Spirit,” while his opponent who does show forth the fruit is supported by those who value the separati0on of Church and States as did Jesus.
I have never seen any numbers, but the history I have read left me with the impression it was almost all of the big names for sure. Unless you want to listen to some new historians that make it sound like they were all good Southern Baptists.