National Youth Workers Convention: Kenda Creasy Dean

This is the first of (I hope) a few posts reflecting on my time at Youth Specialties' National Youth Workers Convention in Charlotte, NC. I haven't had the time to sit down and organize my thoughts, but knowing the way things work for me, that may never happen. So at least now I'll be able to say something, and in the process be forced to at least reflect a little bit.

I heard Kenda speak twice during the week, but want to mainly focus on just one of those, as it was much more specific and challenging. She presented some of the results of a long study that was done on teens and can be found in the book Soul Searching. More importantly, she presented her own conclusions that she came to after examining the research: while most teens believe in a "God" of some sort, the "religion" they practice can best be summarized as moralistic therapeutic deism. This deity wants them to be good people, be happy, be nice to others, and will provide heavenly residence to all of these nice people. Although Dean didn't say it, my experience with young people (and most people in general) is that this admission includes everybody except some barbaric dictators from the past and certain terrorists living in certain regions of our world today. Other than that, everyone is in. But after talking about this trend in youth religious beliefs for a little while, Dean hit us hard...

Our youth practice MTD because that's what we teach them in the church! Ouch! We present a version of God that is general, that is not offensive, that is blatantly American, that tones down the Biblical narrative and/or skips that tough stuff (you know, like selling all your possessions, dying for our faith, pacifism, etc). That's rough. Especially because it's true. Even for a self-righteous guy like myself, I had to admit that that has been me on too many occassions. But she wasn't done dishing out the pain yet...

The reason, says Dean, that we teach students MTD is because we do not want them to really practice the faith. What?! Why wouldn't we want them to practice the Christian faith? This is where it hurts folks: because if they really started living into and out of a deep-seated faith in YHWH, it would be an indictment on the American church and how we live and move and find our being. We don't want them to live it out because we practice moralistic therapeutic deism and don't want to be called out into true faith. That sucks. And it sucks because it's true. And it sucks because there were more speakers to come who only made this stick out to me even more. But for that, you'll have to wait.

So what does this mean for the way I live and teach? A lot. But it's all very scary.

Two sidenotes from Dean at the convention: first of all, she talked about Nothing But Nets. I have added a link on this page (I've actually been adding a bunch of new links lately, so check them out!) and you should look into it because it is great and I am already looking into some crazy fund-raising ideas to do for it (outside the church, of course). Some friends and I were even allowed to sit in on some focus groups put on by Princeton/the UN to help think about how youth ministries can partner in all of this. Secondly, my friends and I disagreed about who said this because I thought Dean had, and they didn't, but somebody at the conference (maybe Tony Campolo?) mentioned the Biblical challenge to pray for our enemies and how they had gathered to pray for specific terrorists. How cool is that?! Oh boy, I am gonna get into some big trouble soon!!!

Peace,
Matt

Books: I have been reading... I read Heschel's The Prophets, along with The River Why by David James Duncan. It wasn't quite as good as The Brothers K, which is my second favorite book of all time, but it was still a great read. I also read Shaine Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, which was profoundly life-changing and will get it's own blog post, along with comments about his discussion time at the convention, very soon. Also, this morning I finished Martin Luther King's book Why We Can't Wait. What can I say, except that I feel cheated every time I think of his untimely death. And I highly doubt George W. would have honored him like he recently did, if King were still alive. Lastly, right now I am reading Jurgen Moltmann's God in Creation, which will likely take a long time, because it is rich, thick, profound, and challenging.