Week8: Youth

Summary of "What teens believe: a survey on youth and religion"

Carol E. Lytch, What teens believe: a survey on youth and religion, Christian Century (2005) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_18_122/ai_n15674612

In this article, Carol E. Lytch talked about the survey on American teens and religion conducted by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. They research what teenager think of their religions. The survey was made by random telephone to 3,000 households of teenagers and parents and by over 250 face-to-face interviews.

It is known that parents have the strongest influence regarding their children’s choice of religion. The result of the survey is consistent with this theory. Three quarters of teens have similar belief to their parents’, even though teens are pretty much influenced by their “peers.”

Another finding indicates that religious participation is connected with good social behaviours. According to the survey, religiously involved teens are better than religiously inactive teens concerning smoking, drinking, drug use, sexual behaviour, and attendance of school, honesty and so forth.

The most significant discovery is teenagers’ being traditional. Generally adolescence is regarded as spiritual seekers. Contrary to general perception, majority of teens still belong to conventional religious communities. Teenagers, however, tend to regard themselves as Christian, Jewish and Mormon and do not attach importance to denominations. In addition to this finding, it is discovered that majority of teens think of congregations as being thoughtful and friendly. Teens who participate in worship regard congregation as an appropriate place to consider family or school matters.

On the other hand, the religion that teens think of differs from conventional religious beliefs. This religion is thought to be something to help people spend good or happy lives, and is very common among teenagers. Smith and Denton named this new religion “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” Its principle is as follows:

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth
2. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Smith and Denton consider Moralistic Therapeutic Deism to be the religion which lies between conventional and individual religions, and to be mixture of traditional beliefs and practice of various religions, denominations and even the nonreligious. Smith and Denton insist that emergence of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is related to individualisation of the society. They also suggest that congregations and parents need more vigorous engagement in youth religious issues, in order to help teens to be able to express their faith in clear words.

Lytch lastly mentions Smith and Denton’s message which criticise the thought of adolescence as “a social problem.” Teens in the United States are still pretty much engaged in their religions. Even though Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is different from conventional beliefs, it does not threat traditional religions.