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| Friday, September 14, 2007 |
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Searching For God With My New Son
By webmaster @ 9:34 AM :: 382 Views ::
2 Comments :: Rev. David Lewicki
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Strange things float through your head at 4 in the morning. I'm getting familiar with this hour now that I have a child who happens to find 4 an appealing time to wake up.
In the quiet of the early morning, God seems close. I'm talking with James (my son), but it seems like there's a 3rd party in the room -- that God is present in the conversation. God is there, hovering... listening.
I wonder what James' relationship with God will be like -- I wonder what his relationship with God IS like. How will he learn to be in relationship with God? Will he know the God that I know? Will he wander away from God? Will he invent a God of his own choosing?
I was reminded of a study that came out recently -- the most detailed study to date on the religious life of American teenagers.
What the researchers discovered was surprising: they found that 80% of American teenagers believe in God. Only 3% do not. But what was most shocking to the researchers is that the teenagers who believed in God didn't KNOW God. Christian Smith, the lead researcher, said that most teenagers believe that God is some kind of "cosmic butler." Smith calls the prevailing theology of American teens "moralistic therapeutic deism" -- God is an undemanding, all-fulfilling entity existing only to help us feel better about ourselves.
That's a God... but not the God of the Bible, not the God of the Christian tradition, not the living God for whom the church is its body. When teens were asked where they learned about the God in which they believe, their overwhelming answer: parents.
At 4 in the morning, God seems close. But She's not there, I suppose, to take my breakfast order. What else could God be doing with us, James... what else? |
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| Comments |
 By
Bflood27 @
Friday, September 14, 2007 12:29 PM
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It is interesting to me the correlation between technology, and the lack of a belief in the traditional God. With text messaging, and email, and instant messages......it seems todays youth (wow I said that) have the belief in a genie God who only exists to grant wishes.
I do believe we see God in the face of children. The innocence of babies just screams that there is certainly a "spark of creation" as schwartz put it.
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By
mja700 @
Friday, October 05, 2007 2:23 PM
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Teenagers believing in a God who "is some kind of 'cosmic butler'" makes me think of my niece. Fifteen, about to give birth to her son, and without the centering of a God who is personal or meaningful. I believe she wants that, but it's not the same world for teenagers today as it was when I grew up. From her perpective there seems to be so much less hope, and teenagers, in general, are so very cynical. At that age, I certainly was.
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