- WASHINGTON (UPI) - American
teenagers are spiritually lonely and feel deprived of parental guidance
in matters of faith, the head of a major youth ministry project told United
Press International Monday.
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- Asked about a new survey showing a decline in the number
of young Americans who believe in absolute values, Mark Yaconelli of San
Francisco Theological Seminary replied, "The teens are not the problem
-- the grownups are."
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- Yaconelli is co-director of the seminary's extensive
Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, which is funded by the Indianapolis-based
Lilly Foundation and involves 17 denominations. He summed up his encounters
with thousands of youngsters over the last five years thus:
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- "They are not interested in words. They keep saying,
'Show me.' And by that they mean, 'Show me that you have a spiritual life
worth passing on.'"
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- California-based pollster George Barna has found two
seemingly contradictory developments about the spiritual life of young
Americans. One the one hand, 33 percent declared themselves born-again
Christians.
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- This figure has remained virtually unchanged over the
last quarter-century, Barna reported last week.
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- On the other hand, a big slump occurred in another segment
-- the young evangelicals who do not consider themselves born again but
nonetheless hold orthodox biblical views on God, Jesus and Satan, believe
in the accuracy of Scripture and salvation by grace alone.
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- Their share has declined from 10 percent in 1995 to just
4 percent now, mirroring a similar drop among adults. "This demise
is attributable to growing numbers of teenagers who accept moral relativism
and pluralistic theology as their faith foundation," wrote Barna.
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- Yaconelli, a Presbyterian, linked this decline with what
Harvard psychologist Robert Coles termed a moral and spiritual dilemma
-- the isolation of the adolescents in the United States.
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- "Not only do grownups fail to conduct their lives
in a way commensurate with their stated convictions, they also don't talk
with their children about their spiritual concerns," said Yanonelli,
calling the parents of today's teenagers a lost generation.
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- In this context, Yaconelli spoke scornfully about well-to-do
working couples who could quite comfortably live and raise a family on
one income. "Both partners are working to be more comfortably off,"
he said, "but they are doing this to the detriment of their own children."
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- To Yaconelli, today's teenagers are a prophetic voice
that "rattles adults, especially when the subject of faith is broached."
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- "The adults are scared of these young people,"
said Yaconelli, recalling the outburst of a girl during a youth ministry
consultation in a downtown San Francisco church: "Tell them (the adults)
to stop being afraid of us. We are their kids."
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- Added Yaconelli, "In other words, they are telling
their parents, 'Don't hold us at arms length. Don't keep us distant. Don't
pawn us off to a program, curriculum or outside expert. After all, we are
not an outside group.
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- "'We come from your bodies. We are as close as the
deepest hopes within you -- as close as your very hearts. We don't know
who we are. We need someone to accept and accompany us in our groping towards
adulthood.'"
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- As Yaconelli put it, the true predicament is not really
what these young people are saying about God. "The question is, what
kind of a God image their parents project. For to these teenagers their
fathers and mothers are the lenses through which they see God," Yaconelli
explained.
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- "If they are trustworthy and upright, then God is
trustworthy and upright. If they are fickle, God is fickle. It's always
been that way and it always will be."
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- Copyright © 2002 United Press International
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