What does Christian maturity look like in a youth-worshiping culture?
I ran across a generationally concerned quote while reading University of Connecticut sociologist Bradley Wright recently: "Our earth is degenerate in these latter days … children no longer obey their parents." It was chiseled on an Assyrian stone tablet around 2800 B.C. And it may well have been true. You don't see a lot of thriving Assyrian family ministries these days.
The "things are getting worse" narrative is a comet with a long tail in human history and has particular resonance with today's evangelical community. Thomas Bergler's thoughtful exploration of American youth ministry taps into that narrative with a wealth of information that will be new even for many of us who grew up in the evangelical world. And it will prompt many questions about a dilemma that has troubled the American church for a long while: What kind of people are we trying to reach, and what kind of people are we trying to produce, and is it possible to do both simultaneously? Read more
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