This can be classified as a major church FAIL. It is not that all teens are functionally illiterate, but most teens indeed are. They have not acquired and thus have not practiced using the tools to articulate their religion. This was a finding Christian Smith reports in the book Soul Searching where data from the National Study of Youth and Religion is presented. The following is worth quoting in full.
We do not believe that teenage inarticulacy about religious matters reflects any general teen incapacity to think and speak well. Many of the youth we interviewed were quite conversant when it came to their views on salient issues in their lives about which they had been educated and had practice discussing, such as the dangers of drug abuse and STD's. Rather, our impression as interviewers was that many teenagers could not articulate matters of faith becuase they have not been effectively educated in and provided opportunities to practice talking about their faith. Indeed, it was our distinct sense that for many of the teens we interviewed, our interview was the first time that any adult had ever asked them what they believed and how it mattered in their life…Religious language is like any other language: to learn how to speak it, one needs first to listen to native speakers using it a lot, and then one needs plenty of practice at speaking it oneself. Many U.S. teenagers, it appears, are not getting a significant amount of such exposure and practice and so are simply not learning the religious language of their faith traditions (p. 133).
Yet what is also clear from the same study, is that teenagers by a great majority think religion is important and foundational for life in general. They are more conservative with their desire to stay with the traditions of their parents than research of baby boomers has shown. Yet they are not being acculturated well enough, if at all. The data shows us that the mainline traditions are perhaps doing the worst at this simple task of educating youth to be religious people. Of course, I would suspect that we have an entire generation of adults who are unable to articulate basic understandings of the bible, Christian theology, and that which differentiates their tradition from others.
How would you characterize the religious literacy of your youth, and your adults in church? And then, what are you going to do about it?
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i disagree with some of these findings. The young Christian people i run into, mostly evangelicals, articulate their beliefs well. They are sponges and pick up what they learn in church and at their Christian schools, even if it may be narrow-minded beliefs.
A lot of these findings have been making their round for the last few years. As a youth minister (among other things) I find them accurate and inaccurate, encouraging and maddening.
I/We are trying to do it responsibly–loosely using wedges of information–Hebrew Bible, NT, theology/belief/denonm identity, mission/justice etc.
But they are still teenagers–the experience is key and lecture does nothing to reinforce this. Life-altering conversations and experiences, as on a short-term "fish out of water" cross-cultural experience do, in fact register–most often in a way that they have difficulty putting words to. Some of the failure is ours for not giving them avenues in the church proper to express these experiences as well as help articulating it.
Lastly, I would say the point to evangelicalism/conservatism isn't completely off base–there's something about indoctrination that beats it into you, whether it's fundamentalism or Catholic school.
I'm also not too convinced this is such a bad thing–one of our "best" youth is a college sophomore who came to faith on her own in early high school. She waited a year and a half before getting baptised because she wanted to check motives and really understand what she was getting into. The vocabulary she uses to talk about her own faith is so refreshing that i keep pushing her to write a book–a non-religious approach to faith. Blue Like Jazz and others claim to do this, but it's always translated from the story of recovering fundamentalists (me included.)
The main question with the NSYR results may be whether or not the study is speaking the same language, even/especially if it be non-religious.
evangelicals are the most articulate, but these kinds of responses were a strong minority in the findings. also, they may articulate doctrines, but it is not clear if these doctrines are understood on deeper levels. partially a lifecycle issue to be sure.
how one understands terms is certainly a problem and i would have to see their regression models to see how the variance shook out. unfortunately soul searching nd other reports were largely written for a lay audience and do not get as deep as they could, or should.
biggest problem i have is that i have not seen a model that isolates cultural effects from age cohort effects. that is to say, is this all a result of developmental issues for teens, or are there longer trends here that we can already observe. i'll know more when i finish smith's analysis.
finally, we may all find slices of any sociological studies that are inaccurate with our own experience. there are indeed more than one trend observed and minority trends exist. this is only to suggest that the majority trend is clearly one that poses a problem especially for mainliners. this is why bracketing our own experience is important when delving into these observations.
''they may articulate doctrines, but it is not clear if these doctrines are understood on deeper levels. partially a lifecycle issue to be sure.' i agree with you on this.
''they may articulate doctrines, but it is not clear if these doctrines are understood on deeper levels. partially a lifecycle issue to be sure.' i agree with you on this.