YOUTH AND RELIGION IN AMERICA/ A WRITERS VIEWS

1. MORALISTIC THERAPEUTIC DEISM
Winifred Beasley
Dr. Lamadue
THEO 104
April 16, 2018
“The Children Remain our Future”
Teenagers electing to live a life with spiritual values has evolved today. Long
gone are the days where they have an expedient view of religion and its intended purpose
that was consistent with the views of therapeutic interest. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
and its theory was derived from a book written by, Christian Smith, Melinda Lundquist

2. Denton, Soul Searching: “The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers,”
(2005). That study found that teenagers adopted the following view point as it pertains to
faith and spiritual lifestyles. 1) A God exist who created and orders the world and
watches over human life. 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 feel good about one’s self. 4) God does not need to be particularly in one’s life
except when god is needed to solve a problem. 5)Good people go to heaven when they
die.
Today’s youth and young adults have never been clearer of their purpose driven
lives! The curb ball comes into play with adult’s life of contradictions. There is a
poem that was written by, Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D. Children Learn What They Live.
(1954). If any one of the teens ideals of spiritual life is accurate in that study, it speaks
volumes to me as to who raised these children and what values were instilled in them
before the age 13. The teens of today’s society, are clear in terms of god’s creation, his
intended purpose for the world and his children. In addition, they understand that a
relationship with god and salvation is more than just a ‘get out of hell” card that is kept in
a glass tube, only to be used in case of an emergency. They appreciate more than ever
their rightful place in the bible and on the thrown and are far from confused about what is
required by god in order to live that purpose driven life. The problem in today’s society
is not confusion of a living a spiritual life in our youth. The problems rest on the
examples that they are being shown on an hourly basis at the hands of adults. An example
is that originally, social media became a platform for display of immoral behavior from
adults. Our youth have adopted the attitude that, adults do it, so I’m going to do it.

3. Indeed, if our youth are confused at all about their spiritual life, society must address the
spiritual life of those adults that lead the way.
http://www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/eclctribal/eclc/poem3.pdf
What comes to mind for me is the scripture found in Proverbs 22:6-8 (King James
Version). “Train up a child in the way they should go,” Is a profound understatement. I
believe that parents set the tone for their children’s spiritual beliefs. I find it be a
misleading study. I say this because, children are not spiritually lost. I believe that certain
questions were asked in a yes or no format to which conclusions of its overall definitive
meaning was derived. In an article written by the (ARDA), Association of Religion
Data Archives, that study began in 2003 and was 1 of three waves. The National Survey
of Youth and Religion (NSYR) was a telephone survey of 3,290 English and Spanish-
speaking teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17, and their parents. More recently, in
2007-2008 wave three was comprised of 17—24-year-old and their parents.
WORD COUNT 575