Helping Students Understand Worldview
By: John Stonestreet
Topics: Education, Worldview, Youth Issues
Christian Smith and Melinda Denton, in their book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, describe the current worldview of American teenagers, most of whom claim Christianity as their religion, as “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
If Smith and Denton are correct, our key concern in regards to the next generation is that they “get” Christianity. Our primary focus should turn from whether Christian students like church, or whether they think of Jesus as their best friend, or even whether they know why they believe what they believe (though that has been a useful tag line for my organization, Summit Ministries, for years). Primarily, if Smith and Denton are correct, our focus should be teaching them what Christianity is because, simply put, they don’t get it. ...(more)
Full length video lecture on this essay is posted here.
