Musing on a secular age

Today (Jan 13 2017) I have read through some weighty articles relevant to ministry with youth. I write this blog post not with a definite response in mind, rather I'm working out my thoughts and writing this is helpful. The first is written by Dr Andrew Root on the creation of a secular age of unbelief. You can find it here. He takes some time to discuss two books, which is interesting and sets the foundation for his later comments, but you don't need to have read these books to pick up what he is saying. (I add here that I found Kirgiss' book to be very helpful. I have reviewed that book in a previous post.)

What I do find confronting is the thought - or realisation - that the normal world that teenagers live in today is so fundamentally different to the one in which most world history has taken place. It sounds like a blindingly obvious comment, but the more I think about it, the more I am overwhelmed with it.

I'm not talking about the fact that we now have a generation who do not know what life was like before the internet. That is just a shift in how we work and react with people and things. What I'm referring to is the change that has taken place over centuries which leads us from a society that has religion as it's normality, to a society that has secularism as it's normality.

Imagine for a moment living in a world where thunder storms and natural disasters are considered to be an act of God. Or where someone going troppo is seen as a demonic action. There was a time when this would have been the 'normal' point of view. Over time humanity has studied, tested, considered, and learned that many of these cases don't strictly have a supernatural cause to them. So - in my mind at least - there was possibly a period of history where people balanced these two, and perhaps both would be seen as 'normal'. i.e. a time when people could still see a supernatural element to life while also understanding the secular and its positive contribution to society.

But now the pendulum has kept swinging. Now our youth are growing in an age where the normal perspective is the secular one. For example, at a recent conference I attended I sat in on a presentation regarding faith and science for youth. The presenter, Rev Tony Jones from Science for Youth Ministry, made the point that for the average 22 year old in America, they have grown up with the belief that science and faith are in conflict. This is not a conclusion they have come to after careful thought and consideration. Rather, this is 'normal' for that age.

This attitude to science is just one area where this change in attitude is seen. In fact, this view is just a sign of a far deeper change - an abandoning of supernatural or religious for the secular.


For people involved in ministry to youth, we must recognise this climate and respond to it appropriately. And just because these children belong to families that come to church, we should not assume they are immune to such a worldview. School, media, other family members will all have their influence on these children and so we should perhaps accept that the default view of our young people is a secular one.

How do we challenge such a view? That leads to the second article, this time by Kevin Alton. Here he responds to Root's article by asking "So What?". You can read it here. It is much shorter, and well worth reading.

Even though you would need to read the whole article to get the full context, the paragraph I quote is one I find has grabbed my attention:

The problem with information-dump-as-discipleship is that it essentially attempts to hand to youth a very large suitcase full of answers to questions they haven’t asked yet. Worse, it hands incredibly complicated abstract things to very concrete thinkers, who are ultimately asked, “Do you hold these things to be true?” They’re forced to process it all as one solid block of yes or no, not as the amazing, intricate web of years of experience and thought that we’re given the rest of our lives to sort through. For many youth, it’s probably a relief to let go of it when they get to college.

Is this what I'm doing? Am I confronting young people with a black or white option when there are 16 million colours along that spectrum? Am I treating young people who decide to follow Jesus as wholly formed disciples, or am I seeing them as pilgrims beginning a journey that will be theirs for the rest of their lives? And then am I presenting it as a long, hard slog or am I presenting it as a journey of wonder and amazement with many astonishing discoveries to be made along the way?

My fear is that I think I'm doing the latter while youth think I'm doing the former. God, help me to be clear.

That our young people in Australia are growing up in a secular age is no surprise. Christian schools, home-schooling, youth ministry, or anything like that won't change the reality of what our society has become. What I cannot do is despair.

I am alive at this point in history and I am full of wonder and amazement at what I am seeing.

I still have much to learn and reflecting on articles like this will help with that.