Almost Christian 7

This will be our last post on the fine book by Kenda Dean, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. We are interested in your overall response to her book, and to this major claim: that young adults are in moralistic therapeutic deism and it is the church that is responsible for this condition.

Also, I want to have a conversation today about the most significant element in the development of faith among young adults: parents. The best thing to do to get young adults more serious about their faith is to have more faith-serious parents. (Which is not to blame parents or to shift total responsibility onto parents, but it is to put the gravity where it needs to be.)

One of her themes is “translation” — that is translating the faith from the church to the youth, with the focal point being the family (as Luther famously made clear).

What are the guidelines for this translation? Here are her four points and I’d like to hear your responses:

1. The best translators are people, not programs.

2. The best translators are bilingual — which here means conversant with culture and faith.

3. The best translators invoke imagination.

4. Translation can threaten the people in charge!