{"id":34892,"date":"2018-01-30T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T09:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=34892"},"modified":"2018-01-30T17:57:08","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T21:57:08","slug":"teens-twice-as-likely-to-identify-as-atheist-or-lgbt-evangelical-magazine-warns-youth-pastors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/01\/teens-twice-as-likely-to-identify-as-atheist-or-lgbt-evangelical-magazine-warns-youth-pastors.html","title":{"rendered":"“Teens Twice as Likely to Identify as Atheist or LGBT” Evangelical Magazine Warns Youth Pastors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I was recently struck by a Christianity Today<\/em> headline: \u201cGet Ready, Youth Group Leaders: Teens Twice as Likely to Identify as Atheist or LGBT<\/a>.\u201d The article began as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

Imagine Generation Z\u2014the 70 million kids born between 1999 and 2015\u2014and you probably picture them staring at their devices. A bunch of app-savvy, tech-addicted teens who never knew a time before smartphones.<\/p>\n

Half of Protestant youth pastors consider technology and social media the defining factor of this latest generation, but a\u00a0new study<\/a>\u00a0released today by Barna Group sheds new light on striking social and demographic trends: Teenagers in Gen Z are at least twice as likely as American adults to identify as LGBT or as atheist.<\/p>\n

These are important markers of identity among the youngest segment of America, and pose new ministry challenges for the church.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It was the\u00a0inclusion of those two specific identifiers that brought me up short.\u00a0In an important way, these two things are very different. Atheist teens are\u00a0indeed a problem for youth group leaders, as one cannot be both atheist and Christian. There\u2019s a fundamental lack of compatibility there\u2014you can\u2019t be atheist and Christian. Lumping the two\u2014LGBT and atheist teens\u2014together suggests a similar incompatibility.<\/p>\n

You cannot be LGBT and Christian,<\/em> the logic goes.<\/p>\n

This was certainly the case in the conservative evangelical church in which\u00a0I was raised\u00a0in the 1990s and early 2000s; adults shuddered or turned away in disgust when\u00a0\u201chomosexuality\u201d even came up in conversation.<\/p>\n

Today, LGBT Christians\u00a0are\u00a0becoming increasingly visible\u2014I have a friend who pastors a church along with her wife, and other friends whose church is opening their married couples groups to LGBT couples as well. Despite this increased visibility, many conservative evangelicals\u00a0lump LGBT Christians in with \u201cliberal\u201d or \u201cmainline\u201d Christians, whom they do not consider true believers. It\u2019s a convenient catch-all way to discount and ignore\u00a0any Christians who disagree with their\u00a0conservative and often dogmatic interpretations of the faith.<\/p>\n

But here, I think, is the reason\u00a0the Christianity Today<\/em> headline struck me: Being an atheist\u00a0is different from being LGBT in a fundamental way that ought to put the two in completely different categories. <\/strong><\/p>\n

An atheist by definition<\/em> does not believe in a God or gods, or (typically) in the supernatural. Knowing that someone is an atheist tells us what they believe about religion or\u00a0Christianity. Knowing that someone\u00a0is\u00a0LGBT, in contrast, does not tell us what they\u00a0believe about religion or Christianity; it only tells us about their sexuality or gender.\u00a0Being an atheist is incompatible with being a Christian. Being LGBT is not.<\/p>\n

If today\u2019s youth pastors go on putting being LGBT in the same category as being atheist\u2014or in other words, holding that being LGBT de facto disqualifies one from being Christian\u2014they may have trouble reaching not only LGBT youth but other youth as well. Have a look at this line from the same\u00a0Christianity Today<\/em> article:<\/p>\n

Pastor James Emery White writes in the 2017 book\u00a0Meet Generation Z<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>\u201cMembers of Generation Z hold few things dearer than acceptance and inclusivity. They view many moral stances, such as opposing gay marriage, as social stances in line with racism. To them, acceptance means affirmation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, yes. That is indeed an issue.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m intensely curious where this issue will end up in ten or twenty years. For the most part, mainline, liberal, and moderate Christians have moved in the direction of accepting LGBT relationships and identities, even using these cultural touchstones to create new theologies that emphasize individuals\u2019 humanity, God\u2019s love, or the liberatory potential of Christianity. Conservative evangelicals have demurred, refusing\u00a0to soften a position that leads them to treat LGBT identities and Christianity as incompatible<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0conservative evangelicals have refused to budge, American culture has moved on. LGBT identities and relationships are ever more widely accepted, and the evangelical hardline has increasingly come to be seen as bigoted and harmful.\u00a0Where, ultimately, do conservative evangelicals go from here? Will they come to accept LGBT identities and relationships? Or will they continue to refuse, ultimately marginalizing themselves?<\/p>\n

One thing is for sure\u2014today\u2019s teens are on the front lines of a cultural shift conservative evangelicals are still scrambling to address. And from the look at the equivalencies drawn in this Christianity Today<\/em> article, evangelicals aren\u2019t\u00a0on their way to finding a solution.<\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!<\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was the inclusion of those two specific identifiers that brought me up short. In an important way, these two things are very different. Atheist teens are indeed a problem for youth group leaders, as one cannot be both atheist and Christian. There’s a fundamental lack of compatibility there—you can’t be atheist and Christian. Lumping the two—LGBT and atheist teens—together suggests a similar incompatibility. <\/p>\n

Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":34901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,40],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-34892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","tag-lgbtq"],"yoast_head":"\n"Teens Twice as Likely to Identify as Atheist or LGBT" Evangelical Magazine Warns Youth Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It was the inclusion of those two specific identifiers that brought me up short. 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