{"id":1271,"date":"2013-08-06T19:43:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T19:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/maybe-millennials-are-just-realizing-that-god-is-dead.html"},"modified":"2013-08-06T19:43:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T19:43:00","slug":"maybe-millennials-are-just-realizing-that-god-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/maybe-millennials-are-just-realizing-that-god-is-dead.html","title":{"rendered":"Maybe Millennials Are Just Realizing That \u2018God is Dead\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
The last time I taught Introduction to the Study of Religion, I began the class with a question, \u201cWhat comes to mind when you hear the word \u2018religion\u2019?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
The question was partly, of course, an obvious ploy on my part to generate discussion and a little \u201ccritical thinking\u201d from the get go. But I was also genuinely interested in their responses, since I\u2019ve found that knowing where my students are coming from makes me a more effective teacher. In a class of thirty, I was able to get about three-fourths to respond. With the exception of one, each expressed a negative view of \u201creligion.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
I don\u2019t teach in some secular bastion of higher education, where such responses to \u201creligion\u201d might be par for the course. I teach at a small, church-affiliated school located deep in the eastern quadrant of the Bible Belt, in rural North Carolina. The college is understood as a ministry of its founding church, the Original Free Will Baptists. The majority of my students, including those enrolled in my Introduction to the Study of Religion course, grew up in religious, almost invariably Christian, households. Clearly, the negative valuation of \u201creligion\u201d in my class can\u2019t be chalked up to misunderstanding.<\/span><\/div>\n
But it also can\u2019t be chalked up to the tired apologetic that distinguishes \u201creligion\u201d from \u201creal\u201d Christianity. My students weren\u2019t expressing the view, common among more conservative evangelical Christians, that Christianity \u201cisn\u2019t a religion but a relationship with Jesus Christ.\u201d In fact, when my students criticized \u201creligion,\u201d they often seamlessly replaced the word \u201creligion\u201d with \u201cChristianity\u201d or \u201cchurch,\u201d which is largely consistent with the polling data that show increased dissatisfaction with religious organizations and a decline in church attendance and membership.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last time I taught Introduction to the Study of Religion, I began the class with a question, \u201cWhat comes to mind when you hear the word \u2018religion\u2019?\u201d The question was partly, of course, an obvious ploy on my part to generate discussion and a little \u201ccritical thinking\u201d from the get go. But I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMaybe Millennials Are Just Realizing That \u2018God is Dead\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The last time I taught Introduction to the Study of Religion, I began the class with a question, \u201cWhat comes to mind when you hear the word\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/maybe-millennials-are-just-realizing-that-god-is-dead.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" 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