HuffPo: Teens quitting church

[Historicity]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/09/teens-leave-churches-seen-as-judgmental-unfriendly_n_1001528.html

New research by the Barna Group finds they view churches as judgmental, overprotective, exclusive and unfriendly towards doubters. They also consider congregations antagonistic to science and say their Christian experience has been shallow.

The article references a new book (published Oct 1'11):

You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church...and Rethinking Faith

[Nick]

That's the problem with youth today.  Thinking for themselves.  All started by sparing the rod and getting rid of prayer in school.

[screwtape]

maybe teens aren't as abysmally stupid as they appear?  Or they are but religion is that obviously a waste of their time.

[Omen]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/09/teens-leave-churches-seen-as-judgmental-unfriendly_n_1001528.html

New research by the Barna Group finds they view churches as judgmental, overprotective, exclusive and unfriendly towards doubters. They also consider congregations antagonistic to science and say their Christian experience has been shallow.

The article references a new book (published Oct 1'11):

You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church...and Rethinking Faith

Kinnaman wrote a similar book about a year ago ( or two ) called 'Unchristian', filled with probably the same social data that is referenced in this book.  Unchristian was certainly written well, but it is plainly a book on evangelizing and is largely hypocritical in its message.  The author lists lots of fascinating social data on how much young people don't like christianity, but offers no solution that would mean changing Christianity to be more tolerant.  Instead, the whole point of the book is to encourage the community to be even more vague with the language around belief rather than actually solve any problems.  As if playing games of sophistry would be a plausible answer to the criticisms of younger generations.

Here's the site:

http://www.unchristian.com/

[Nam]

I was young when I figured it was either all bullshit and/or just a large group of people teaching others to hate others because they don't like their music, the way they dress, the color of their skin, or their sex -- or the fact that they have sex and they don't.

-Nam

[One Above All]

I remember thinking church was boring as hell[1] and not quite getting why an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent god required me to worship him in a specific place rather than at home, where I felt most comfortable

1.	Pun not intended

[Backspace]

From what I've witnessed of teens here in the US, if it doesn't Tweet, text, or 'friend' you, it doesn't exist or matter.  Apparently, the father, son, and holy smoke aren't very tech savy.

[Historicity]

I knew a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away.
Then I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music play before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play.
And in the streets the children screamed
The old men laughed and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the 3 men I admired most, The Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
They took the last bus for the coast
The day the music died.

They were singing, "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie."
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.
And good ol'boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing "This'll be the day that I die.
This'll be the day that I die."

[natlegend]

From what I've witnessed of teens here in the US, if it doesn't Tweet, text, or 'friend' you, it doesn't exist or matter.  Apparently, the father, son, and holy smoke aren't very tech savy.

[velkyn]

you'd think that God/JC would at least get a saint or a angel to tweet (no DNS, nothing for ID, just tweets appearing from nowhere ) .  Of course, they seem to rely on rather inept humans to 'speak' for them, as we've seen here.  Adn that always ends well