Evangelicalism's Youthful Romance

Back in my days as a youth pastor—this was the early 1970s—I was asked to speak at a Christian camp in Canada, and in the weeks leading up to my engagement, I grew a beard and left it as scruffy and untrimmed as I could. I arrived hours before I was to first speak and went around introducing myself to campers left and right. That evening, for my first talk, I shaved off my beard in front of God and everybody, and then talked about not judging others, especially based on their appearances.

Yes, I really did that. And I’m sorry to say that after three years at a prestigious theological seminary (and through no fault of Fuller’s!), this was the best I could come up with to open a series of talks with junior-high kids. It was a silly gimmick to get the attention of juveniles.

Fast-forward to January 2012, when evangelical pastor Ed Young and his wife held a bed-in: They spent 24 hours in a bed on the roof of Young’s church in Grapevine, Texas. He was trying to draw attention to his book and a sermon series called Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse. He thought a silly gimmick was just the thing to engage adults in his church and community.

I’m not going to take credit for Pastor Young’s stunt, nor for the juvenilization of our church and culture. I will say that there are not many evangelicals who have not been shaped—and helped to shape—the situation we find ourselves in today: a church culture that, because of our fascination with youth culture, has enjoyed numeric church growth—and has hindered spiritual maturity.

Last year, in an article in The New York Times Book Review, writer Mohamad Bazzi discussed a book about the cultural revolution afoot in some sectors of Islam. He wrote about developments in Islam that “appeal to the American romance with youth, technology, and agency.” Thomas Bergler, in his new book The Juvenilization of American Christianity (Eerdmans), teases out what the “romance with youth” has looked like in mainline, Catholic, African American, and especially evangelical churches. In our cover story, Bergler briefly (which is unfortunate, so get his book!) outlines how youth culture has shaped the American church—and what we need in order to grow up.

Such a bold and straightforward thesis is sure to be challenged—and is challenged in some ways by our three respondents, starting on page 26. But there is more than a grain of truth in Bergler’s analysis, and thus it is well worth pondering. We look forward to listening in on the many conversations his thesis will stimulate.

Next month: We look at how Christians in Phoenix—both Anglo and Hispanic—are addressing immigration (the next installment of This Is Our City), the limits of incarnational ministry, outreach at the Burning Man festival, and the surge of Persian converts from Islam in Germany.