appropriate role of religion in society should be. They believe it should: • Teach a “golden rule” ethics. • Encourage people to be good. • Teach people to pray. So far, that’s generically American in its approach to religion. What’s new is that emerging adults also bring what sociologists describe as a therapeutic approach to religion: it’s good if it helps you feel good about yourself and express your iden- tity. In other words, religion should not only make you good toward oth- ers but good toward yourself. One implication that sociologists point out is the shift in religious poli- tics that this therapeutic approach has engendered. If religion that alienates people from others is bad, and if, for young adults, religion that alien- ates people from themselves or their identity is particularly bad, then new political lines are being drawn. Robert Putnam, a political scien- tist and professor of public policy, described the political connections in a Los Angeles Times article: “Just as this [emerging adult] generation moved to the left on most social issues—above all,
homosexuality—many prominent religious leaders moved to the right. … Increasingly, young people saw religion as intolerant, hypocritical, judgmental and homophobic. If being religious entailed political conserva- tism, they concluded, religion was not for them.”
Notice that Putnam implies that many young adults today simply equate serious religion with judgmen- tal social conservatism. This is partly because of skewed media portrayals of religion but also because of the real growth of legalistic evangelicalism, a movement now considerably larger than mainline Protestantism. But just as conservatives were driving young adults out of religion with hypocritical judgmentalism, liberals, some sociologists say, were losing them because the very content of the U.S. liberal gospel (the golden rule and a therapeutic approach to life) was increasingly succeeding in the wider culture: Barack Obama was elected president by a wide margin and same-sex marriage was legalized in Iowa, of all places.
If the golden rule and healthy self-image were the only things that
Brian Myers, youth director, preaches at a Sunday morning service on June 24 at Luther Memorial Lutheran Church in Chicago.
CHRIS OCKEN
liberal Protestant churches were try- ing to establish in wider American culture, then many young adults con- cluded that they could declare victory and go back to sipping lattes on Sun- day morning. Why keep “seeking” something largely accomplished? To overstate it: politically speak- ing, conservative Christians alienate young adults and liberal Christians bore them. Christian worship, of course, should go deeper than our current political fault lines.
So we might ask if worship ritually engages not only the golden rule, but
Luther Memorial, Chicago
(Lincoln Square neighborhood) • Average worship attendance: 211 • Best young adult draw: Other young adults, “Thursdays are Fine with Wine” in our back garden, and service activities. • Words that describe your congregation: Eclectic, open to questions, welcoming, experimental, intentionally reflective of the neighborhood, growing quickly. • Words that describe your church’s young adults: From all walks of life. Our young adults have come to Luther Memorial from the Internet, through col- lege connections, and from seeing us in the neighborhood. Most come by invita- tion of another person in the church. Most new members learn about the congregation through: Website, word of mouth and pastor’s online blog. When young adults enter your congrega- tion, where do they get involved? Wor- ship—it’s central to the life of our congre- gation. All other things flow from that, including our young adult group. We meet at worship, and re-meet at our young adults group. Gifts young adults bring to your congre- gation: Fresh perspectives on theology and worship. A willingness to do what- ever it takes to involve people in the life of the community.
Timothy J. Brown, pastor August 2012 23
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