Teens feel spiritually lonely

WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) -- American teenagers are spiritually lonely and feel deprived of parental guidance in matters of faith, the head of a major youth ministry project told United Press International Monday.

Asked about a new survey showing a decline in the number of young Americans who believe in absolute values, Mark Yaconelli of San Francisco Theological Seminary replied, "The teens are not the problem -- the grownups are."

Yaconelli is co-director of the seminary's extensive Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, which is funded by the Indianapolis-based Lilly Foundation and involves 17 denominations. He summed up his encounters with thousands of youngsters over the last five years thus:

"They are not interested in words. They keep saying, 'Show me.' And by that they mean, 'Show me that you have a spiritual life worth passing on.'"

California-based pollster George Barna has found two seemingly contradictory developments about the spiritual life of young Americans. One the one hand, 33 percent declared themselves born-again Christians.

This figure has remained virtually unchanged over the last quarter-century, Barna reported last week.

On the other hand, a big slump occurred in another segment -- the young evangelicals who do not consider themselves born again but nonetheless hold orthodox biblical views on God, Jesus and Satan, believe in the accuracy of Scripture and salvation by grace alone.

Their share has declined from 10 percent in 1995 to just 4 percent now, mirroring a similar drop among adults. "This demise is attributable to growing numbers of teenagers who accept moral relativism and pluralistic theology as their faith foundation," wrote Barna.

Yaconelli, a Presbyterian, linked this decline with what Harvard psychologist Robert Coles termed a moral and spiritual dilemma -- the isolation of the adolescents in the United States.

"Not only do grownups fail to conduct their lives in a way commensurate with their stated convictions, they also don't talk with their children about their spiritual concerns," said Yanonelli, calling the parents of today's teenagers a lost generation.

In this context, Yaconelli spoke scornfully about well-to-do working couples who could quite comfortably live and raise a family on one income. "Both partners are working to be more comfortably off," he said, "but they are doing this to the detriment of their own children."

To Yaconelli, today's teenagers are a prophetic voice that "rattles adults, especially when the subject of faith is broached."

"The adults are scared of these young people," said Yaconelli, recalling the outburst of a girl during a youth ministry consultation in a downtown San Francisco church: "Tell them (the adults) to stop being afraid of us. We are their kids."

Added Yaconelli, "In other words, they are telling their parents, 'Don't hold us at arms length. Don't keep us distant. Don't pawn us off to a program, curriculum or outside expert. After all, we are not an outside group.

"'We come from your bodies. We are as close as the deepest hopes within you -- as close as your very hearts. We don't know who we are. We need someone to accept and accompany us in our groping towards adulthood.'"

As Yaconelli put it, the true predicament is not really what these young people are saying about God. "The question is, what kind of a God image their parents project. For to these teenagers their fathers and mothers are the lenses through which they see God," Yaconelli explained.

"If they are trustworthy and upright, then God is trustworthy and upright. If they are fickle, God is fickle. It's always been that way and it always will be."