Thread by @StefanPaas

It may be a bit late, now that our youngest has turned eighteen, but still I’m very curious about this book.

‘The church seems to seek the youthful bc what we’ve lost is not so much numbers and dollars; worse, we’ve lost what in our time is more valuable than gold: authenticity’.

First chapter argues that a culture of authenticity became pervasive in the 1960s, and since authenticity =youthfulness, churches became obsessed with youthfulness. 1st commandment: Don’t. Be. Boring.

Second chapter describes the rise of a segmented ‘youth culture’, driven by capitalism and promoting conformity. This became the leading approach for the church as well: youth ministry, youth pastors, a segmented faith for the young

Root argues that this had two consequences: 1/ faith experience for the young became disengaged from the faith of the community as a whole, 2/ faith became identified with institutional participation rather than an encounter with God

‘Young people (particularly evangelicals) may know very little about the tradition, but they have been taught over and over again how to get high on the idea of Jesus’ - p.86

In the first part of his book, Root offers a ‘philosophical genealogy’ of youth culture, describing various layers like capitalism (segmenting, consumption), freudianism (‘society’ as super-ego), and bohemianism (youthfulness as counter-culture) >

Out of this there emerges a youth ministry (esp among evangelicals) that focuses on the pursuit of authenticity combined with a minimum of moral teaching to mitigate the undesirable consequences of this pursuit. Bohemianism+bourgeois = bobo >

The core problem, acc to Root, is the lack of divine action. This is a buffered self: authenticity is pursued through ever-new ideas that give access to youthfulness, ever-new churches that are hip&cool. No encounter with a living God, just exploring your own spirituality.

So far, interesting & challenging, although its focus on American evangelicalism makes me wonder how this plays out in the Netherlands. Some of this criticism resonates strongly with conservative Reformed churches’ criticism of evangelicals in my country.

The same fault lines there: a critique of churches bending over backwards to youthfulness, trying to be cool at the expense of theological depth, and a profound lack of awareness of the living God who encounters us in Word & Sacrament. Christianity =|= pursuit of spirituality.

Root continues his extended conversation with the work of Charles Taylor by focusing on ‘subtraction’ as a key term. By and large, Christians have bought into the idea that modern secularity is nothing but a subtraction of religious layers until modern humans appear. >

This basically means that ‘religion’ and ‘God’ turn into a set of concepts and practices that must be maintained and protected. Youth ministry is all about preventing the young to subtract religion/God from their lives. >

What this fails to see is that it has already swallowed secularity hook, line & sinker: God is merely a religious concept, and not a very plausible one at that. >

Rather than turning itself into the Ministry of Guarding Religious Life, youth ministry should start with the cross-pressures of transcendence within the immanent frame. To be sure, this isn’t easily available. Transcendence must be accessed through negation >

Thus, ‘faith’ is not the acceptance of (hopefully many) religious concepts, but a radical ontological transformation that comes only through the negation of negation - through the cross’ (117) >

So, youth ministry starts with exploring ‘experiences of loss, brokenness, and death, but also the liminality of joy and transformational hope that seeks for the negated to be made new’.

At the same time, this implies a criticism of youthfulness bc it is precisely this youthfulness through which the bleakness and meaninglessness of deep secularity are kept at bay. YOLO! Youthfulness is a strategy that must be unmasked.